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Good
morning and welcome to In Our Range.
I'm your host, Mike LeBeau.
Next Wednesday is November 11, Veterans Day.
It's also known as Armistice Day.
This day commemorates when the end of World War I was made official on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
This morning, we're going to take a look back in time to 1918 and 1919 when the armistice occurred and the first armistice day celebrations happened.
Thanks to Larry Peterson, special friend of WJMS, I've gotten access to two of the newspapers from Ironwood at that time.
Much of what you'll hear today was lifted right off those 108-year pages.
The gogebic range played an important role in the monumental efforts given by the United States during World War I. The local iron mines supplied the primary source material for the steel used in everything from battleships to bayonets.
Miners worked extra hours throughout the entire war to ensure the country had what it needed.
It was a tense time in which citizens and communities across the country produced more and rationed what they had.
By November 1918, America was still sending soldiers to Europe to join the nearly 2 million that were already there.
Here on the range, newspapers kept people informed about the smallest of local happenings to the major news of the war.
November also brought to the range some of the worst months of the flu epidemic that had been running across the world.
Every week would bring new numbers of cases and deaths from influenza.
The ages of the deceased ranged from infants to the elderly.
The news published personal announcements of these deaths, and there were also reports of many deaths where no names were given.
Many schools on the range had closed and large gatherings were suspended.
Many people were getting sick.
Hospitals and doctors were overrun.
Through all of this, patriotism on the gogebic range remained high and spirited.
Papers like the Ironwood Times and the Ironwood New Record fed people the latest about the war.
They wrote profiles on soldiers, their conditions, and their families.
The weekend before November 11, news about the potential ending of the war filled front pages across the country, like this announcement from the Ironwood Times.
Victory in peace.
After more than four years of struggling, the rights of mankind are served.
The Kaiser and Crown Prince are in-flight refugees in an alien country.
The Allied arms are triumphant.
Imperialistic Germany has met the fate that ultimately must come to any country that seeks to rule the world.
When finally the United States was drawn into the war by Germany's continued violations of international law,
The gleam of the dawn of victory for world democracy rose in the sky.
The news of the pending armistice was welcome indeed.
However, the exciting news and jubilation was tempered by the ferocity of the flu epidemic on the range.
A front page article by the editor of the Ironwood Times announced that there would be no celebrations at that time.
The Times believes that the authorities and the people of this city have acted wisely in deciding not to stage a jollification at this time over the signing of the armistice and the consequent cessation of fighting on the battlefronts in Europe.
We feel that the situation and conditions existing just at this time in the city and surrounding towns are such as to make it best to postpone any hilarious demonstrations for the time being.
Our present considerations and duty seem to be to each other right here at home.
When these conditions and this duty no longer demand our observance, we will release the joy from confinement and go after agitating the air as it has never before been disturbed in this locality."
The Ironwood Times had spent the last months publishing letters from soldiers written to friends and family, home on the range.
The letters published that day demonstrate the relief that many of the soldiers had as they realized the war was coming to an end.
They also provide some of the most poignant descriptions of what the soldiers were fighting for, as well as the lifestyles and values shared by folks at
home.
I will come home.
Now that the war is over, I've found the time to write you, as I had long intended to.
I hope you're still in good health, and once in a while in high spirits.
I'm still alive and kicking.
I've seen a whole lot of France, by foot, with a 95 pound pack on my back, and I'm not anxious to see any more of the country.
I'm ready to start back at the word go.
Don't think it'll be long now, at least I hope not.
Something doing when we all get back, eh?
Since I've been over here, I've seen three of the boys from Ironwood.
They are Dick Grinfell, Herb Rowe, and Harry Thompson.
I had a letter from Pony the other day, and he said he had seen Gardner, LeForge, Ingberg, and D. Grinfell.
He was on his way back from the front at the time, as were the others.
I would like to run across some of the boys in Paris.
Maybe we shouldn't go on some $36 per.
At present, we are billeting in shacks put up by the Germans in the early part of the war.
Four of us are in one shack and we have two small stoves going, which makes it pretty comfortable.
Much better than the dugouts or pup tents.
There's a town just across the river Muse from us, but it's all shot up so it might as well be a lake for all we can get there.
I don't know of much more I can say, only the weather is the same as you're having at home.
Quite cold during the day and heavy frosts at night.
Give my regards to all at home and to any of the family you may happen to see, keeping some for yourself.
your friend J. A. Kellett company F 27th engineering American Expeditionary Force
dear folks well here I am safe and sound on the other side of the Atlantic and we sure had some trip I was sick the first day out but after that I was fine I can't tell you where I am
But I arrived here yesterday, and today I'm assigned to the USS Wainwright, a destroyer, and am now on board.
You can't imagine how queer everything seems in a foreign country.
The buildings are all entirely different.
Everything is made of stone.
The people are dressed in some of the most comical garbs.
Queer hats and britches, and I've seen quite a number of wooden shoes.
I haven't reached any mail of any kind since October 22nd, the day I left Great Lakes, so I have any idea of how things are at home.
I suppose by this time you've moved back to Ironwood, but I haven't any address so we'll have to send this to the old address in Mercer.
Well, I guess I will miss deer hunting this fall.
It may not even have the chance of hunting submarines as a substitute.
I got here just too late to get paid, so I will have to wait now until sometime in December.
But I guess I will make it alright if I can only keep in smoking tobacco.
Do you know it is awfully hard to write a letter from over here because the things that a person would like to write about are not allowed, which is of course for our own good.
If you are now living in Ironwood, give all my friends my best regards, and my address also, and tell them to write.
A letter sure is a great thing when a fellow is so far from home.
Also, collect up a few old Ironwood times and send them to me so I can see if the old Berg is still on the map.
If you want to send me a box of anything, make it of tobacco and candy.
I guess this will be enough for this time.
Carl Milke, USS Wingwright, Care Postmaster, New York, USNF, European Waters.
Over the next months, the boys from the range did indeed start their return home from Europe.
As that occurred, the State War Board announced the steps were being taken to create a role of the men from the Upper Peninsula who saw service in the Great War.
A meeting in Escanaba was planned to outline the completion of this list.
While I can find no record of the total number of those from the range who served, Larry Peterson estimates that the number of those who served from the Gogevic range to be about 2700 or more, with about 2000 coming from Ironwood.
At the memorial building in Ironwood, there are about 1600 names listed of those who served from the city.
The population of Ironwood at the time was 17,000, so nearly 10% of Ironwood's population and nearly all of their young men enlisted to serve in World War I. In the newspapers at the time, peppered in with reports of local boys missing, wounded, or killed in the war, were stories of soldiers from the range who had also succumbed to influenza.
Many of them still at camp waiting to be shipped out.
Many American soldiers survived the war only to die from the flu before they could make it home.
An excerpt from one report reads as following.
A message was received early Thursday morning stating that private John Lewis Dickman Jr., son of John Dickman of the Ashland location, had passed away at 10 o'clock on Wednesday evening at Camp Mills, New York, the cause of death being influenza.
Mrs. Sheldon of Mabel Street received a message Thursday morning stating that her son, Private Charles Peters, had died at 5 o'clock Thursday at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, of influenza.
Private Peters was 27 years old and left here on August 27 for Camp Custer, later transferred to Fort Benjamin Harrison.
The epidemic waxed and waned in the preceding months until its course had run, leaving millions dead around the world.
Total numbers of those who died during World War I are estimated around 20 million people with about a third of those as a result of the flu.
By November 1919, most of the surviving soldiers from the war had come home.
American Legion post number five was created, one of the very first posts in the country.
The American Legion was founded as a fraternal organization for veterans of the Great War and it still serves veterans today.
As November of 1919 approached,
The first Armistice Day was coming up and plans for the Great Celebration were being made, led by the local American Legion.
The Ironwood News Record announced the plans on their front page.
Armistice Day.
Tuesday will be appropriately celebrated in Ironwood under the direction of the Ironwood Post of the American Legion.
In the morning, there will be a parade of the soldiers and sailors headed by the Legion Band.
The returning soldiers of the First Division will be given a place of honor in the parade.
After the parade, a public meeting will be held at the Rialto Theater.
Mayor J. A. O'Neill
will be the principal speaker.
In the evening, the ladies of the First Methodist Swedish Lutheran Church will serve suppers to the people of the Ironwood area.
The returned servicemen are especially invited to attend the supper given by the churches where they attend.
The charge will be fifty cents a plate.
The public is invited to attend.
From eight until ten,
There will be program at the Luther L. Wright High School.
Judge George O. Driscoll will speak at the meeting.
One of the features of the evening will be short talks by a number of returning soldiers and sailors on their experiences in the service of their country.
The day will close with a dance at the Elks Hall under the direction of the Allegiant.
The music will be furnished by Pix Orchestra.
The festivities went off, though they were far less attended and jubilant as had been expected the year prior.
The mines did not close for the day, so men were working instead of celebrating.
Also, many of the soldiers who had missed hunting season the year before couldn't pass up the chance to get back to their camps for 1919, so they were not in town.
Mayor O'Neill gave his speech at the Rialto Theatre and the Ironwood News Record published it in full.
The following is an
excerpt from his speech.
Here are the people rule, and our government is just as good or just as bad as we make it.
And the best reward that we can give to those who fought for us is to make and keep this government worth fighting for.
Though the first Armistice Day celebration in Ironwood was not quite the jollification that had been hoped for, the day would be recognized for decades with specific traditions and ceremonies.
It's recognized as the day the Great War ended and as a day of hope toward the achievement of global peace.
In Canada, it's known as Remembrance Day.
As a kid growing up near Detroit, I remember fund drives held in November all over the city to raise money for veterans.
Members of various veterans groups stood at intersections selling red poppy lapel pins to drivers stopped in traffic.
My dad would always purchase them in war one every year.
The tradition of wearing crimson poppies on the lapel comes from a story of a bloody battle in Flanders, Belgium, where, afterwards, thousands of crimson flowers appeared on the battlefield.
This prompted Canadian poet John McCrae, a lieutenant at the time, to pen the famous poem, In Flanders Fields.
In Flanders Fields, the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row, then mark our place and in the sky, the larks still bravely singing fly.
scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead short days ago, we lived, felt dawn and sunset glow, loved and were loved, and now we lie in Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe, to you from failing hands we throw, the torch be yours to hold it high, if ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep though poppies grow in Flanders fields.
In 1945, in the United States, a World War II veteran named Raymond Weeks had the idea of making November 11th a national holiday that would honor all veterans living and dead.
The idea was brought all the way to then-General Dwight Eisenhower, who supported it.
The first national celebration was held in 1947.
In 1954, a bill passed by Congress was signed by President Eisenhower, which amended the name of the holiday from Armistice Day to Veterans Day.
Veterans Day is commended every November 11th here on the range.
Community dinners, much like those hosted by churches in Ironwood in 1919, still happen today.
Listen to WJMS in the morning and you'll hear us promote them as next Wednesday approaches.
It's only right that we have such a day to honor the sacrifice and service of our country's military service members.
At the Michigan Welcome Center on Highway 2 is a sign posted in 1976 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Ladies Auxiliary Department of Michigan.
It is dedicated to the men and women who gave their lives for their country at the top of that sign as a small, gentle directive aimed at those who pass by.
It simply reads, honor the dead by helping the living.
Thank you to all those who served our country here on the range.
I encourage our listeners to look for gatherings in their communities and seek ways to support our veterans.
And thank you for listening to In Our Range this morning.
Special thanks to Larry Peterson for so much of the source material used in today's episode.
I'd also like to thank Joe Rimkis, Rod Halverson, Matt Agee, Luke Holm, and Wyatt LeBeau for lending their voices to this project.
I'm your host, Mike LeBeau, and we'll see you back here next week.