From the Wilkes-Barre Record, 1918
Newspaper article announcing the death of Lt. John V. Curry, Company E, 28th Infantry Regiment, 1st Division. Son of Sara Curry. He was by all accounts a remarkable young man, just 23, part of the cream of the officer corps that was chosen to represent the U.S. in its first engagement of WWI. He was struck by a sniper's bullet on May 28 (the newspaper and his gravestone are incorrect) at the Battle of Cantigny.
Two years ago my son Edward and I visited Sara Curry's grave in Plains, PA and put a metal Gold Star Mother gravemarker next to the headstone. Sara lost her son Lt. John V. Curry in WWI (and her husband Gilbert to lighting in 1899) and is an incredible example of courage and strength in the face of adversity. I know the members of the Plains American Legion, including my friends Bob and Bobby Corcoran, will once again honor our vets and Sarah as they do every year.
Somme American Cemetery, outside Bony, France. Photo by Jim Nolan. Click to enlarge.
My great uncle Lt. John Curry lies buried here along with 1,843 other fallen soldiers. He died on May 28, 1918 during the Battle of Cantigny, America's first big engagement in WWI. My great-grandmother, Sara, visited his grave here twice, the second time as part of a Gold Star Mother's Pilgrimage. You can hear John's story below.
An ID photo from my great-grandmother's trip to France to visit her son's grave at the Somme American Cemetery. Sara, and the other mothers and widows of fallen WWI soldiers, were treated as heroes by the French. You can listen to my account of her trip below, based on her son's military burial file.
Eddie and I visited my great grandmother's old house on a snowy day in March, 2010. I'd gotten the address from correspondence between Sara and the Army Quartermasters Corps after her son, Lt. John Curry, was killed in action in 1918. We knocked on the door, not expecting anyone there to remember Sara or John. No one was home, but I was wrong about anyone remembering the Currys.
The week after Christmas, 2011, Eddie, George and I went back to 102 Henry to meet the Corcorans. Bob's dad bought the house from Sara in 1939, and Bob knew all about Sara and John, and knows all about the history of Plains as well. That's Bob, George, Ed, and Bob's son Bobby in the photo. We're so happy we got to meet them. Click to enlarge.
Below is a letter from "Mayme" to my great grandmother, Sara Curry, dated August 2, 1906. That was about eight years after Sara's husband Gilbert was killed by lightning, and 12 years before her son John was killed in the Battle of Cantigny in France. The letter was folded up in "The Teacher's Assistant, or Hints and Methods in School Discipline and Instruction" by Charles Northend (Sara was a teacher in Plains). It was one of the Curry books left in the house that Bob Corcoran kindly gave me yesterday. I wonder what Mayme's referring to when she writes on page 3: " I have something to tell you when I return. I would not trust it to paper." Guess we'll never know. Click on any page to enlarge image.
Illustration by Ross MacDonald for NY Times.
Great salute to France by two-time winner of Pulitzer Prize McCullough (Truman, John Adams, 1776) in today's NY Times. He mentions that two million Americans served in France in WWI and 800,000 in WWII. Sixty-thousand of them remain behind, buried in French cemeteries, including my great uncle Lt. John V. Curry, First Army 28th Infantry. When my great grandmother, Sara Curry, went on a Gold Star Mother Pilgrimage to visit his grave, she and the other mothers and widows were treated like royalty by the French. In a book about the Pilgrimage, the author writes that our unfriendliness with France today would have been inconceivable to that generation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/opinion/14mccullough.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
My father's uncle, Lt. John Curry. He's buried in the Somme American Cemetery outside Bony, France. John was 22 when he was killed in action.
The Times had an article today about whether or not the last WWI doughboy should lie in honor in the Rotunda, as his family is requesting, in recognition of all WWI veterans. I'm for it, because the sacrifices of our soldiers in WWI are all but forgotten in this country. They weren't forgotten in 1919.
My grandmother, Isabel Curry Nolan, saved this booklet in her scrapbook. (Click on an image to enlarge.) Lt. Curry was her older brother. The Souvenir Program mourns the lives of 18 vets from their community. You can listen to John's story by clicking below. And John's mother's story by clicking below that.
My great-grandfather, Sara Curry's husband, and Lt. John V. Curry's father. He was killed by lightning walking through Plains, PA after a funeral. We had heard growing up that his last words were "Don't worry, it'll blow over," but we figured it was apocryphal. Then I read the 1899 newpaper account. His actual words were, to a man walking beside him predicting severe weather, "Pshaw, you're no weather prophet." Then he was stuck dead.
