Following up on my previous post about my grand uncle: After short postings to the Marine Barracks at the Naval Station in Key West, Florida, and at the Naval Ammunition Depot on Iona Island, New York,* in November of 1918 Pete was sent to Fort Crockett in Galveston, Texas, and promoted to Corporal.
[Ft. Crockett, Galveston, Tex., 1918, Camp site, Coast Artillery Corps and U.S. Marine Corps | Library of Congress]
Corporal Slater was transferred to the Headquarters, Overseas Depot in Quantico, Virginia, in July, 1918, after eight months in Texas. The following month he was attached to Company "D" Fourth Separate Battalion U S M C, Brest, France. The troops left Quantico on Friday, September 13, 1918, and on September 15, 1918, sailed from Hoboken, N. J., on board the HENDERSON** and VON STEUBEN, arriving at France on September 25, 1918.***
[Ancestry.com. U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls, 1798-1958 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. Original data: Muster Rolls of the U.S. Marine Corps, 1798-1892. Microfilm Publication T1118, 123 rolls. ARC ID: 922159. Records of the U.S. Marine Corps, Record Group 127; National Archives in Washington, D.C.]
[U.S.S. Henderson, 22 April 1918, U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. Source: ibiblio.org]
While in France, Pete served with several companies of the Third Battalion, Fifth Marines during his tour of duty, beginning in Companies "G" and "L" and he was promoted to Sergeant while in Company "K" in December 1918.
[Ancestry.com. U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls, 1798-1958 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. Original data: Muster Rolls of the U.S. Marine Corps, 1798-1892. Microfilm Publication T1118, 123 rolls. ARC ID: 922159. Records of the U.S. Marine Corps, Record Group 127; National Archives in Washington, D.C.]
Although the recruiting posters continued to glorify war, the reality was quite different.
[First in France--U.S. Marines / John A. Coughlin. 1917, Library of Congress]
["Scott Belleau Wood". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scott_Belleau_Wood.jpg#/media/File:Scott_Belleau_Wood.jpg]
It isn't clear to me what actual battlefield experience Pete endured during the nearly ten months he was in France. But he arrived just as the Meuse-Argonne Offensive began which was the largest operation the American Expeditionary Forces undertook during World War I and since it continued until the Armistice on November 11, 1918, it's unlikely that he wasn't one of the 1.2 million American soldiers and Marines who took part in it.
["All their Weary Marches Done, All their Battles Fought and Won" American Dead in the Meuse-Argonne. Stereo copyrighted by the Keystone View Co. Library of Congress]
In August 1919, Sergeant George L. Slater was transferred back to Quantico, Virginia, attached to the 5th Reserve Casual Company.
[Ancestry.com. U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls, 1798-1958 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. Original data: Muster Rolls of the U.S. Marine Corps, 1798-1892. Microfilm Publication T1118, 123 rolls. ARC ID: 922159. Records of the U.S. Marine Corps, Record Group 127; National Archives in Washington, D.C.]
His war was over, although he still had to remain a Marine until his four-year term of enlistment ended at the beginning of December in 1919. For some unknown military reason he actually wasn't released from the service until 34 days later on January 10, 1920, so he's in the U.S. Census as a Marine Sergeant.****
[Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920. (NARA microfilm publication T625, 2076 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C. For details on the contents of the film numbers, visit the following NARA web page: NARA.]
[Courtesy of Olive Kennedy]
Back home in Colorado, Pete went into business with his brother Harry (my grandfather).
[Courtesy of Olive Kennedy]
Sometime before 1930 he married a second time, to Evalyn M. Baer Atkins***** and helped raise her two children, although he never had any kids of his own. In 1934 and 1936 he ran for U.S. Congress for Colorado's Third District as a Socialist.
[Pete & Evalyn & "My cousin Mrs Purdue" Courtesy of Olive Kennedy]
Pete died on June 11, 1957, and is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Longmont, Boulder County, Colorado, under a stone honoring his military service.
[U.S., Headstone Applications for Military Veterans, 1925-1963. Original data from: The National Archives. Source: Fold3.com]
*Iona Island has had an interesting history you can read about here. It's now part of Bear Mountain State Park.
**The U.S.S. Henderson had just received a "dazzle" camouflage treatment. (For more and crazier examples go here.)
***Details of the sailing information was found here; this site has a huge amount of information about the Marine Corps in World War I. For a briefer history of the conflict from the Marine perspective, look here.
****During this period Pete married for the first time, but since no one knows what her name is it's clear that it didn't work out.
*****Pete and Evalyn were quite a couple. Someday I'll share some of the stories that have come to me about them (and Jake the magpie).
© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.
Uncle Pete! I love him! He went to France! He was a Socialist bless his heart! And his great-neice (?) Pat and I visited the battlefield of the Meuse, where there is a wonderful, fairly new museum of World War I. When building it they found remains of combatants (German? American? French?) -- I guess I'd better look that up.
ReplyDeletebonnie