On 6 April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson had declared America’s entrance into the Great War and a nation-wide recruitment effort to build America’s armed forces was under way. A demonstration day was set up across the country to coincide with Patriots’ Day (or Lexington Day) – a commemoration of the the Battles of Lexington and […]
Alvin Detlef Petersen was born on 17 December 1895 in Teeds Grove, Clinton County, Iowa to parents Jerry and Anna Petersen. He was the grandson of German immigrants who had settled in Iowa. He was a farmer by trade and registered for the first draft of World War I on 5 June 1917 in Andover, […]
What strange times we’re living in, yeah? I had imagined that I’d eventually write about the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 (or “Spanish Flu”) because it was so intertwined with the first World War; but I did not imagine that we’d be living through our own pandemic when I did. However, I think there is some solace […]
Orval Henry Schwartzkopf was born on 10 February 1919 in Perry County, Illinois, the son of Henry Schwartzkopf and Lula Egbert. He was 21 years old and working on the family farm with his father when he registered for the Selective Service Draft on 16 October 1940 in Pinckneyville, Illinois; he enlisted in the Army […]