{"id":1165,"date":"2018-11-11T13:50:55","date_gmt":"2018-11-11T13:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=1165"},"modified":"2018-11-11T13:52:07","modified_gmt":"2018-11-11T13:52:07","slug":"1165","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=1165","title":{"rendered":"In Honor of Veteran’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Today, the world remembers the end of World War I. Although no veterans or civilians are with us to recall the atrocities, the record of their experiences lives on through letters, diaries and recordings. I am in possession of a collection of letters and wanted to mark the 100th anniversary by sharing one with you.<\/p>\n

With the United States Congress declaring war on Germany on April 6, 1917, 2.8 million American men were soon to be drafted to serve in what was then called \u201cThe Great War.\u201d Hoosier born George Bryant Harbaugh, a 22-year-old Deputy Sheriff with the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway in Gary, Lake County, Indiana, was sent to Camp Taylor, Kentucky for basic training. Army Private George left behind his sweetheart, Elsie Wilhelmina Johnson, a 21-year-old Mother\u2019s Helper living in Miller, (now Gary), Indiana. <\/p>\n

Elsie saved every letter and postcard received from George. Only 3 letters from Elsie to George survive. The following is a scan and transcript of the letter detailing his experiences when the Armistice was called on November (11) 11th at 11 AM:<\/p>\n

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ON ACTIVE SERVICE
\nWITH THE
\nAMERICAN RED CROSS
\nAMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE<\/p>\n

NAME
\n Geo B Harbaugh D<\/p>\n

Infantry
\nU.S. Army.
\nDec. 16, 1918
\nAllerey, France <\/p>\n

My Dearest Elsie.-<\/p>\n

Your most welcome letter of Nov. 17 received about an hour ago and I can\u2019t tell you how tickled I was to get it. I am expecting a lot more soon for the last one I got before this was dated Aug. 24 so I must have lots more somewhere. I expect though, that they are at Tours at the Central Office and I\u2019ve notified them of where I am so maybe they will reach me after awhile<\/p>\n

You ask when you may expect me back. That is hard to tell. We may leave here tomorrow and may be here a month yet. My Division the 28th , is in the Army of Occupation and is in Luxemburg I believe, but they say we can\u2019t get back to our old companies anymore but are to go in Casual Companies and go home but just how soon, we don\u2019t know. But I think I\u2019ll be back before March and when I get to New York, I\u2019ll send you a telegram about when you can expect me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure anxious to get back and I\u2019m sure we can be nicely settled in that little cottage of Ours before next winter. I\u2019m glad you got the money all right as I didn\u2019t get to see the chaplain after I gave it to him. You see, we got paid off one day and we went into battle in a couple of days. I didn\u2019t know what might happen so I thought it best to send it to you. I\u2019ve got 5 months\u2019 pay here now and if I get it before coming back, I\u2019ll send it to you as I don\u2019t want to spend it over here. I wanted you to get something for your Xmas, though. <\/p>\n

So, you are looking for a house for us, are you? ha. ha. The place below Gertie would be fine. I didn\u2019t suppose you would tell Gertie our happy secret but my only regret is that you haven\u2019t the ring, too. So Gertie was willing to have us for neighbors, was she? Tell her for me that when Bob and I get together there will be some stories to hear. I never heard where any of the other Miller boys were, but Bob was in the 26, or \u201cYankee Division\u201d, from the New England states and the 28th was from Pa. We relieved the 26 Div. on July 25 and they went to St Mihael, then Argonne Forest so I never got a chance to see Bob. I hope he came through the war all right. <\/p>\n

You speak of getting a letter from Ed Lemert. Yes, Dear, he\u2019s an awful good friend of mine and is almost as much as a brother. I wrote to him quite often but I haven\u2019t wrote for several weeks so guess I will write tonight. I expect lots of my letters get lost but there was times it was impossible to write for a week or two at a time. Conditions here are not what you folks imagine they are. I haven\u2019t saw any real American Y.M.C.A. huts and as for a Y.M.C.A entertainment for the Infantry at least, is something unheard of. I believe there is a nice Y.M.C.A.in Paris but we aren\u2019t allowed there.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t heard from Raymond Clemons since about Aug 1 and I believe I\u2019ll have to write and see if he\u2019s still alive. I\u2019ll have to write to Mrs. Clemons, too, I guess. The 111th Regt. lost lots of men at Chateau Therrey. The Huns used liquid fire on them and that is horrible. We got gas, shells, grenades and machine gun fire but the 112th never got any liquid fires used on us. Did you ever get the letter I sent that had a little pressed pansy in? I picked it in the city of Fismes and the Germans were shelling it to beat the band. We had two companies of our regiment captured there but they sure did pile up the dead Huns before they were overpowered.<\/p>\n

Guess you must have had a grand time Nov. 11 from the clippings you sent. We did here. They have a bulletin board and on Nov. 11 it read \u201cAt 4 P.M raise H-l and I guess they did. I was in bed yet then but we sure yelled 4 P.M here would be about 6 A.M. back there. Bells all over France rang and everybody was happy, believe me. I\u2019ve only been here 7 months but that seems an awful long time but the other Allies have had 52 months of it so they sure was cause to rejoice.<\/p>\n

Well, Pres. Wilson got a big reception when he came here and if it wouldn\u2019t have been for the Yank soldiers. He would never have come to France for it would have all been Germany by now. But that will wait till I get back. I won\u2019t tell you too much else; I can\u2019t tell you anything new when I get back.<\/p>\n

Well, I will have to close, Dearest, if I am to write another letter tonight so I\u2019ll close hoping I may get more of your ever welcome letters real soon.<\/p>\n

With Oceans of Love and Kisses and hoping I\u2019m back with you by Feb. 22.<\/p>\n

Your Own and Always,<\/p>\n

George<\/p>\n

Convalescent Camp
\nA.P.O. 785
\nG .Company<\/p>\n

A.J. Bruggeman
\n(unreadable)<\/p>\n

I am currently compiling the letters into an eBook with the working title, Thanks to the Yanks – World War I Letters from a Soldier Boy to his Sweetheart<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, the world remembers the end of World War I. Although no veterans or civilians are with us to recall the atrocities, the record of their experiences lives on through letters, diaries and recordings. I am in possession of a collection of letters and wanted to mark the 100th anniversary by sharing one with you. … Continue reading “In Honor of Veteran’s Day”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[640,642,639,116,637,638,643,641],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-armistice","tag-ed-lemert","tag-france","tag-gary","tag-george-bryant-harbaugh-elsie-wilhelmina-johnson","tag-indiana-world-war-i","tag-raymond-clemons","tag-veterans-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1165"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1173,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1165\/revisions\/1173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}