I was born August 7, 1895 on Dad’s farm and graduated from Pleasant Hill country school. I attended Normal Academy and the two year Normal Methods’ course there and graduated from both, then took a special summer five weeks’ course at Stout Institute at Menomonie, Wis., but due to a surplus of teachers didn’t get a school the first year after graduation, so I worked at reporting for the Macomb Bystander for a year. I had worked night and morning for them out of school hours for two years before, also on Saturdays, as well as during the summers. The summer of 1916 I had contracts from 4 different school principals in a many states before me at one time, but chose to go into a large school system at Louisville, Ky., where I was one of 11 Manual Training teachers in the public schools there.
I was drafted into the American Army with orders to entrain September 20, 1917 to go to Camp Dodge, Ia., ten miles north of Des Moines. About 200 young men were on that train, headed for Camp Dodge, which we reached after midnight on a foggy morning. Most of us looked like bums as we had worn our oldest suits in anticipation of throwing them away as soon as we drew our uniforms, but were treated like heroes all along the way. At Galesburg, Ill., we stopped for lunch and the good ladies of the large church where we were fed and toasted, outdid themselves for us with their luncheon. Our rosy dreams were blasted on arrival at the Camp Dodge station, as we looked at an 8-foot height barbed wire fence, 20 feet from the train.
We were marched to a mess hall of a barracks, where we were fed onion soup, bread, butter and coffee and questioned as to our past, then assigned to Companies or Batteries. As a 22-year-old ex-teacher, I was assigned to Headquarters Company of 339th Field Artillery, while most of the trainload were sent to Battery B of the same regiment. Promotions were fast at the start of the war so in sixty days cousin Merrill of Battery B and I of Headquarters Company were made corporals along with about 40 others. The next May volunteers for the Fourth Officers’ Training School were asked for and I with two others from Hdqr. Company joined it and started Boot training again which we had been teaching to new soldiers during the winter, but that is the army.
About July 1st the budding Artillery officers were ordered to entrain for a Central Artillery school hoping to be officers. The first sergeant who was in charge of the army personnel on the train was heartily disliked by the men but I sat and chatted with him for most of the way from Des Moines to Louisville as a way to pass the time. When we were lined up on the side of a road on a steep hill, he came to me and told me in an undertone to move up near the head of the line as about 15 percent of our trainload were to be placed in a battery which would graduate first, two weeks ahead of any of the others, so I lugged my barracks bag to near the top of the line and was assigned to the advanced battery.
As he said, the 200 aspirants who were placed in that battery were visited about August 1st by men who measured us everywhere for our hats, uniforms, and boots and shoes, then upon payment of money we got the officers’ uniforms, complete with brass bars for the shoulders, two days before the graduation day of August 17, 1918. We put them on in the barrack building, our quarters, and paraded around saluting each other, but Harry Barnes of Texas sneaked out in full uniform and went to Louisville from our Camp Zachary Taylor to collect a few salutes on the streets. He must have had a large evening as he couldn’t get his brand new boots off when he returned, so slept with them on his feet. The next morning they took him to the infirmary where they cut his $35 boots off of him.
We received our commissions at noon August 17 with a pass for a week and orders where to report at the end of that. I was attached to a Camp Taylor battery until we young officers were ordered to entrain for Fort Sill, Okla., the Artillery School of Fire with the prospect of becoming first lieutenants or captains before the end of the war, however, as we passed through St. Louis, Mo., we received news the Armistice had been signed so the war was over. I reached home December 14, 1918, a civilian.
Grace Merrill and I had met at Normal School and were married March 4, 1921, going immediately to live on and operate Dad’s farm, which I had previously operated for two years. We moved from there three years later to Prairie City for two years, then to Airdrie, Alta., to the Merrill farm for three years, after which we bought a cottage in Airdrie, where we raised our family to maturity. We have been blessed with three sturdy sons and three beautiful daughters all of whom have married to just as sturdy men and beautiful women, and all have helped us build our retirement home, a two bedroomed cottage which we have occupied since Feb. 20, 1961.
We have gloried in the birth of 17 grandchildren, one of who, Stephen Lee Switzer lies at rest in the Olds cemetery, the victim of enteritis and colitis, as were his grand aunties Grace and Winnie Switzer, fifty years before. He was a wonderfully strong child, but was taken from us quite suddenly by the babies’ disease. He is mourned by us all.
Although educated as a teacher and experienced as a newspaperman, a nose which has seemed to be allergic to everything indoors has dictated out of doors employment, so I have followed that as at times I could not work because of frequent heavy colds, so bad that at times I could not work and had to lie down. I worked at whatever I could find to do between the two Wars then enlisted in the Canadian Army May 28, 1940 for the duration of the second World War. I rose from a private’s status to be discharged a Battery Sergeant Major, and have been following outdoor work since then. Now at 71 I with Little Moms am working summers on our little home and am trying to keep my weight down in the winter, while I nurse arthritis and other ailments.
Little Moms and I are thoroughly fond of our retirement home, our needs are taken care of financially and with our utilities all that is necessary is to bring groceries and clothing in to our home. We are happy in the knowledge we have one of the finest families which have ever left Airdrie to go into commercial channels and succeed.