Commentary: Love and loss on home front
" 'It is an image that has haunted me all my life,' Patch said some 90 years later, 'seared into my mind.' Patch was haunted, in particular, by [a] dreadfully wounded soldier who had begged to be finished off. The young man had cried out 'Mother!' as he died."
" 'It is an image that has haunted me all my life,' Patch said some 90 years later, 'seared into my mind.' Patch was haunted, in particular, by [a] dreadfully wounded soldier who had begged to be finished off. The young man had cried out 'Mother!' as he died."
- From Peter Parker's "The Last Veteran"
Chris Gibbons
is a Philadelphia writer
On June 26, 1918, shortly after World War I's Battle of Belleau Wood, Pvt. Sol Segal of the Fifth Marine Regiment sat beneath the swaying pine trees of Belleau, France, and next to the grave of Roman Catholic High School alum Walter J. Spearing.
Many months before, Segal and Spearing had promised each other that, if one of them fell in battle, the survivor would "console the sorrowing Mother." On captured German paper, Segal then began to write the letter that, in his words, "fulfill a duty that I am bound by oath and will to perform":
"Dear Mrs. Spearing:
"There is grief in my heart and in the hearts of all of my comrades for the great sorrow that this war has brought to you and to us. We all unite to express our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the mother and family of one who has fallen in a cause as imperishable as will be the names of those who have fallen to defend it. . . .
"You are Walter's Mother - I was his inseparable friend and comrade: that makes us two kindred souls in common grief for our nearest and dearest. . . .
"Beneath the green in Belleau Woods, forever connected with the 'Honor of the Marines,' lies Walt with two comrades, dead on the 'Field of Honor.' Above their graves the stately pines sway in their grandeur, an imperishable monument. . . .
"Dear lady, the very thought of you in grief tears my heart. . . . In the name of the Twenty-third Company, in the name of the Marines, I salute you and all my comrades salute you."
The pledge between Segal and Spearing, as well as the letter sent to Spearing's mother, Ellen, is certainly not unique in the long, tragic annals of warfare. However, the pledge and letter do serve as touching reminders of the loving bond that exists between a mother and her son, and the anguish that mothers have always endured in times of war.
What was unique about this war was how mothers organized for the first time in a large-scale, coordinated effort.
In September of 1917, nearly six months after the United States entered World War I, the "American War Mothers" organization formed in Indiana, and quickly spread across the country. These mothers, who had children serving in the military, displayed a flag in their home windows with a blue star denoting the service of a child. Many displayed more than one star. If a son was killed in action, a gold star was sewn over the blue. These women subsequently became known as the "Gold Star Mothers," a phrase coined by President Woodrow Wilson.
The American War Mothers was also very active in helping men and women in military service with various needs, as well as promoting government calls for food conservation at home. Many of these women also helped the war effort by joining the labor force and working in factories due to the shortage of men.
After the war, the American War Mothers - then 23,000 members strong - assisted families who wished to have their sons' bodies brought back for burial in the United States. Also, in the early 1930s, the organization assisted the U.S. government with the "Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimages," in which the government paid the travel expenses of mothers and widows who wished to visit the European grave sites of their sons and husbands who had died during the Great War.
As for Ellen Spearing, shortly after receiving the letter from Segal in the summer of 1918, she sent a copy to her congressman, J. Hampton Moore. Ellen sent it to Moore "to demonstrate the spirit of the boys in the district you represent," and she also wanted him to share it with his colleagues in Congress. The letter was subsequently published on the front page of the Aug. 17, 1918, Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger.
In 1921, Ellen and Cornelius Spearing had the body of their son exhumed from its Belleau Wood battlefield grave, shipped to the United States, and reburied in St. Denis cemetery in Havertown. My ongoing search for the Roman Catholic High School alumni who died in World War I recently led me to St. Denis.
As Sol Segal had done nearly 100 years ago, I sat next to the grave of Walter Spearing. There were no "stately pines sway[ing] in their grandeur" above his resting place - just a modest grass field neatly lined with rows of tombstones and bounded by a chain-link fence. As I placed Roman Catholic High School and U.S. flags next to Spearing's gravestone, I was surprised to see that his mother's name was not chiseled into the stone.
I reconfirmed with St. Denis that Ellen is, in fact, buried with her son. Perhaps when she died in Philadelphia in 1943, her family did not have enough money to engrave the headstone, or maybe Ellen indicated that her name need not be placed upon it. I cannot say.
As I stared at the grave, I could only shake my head in sadness. It's almost as if Ellen Spearing, the mother who wanted to ensure that her son and the boys in her district would not be forgotten, had never existed.
Sadly, the absence of her name is symbolic of the often forgotten, selfless devotion of mothers, not only those of World War I, but in all of America's wars.