Commemorating the First World War Centennial in Kansas
The 92nd Division elected to use the insignia on the right on their uniforms to honor the Buffalo Soldiers.
Prejudice and racism existed in the American military during WWI. President Wilson and his administration encouraged the military to turn their backs on the black soldiers.
Stephen Kramer was born on February 27, 1894, near Stranger Creek about 3 miles east of Tonganoxie, KS. He was born into a family of tenant farmers, an occupation that Stephen continued throughout his life.
Stephen was 23-years-old when he enlisted in the army in May of 1917 as one of Harry Truman’s Buglers. Stephen’s artillery unit saw considerable action in the war. He served in Battery D of the 129th field artillery unit of the 60th Brigade of the 35th Division, and saw action September 25, 1918 in the Meuse Argonne. On October 10, 1918 he was in the battle of Verdun.
Company K of Yesterday was published in 1969 by Archibald Hart, a member of Company K and the 142 Infantry. This company was part of the 36th Division formed from the Texas and Oklahoma National Guards.
In the front of the book is a hand written note to Mrs. Nina Birkhead, the wife of Cecil Birkhead of Company K of the 142 Infantry;
Carl, along with Mr. Charles Papenhausen, decided to enlist together April 21, 1917 in Kansas City, MO. Carl at that time was teaching at Hazel Ridge School which is about 2 miles south of where he lived. Carl asked the school to be relieved of his contract.
In 2009 Karen Starko, MD, published a paper where she suggests that aspirin may have played a significant role in the death of people suffering from the 1918 flu.
It wasn’t until the 1960’s that pharmacologists began to seriously study how aspirin worked. It is a very complicated drug. In 1968 a graduate of Nebraska School of Pharmacy told me that if Aspirin were to come on the market today it probably would not be over-the-counter.
The outbreak of flu in 1918 was the most destructive disease to strike the world. 500 million people got the flu and 50 to 100,000,000 died. In the United States 675,000 people died. The flu easily killed more soldiers than the war.
Neither the Axis nor the Allied forces reported information on the flu. It was and still is very difficult to accurately determine just how the soldiers on both sides were affected. This information was secret, and neither side wanted the other side to know how weakened their military capabilities had become because of the flu. At the end of the war the U. S. Navy reported that 40% were inflicted with the flu virus, and the U.S. Army reported that 36% had the flu. But it seems likely that these figures are not accurate. Many flu victims never went to the hospital where they would have become a statistic. Some of these flu victims of the initial outbreak were probably not very sick.
William J. Stephenson was born October 7, 1895 and grew up at Basehor, Kansas. He graduated from Basehor High School in 1913. In 1917 he graduated from Park College at Parkville, Missouri, and one month later, July 30, 1917, he enlisted in the army at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas to serve in WWI.
“Jack” Hoey joined the United States Army on April 3, 1917 at Ft. Leavenworth. He trained at Camp Funston, in Kansas. He was a bugler in Co. E of the 35 Infantry and a qualified sharpshooter. The 35th Infantry Division Served on the Mexican-US border during the first World War and was stationed at Nogales, Arizona in 1918. It fought a border skirmish on 27 August 1918 during the Battle of Ambos Nogales. Except for his initial military training, Jack spent his entire military career on the Mexican/U.S. border.
In 1862 Henry Baker settled SE of Tonganoxie near Stranger Creek. He was a Quaker from England who came to Tonganoxie via New York. The location for his new home had two criteria. There needed to be a Quaker Church and a good farm with rich farmland. Henry arrived in Tonganoxie in mid-January, and noticed the farmers were farming in their shirt sleeves. He decided this was the place to call home.
Trench Mouth is a disease of sudden onset, with necrosis of the gingival papilla and ulcers seen around the gingival tissues of the mouth. It is extremely painful with fetid breath. It is so painful that it becomes difficult to eat. The gum tissue is swollen, red and bleeds easily. The disease in called Acute Necrotizing Ulcerative Gingivitis. The disease represents a group of various normal oral bacteria that becomes overgrown with a significant quantity of anaerobic bacteria, Spirochetes and Fusobacteria. Historically it was believed to be contagious, even though it is not.
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