FROM THE KANSAS CITY NEWSPAPER, SUNDAY OCTOBER 18, 194? FIRST GOLD STAR MOTHER IN HER TOWN OF BOTH WORLD WARS The first man to lose his life in World War I from Browning, Mo., was Claude H. Myers, who was killed in France in 1917 and for whom a Legion post was named when the men returned home. Also the first man lost from Browning in this war was a brother of the first hero, Gernie T. Myers, who lost his life on the U. S. S. Arizona when it was blasted by the Japs last December 7. Both were sons of Mrs. Mary Myers, who is active in the auxiliary. - From American Legion notes in the Star, last Sunday. By E. B. Garnett, interviewer Browning, MO, Oct., 17. --Everybody in this North central Missouri town knows Mrs. Mary Myers, for she has lived here and in the adjoining Sullivan County all her life of sixty-six years. Hers has been a life of hardships and poignant tragedies. Her many relatives and friends in the community, as the years go by, wonder how she has endured so much grief and anxiety. Yet she carries on, virtually unbroken physically, with no gray hairs, and with a calm, seldom voiced philosophy that provides her with Spartanlike resignation. Mrs. Myers lives alone, a widow since the death of her husband, Andrew Washington Myers, August 9, 1940, in a small frame cottage a few blocks west of the business center of this North Linn County village of 590 inhabitants. She was Mary Susan Hoskins, the daughter of James W. Hoskins, farmer and pioneer settler of Sullivan County, when she married Mr. Myers on Christmas day, 1893. Older readers of The Star, with good memories, may recall an early day tragedy in the Browning community that must have presaged ominously events that were to add grim chapters in the life-story of this bride in the years to come. That tragedy was the murder of the Gus Meeks family, May 11, 1894, in which father, mother and two children were slain and an attempt was made to hide evidence of the crime by placing their bodies under a straw tack. We asked Mrs. Myers if she recalled that crime and the maudlin verse about it, which rhymed this way: It was about one mile from Browning At the foot of the Jenkins Hill Where took place this awful murder by the Taylors, George and Bill "Everybody around here remembers that:, she replied. "Bill Taylor was hanged for the crime, but George escaped from jail after his trial and never was recaptured." A PSYCHIC PHENOMENON Now came one of those inexplicable psychic phenomena that almost bowled the interviewer over in its telepathic import. He was just on the verge of asking Mrs. Myers if she didn't think the old adage "lightning never strikes twice in the same place" had been upset in the tragedy of her first son being killed in the first World war and the loss of her second son at Pearl Harbor in World War II, when she said: "I've had bad luck losing all three of my boys." "Three? Were there more than two who were killed?" "Yes - there was Berney - Berney Fife - he was killed by lightning". Then with no tears, and with little tone of sadness, she told of that first tragedy to strike in her family of eight children. In 1914, Bernie, then about 15 years old, had gone into a field on the Myers farm, about three miles northeast of Browning, to bring in the cows. A violent thunderstorm came up. They did not find his body for hours afterward. It had been mutilated by hogs, but there was no doubt that death had been caused by a bolt from the skies. She sat silent a moment, then the interviewer asked: "The other children were all girls?" Yes, all three sons were dead, but the daughters were living. "All married and gone from home now," she said. Then she named them in this order: Beryl - now Mrs. A. C. Hendry, Winslow, AZ; Gladys - now Mrs. Tunell of Browning; Mabel - now Mrs. Reams of Kirksville, Mo., and Marjorie - Mrs. J. H. Hathaway of Winslow. But that was only a list of four daughters, it was pointed out. Were there not five? THE DAUGHTER RUTH DISAPPEARED The mother looked up quickly. "Ruth", she said. "I didn't mention Ruth, for she has been gone twenty-seven years." "Gone? Do you mean she is dead?" "I don't know . . . she left home years ago and we never heard from her again. I heard once she had studied to be a nurse and been graduated from a hospital in Kansas City - but I never knew which one . . . I always will think that she went overseas with the army in the other war and probably was lost at sea . . . Many nurses were lost that way .. But, of course, I never will know. I suppose she's dead or we would have heard from her." "Didn't you ever try to find her in Kansas City?" "No - I left that to a distant relative, H. Clay Jones, who had visited Ruth several times in Kansas City while she was going to the nurses' school there - but he lost track of her after she graduated, I guess." "what's become of Mr. Jones?" "He runs a secondhand hardware store on East Twelfth Street - 1224 East Twelfth, is his number. He spent a lot of time trying to find Ruth, but never did." (The Star yesterday called on Mr. Jones in his store here. He said his memory was failing and he could not recall at which hospital Ruth studied, nor its location. He thought it might be the General Hospital, but was not certain. Yes, he was positive Ruth had been graduated. He supposed she had become a war nurse. She married a young man named Wood from Brookfield, MO., he said, but separated from him in a few weeks, and then came to Kansas City. That was while Jones was living in Brookfield. Since coming to Kansas City he had never heard again from Ruth, who is his step-niece.) (From Linneus, MO., records it was learned that Ruth Maeling Myers and William J. Wood, both of Browning were married in Browning, July 29, 1915. There was no record of a divorce in the Linneus files. Linneus is the county seat of Linn County in which Browning is located, although that village stretches across the line into Sullivan County.) (The Kansas City chapter of the American Red Cross was searching records yesterday, endeavoring to find whether Ruth Myers was listed as a graduate nurse here.) ONE SON KILLED IN ACTION IN FRANCE IN 1917 Back in Browning, the interviewer was shown clippings recounting the story of Mrs. Myers's second son, Claude, who enlisted in the army in 1917, and how he was killed. The news of his death came to Andrew Myers, father of Browning's first hero in World War I, in this letter: "D" Company, 2nd Machine Gun Battalion, France, Sept. 27, 1918. Browning, MO. Dear Sir: It is a very sad duty to tell you that your son, Claude H. Myers, was mortally wounded at Coulemells, France, June 9, 1918 by a shell fragment. I am sorry that regulations forbid my giving you the particulars even though our brave Allies have driven the enemy far away from that place now. Your son was one of my best soldiers and his comrades and company feel his loss very much. The graves registration bureau can tell you where he was buried. He had on his person at the time of his death a crucifix and a rosary. Yours truly, John P. Pryor, Capt. Infantry. U.S.A., Company Commander The crucifix and rosary were displayed tenderly by Mrs. Myers after she had shown the foregoing letter to the interviewer. "Claude was reared in our family as a Baptist", she said, "but I believe a Catholic priest was with him when he died. His body was returned to us here in Browning after the war and is now buried in Knifong Cemetery, three miles northeast of town. A BELATED LETTER FROM CLAUDE'S BUDDY Three years after Claude's death, a letter dated February 8, 1921, was received by his parents from a George F. Worley in Shenandoah, Ia. Worley was a member of the same machine-gun company and first had met young Myers while in training at Douglas, Ariz., in the spring of 1917. Part of his letter follows: We left Arizona June 2, 1917, and sailed from New York June 14, landed in st. Nazaire, France, June 28...from that time we first met in the hospital at Douglas, we were always pals... Claude was always cheerful and happy and cared more for the letters from home than any of the boys I knew ... In November, 1917, we went into the trenches for the first time. Were there about ten days. And in January, went into the trenches in front of Mt. Sec, close to Toul. It was a pretty hot place and under heavy artillery fire most of the time. >From there on we went to the Somme front...we were in position just in front of Cantigny, May 28, 1918. Shortly after the battle of Cantigny, we were ordered into position about three kilometers back of the front line. We built shelters as we could. The one Claude was in was just a hold dug in the ground about five by ten feet and about three feet deep. There were a few poles over the top and every morning green wheat was cut and scattered over the top so we would not be visible to the Germans. We were in a wheat field. The evening before Claude was killed, he was one of a detail that went into a small town to bring in food. As they came back, Claude stopped in my squad talked awhile, but soon the enemy began to throw over a few shells, so Claude guessed he had better go. He had only about time to get to his position when the Germans opened up with everything they had. About an hour before daylight it quieted down somewhat. So Claude and the rest of the squad went out to cut wheat to cover the shelter. A small shell, probably a German 77-m., struck in their midst, killing Claude and wounding two others so badly they died shortly afterward. The corporal was all that was left. Claude had been instantly killed. A piece of shell had struck him in the heart. I think he was buried in Bon Villers, a very pretty American cemetery about ten kilometers west and south of Cantigny. It was the morning of the 5th of June, I think. Claude was a good soldier, always clean and neat. He and I were together so much he seemed almost like a brother to me. I deeply sympathize with you in your great sorrow and hope his body will be returned soon. A LEGION POST IN HIS HONOR His body was returned to his old home in Browning and that town buried it with military honors. Then, to honor the memory of its first hero, the American Legion here named its post the Claude H. Myers post. And yesterday this post paid honor to the memory of another casualty of the present war in the burial of Donald Johnson, seaman, who met his death by drowning several days ago in the Mississippi river near St. Louis on a furlough from the Great Lakes Naval station where he had been in training. After Mrs. Myers spoke of this tragedy outside of her family, she told of the loss of her second son, who met his death on the battleship Arizona last December 7 at Pearl Harbor. "Somehow", the gold star mother related, "Gernie couldn't get the war out of his mind. He seldom mentioned Claude, but I knew he was thinking of his older brother for he always kept talking about going into the navy. That was before he was 21 years old and there was no war going on. But the day he was 21 - I think is was his birthday, May 3, - he enlisted. That was about 1928. He went away and never came back. He was stationed in Honolulu, when his father died in 1940 and had been out there, I think, ever since." Gernie Tharp Myers was enlisted in the navy as James Gernie Myers and the Navy department records carry it that way. The telegram that brought Mrs. Myers the news of the loss of her second son - again the first young man from Browning to give his life in defense of his country - was this" January 31, 1942 Mrs. Mary Susan Myers Browning, MO AFTER EXHAUSTIVE SEARCH IT HAS BEEN FOUND IMPOSSIBLE TO LOCATE YOUR SON, JAMES GERNIE MYERS, STOREKEEPER, FIRST CLASS, U.S. NAVY AND HE THEREFORE HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY DECLARED TO HAVE LOST HIS LIFE IN THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY AS OF DECEMBER 7, 1941. THE DEPARTMENT EXPRESSES TO YOU ITS SINCEREST SYMPATHY. REQUEST YOU NOTIFY GUARDIAN OF YOUR SON'S MINOR CHILDREN. REAR ADMIRAL RANDALL JACOBS, CHIEF OF BUREAU OF NAVIGATION, WASHINGTON D.C. "Gernie was married then. How many children did he leave?" Mrs. Myers was asked. "Two", she replied. "Jimmie, 9, and Gordon, 5. Their mother died two years ago and they now live with their other grandmother in Seattle. I never have seen them." There was no sighing as Mrs. Myers said that. She looked at the snapshot of her son's boys and then she handed the interviewer this letter out of the big cardboard box from which it came: The Secretary of the Navy, Washington February 2, 1942. My Dear Mrs. Myers: I desire to offer to you my personal condolence in the tragic death of your son, James Gernie Myers, storekeeper first class, United States navy, which occurred at the time of the attack of the Japanese on December 7. It is hoped that you may find comfort in the thought that he made the supreme sacrifice upholding the highest traditions of the navy, in the defense of his country. Very sincerely yours, Frank Knox. "and is there consolation in such letters?" this war mother was asked. NEVER EXPECTED TO SEE THEM COME BACK "I suppose so ... When my boys left home, I felt that I would never see them again. I gave them up, yet in my heart I always remember them as babies. I suppose a boy, no matter how old he grows or how long he has been away from home, always is a baby to his mother." She spoke briefly about the government's plan to take boys of 18 and 19 into the service. "Do you think they ought to do that?" she asked a neighbor. "How do you feel about that, Mrs. Myers?" the interviewer asked. "I suppose, if the government needs them, they ought to go," she commented. "Maybe they'll be trained a year or two before they really get into the war ..." Then she said: "I had bad luck with all my boys. But there'll be other mothers who must lose two sons or more. They'll just have to learn to accept their losses and take it on the chin, as I have had to do." She was asked if she recalled Abraham Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby when the Civil war President was told that mother had given five sons to her country. She couldn't remember it so asked the Star to send her a copy of it. That is why the Lincoln letter appears with this story, that Mrs. Myers and all gold-star mothers may know how the leader in that war of their mothers' day expressed sympathy. So the little town of Browning, which sent fifty men into military service in World War I and is now again honoring its heroes in World War II, looks upon Mrs. Myers not in pity but in pride that she bears her losses with quiet resignation and fortitude. To her neighbors, she seems to stand as a symbol of faith and courage: a mother who conceals her grief and speaks not of sacrifice as she gives her sons to the service of their country. In her heart, in words unspoken, she must acknowledge Lincoln's immortal appraisal of that "costly sacrifice upon the altar of freedom". (With this newspaper article there are photos of Mrs. Myers' house, Mrs. Myers, holding a photo of 2 the sons she lost to wars, another of her second son and his 2 orphaned boys, whose mother was the former Miss Velma Pierson of Seattle, Wash.) LINCOLN'S LETTER TO MRS. BIXBY. Executive Mansion, Washington, Nov. 21, 1864 To Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War department a statement of the adjutant general of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully. A. Lincoln Carl Sandburg comments in his biography of Abraham Lincoln: "The President of the United States took Mrs. Bixby as a symbol, as a transfigured American mother who deserved enshrinement for loyalty and heroic service."