I ran past the desk at work with a military helmet.
"Over there," Sue and Zach sang as I dashed by with an armload of artifacts. "Over there! And we won't be back till it's over over there!"
I set down the Army helmet and the military portrait down, and opened the display case. A hundred years ago, local people fought World War I. Now for the anniversary, it was my job to commemorate it for the library.
I get exposed to chemical weapons a lot less. Otherwise, my job is about as interesting.
"We're going to have a great World War I Week," I said. "I've been planning this out for months. I got all sorts of events planned. A talk on chemical weapons, a paranormal event, food, music. It might be even better than Civil War Week a couple of years ago."
"Except with your tour of Beech Creek today, you have about an hour to do all the preparation for it," Sue pointed out.
"Yeah, I didn't think that through."
I put the helmet into the display case, an actual World War I helmet. Then I picked up the group portrait, showing the 305th Ambulance Company, local guys. I was about to set it in the case when I noticed something.
Wait....What's this?
"Is there any of that war coffee left upstairs?" Adam asked me as he walked past the PA Room.
I shook my head. "You don't want any, man. Trust me."
"That bad."
"Oh, yes. For the start of World War I Week, I thought I'd make an authentic battlefield breakfast---Fried mush and Mess Sergeant's coffee. It was truly godawful. We put eggshells in the coffee and boiled it, we made corn meal mush just like the soldiers did. It was terrible. Historically accurate, though."
Adam grinned. "You get much of a crowd?"
"A few people. They even tried the breakfast." I was flipping through some of the cards indexing the obituaries. "I have a quest."
"Oh, yeah? What's that?"
"For World War I Week, I'm looking into one of the units. The 305th Ambulance Corps was local, they were all Clinton County guys. Now, I've known for years that William Raymond was the first American integrated soldier. He was black, but such a good cook that the white 305th didn't want to let him go. So Major George Green, also a local guy, talked to the general and insisted that Raymond stay in the unit. America's first integrated soldier was from Lock Haven."
"Wow," said Adam.
"I have a photo of the unit on display," I said. "Looking at it last night, I realized that there were two of them---The photo shows two black men, Raymond and another guy. I'd heard there was another one, but nobody knows his name. So, for World War I Week, that's what I'm doing---I'm going to find out his name. Got no reason for doing this, other than I feel like it."
"That's the best reason of all."
"I found a newspaper article from 1953 where they had a reunion. They had a photo with names, and you can see this guy. But on the microfilm, it's not easy to see where in the line he was."
"So you can cross-check...."
"Yep, doing that. I have a list of seven names that might be him. I'm going to use the obits and marriage records to narrow it down."
Adam grinned. "If anyone can do it, man, you can."
I had a written list of the seven names I'd gotten from the group photo: M.L. Motter, A.D. Hendricks, A.W. Wise, F.E. Krotzer, William Dickey, E.R. Orsin, and R.H. Bernash. I ran through the index file, looking for obits on each one.
Two guys didn't have obits---Krotzer and Bernash. I scribbled down the dates of the other ones, then went to the marriage records.
Those same two guys didn't have marriage records. They'd be tough. Motter and Wise had marriage certificates, but we didn't have them at the library---We've got a couple of gaps in our collection. I'd have to visit the courthouse for them. Hendricks, Orsin, and Dickey had marriage records, and we had those at the library.
I took the big, thick marriage record books off the shelf and laid them out on the floor, sprawling across where I could page through them. I'm a library employee---I get to do that.
I pulled the record on Hendricks, and looked at where race was listed. White. I crossed him off the list. I found Orsin's record---White. Cross him off, too.
Finally, I found the marriage record for Dickey. White. Down to four. I looked up the obituary for Arthur W. Wise. This one was easy---He had a photo. And, yes, he was very definitely white.
And it was the same for all the other guys on my short list. White as the snowfall of 1995, every one of them.
I went back to the microfilm and put in the original photo. This time, I zoomed in really, really close and magnified it. You know how people say "I don't see color"? Turns out this is true---On a half-century old, black and white newspaper print, you don't see color. At least, not well. It turns out that the guy I'd thought was black was actually just standing in a shadow.
Back to John Sloan's drawing board.
"I was wrong," I said. "The guy I'm looking for wasn't the right guy in the reunion photo. My list of seven names were all white; they didn't contain the guy I want to find."
Adam nodded. "That's tough, man."
"Yeah. But I'm not giving up yet."
"What now?"
"I gotta check 'em all."
I got the 1919 article about the 305th coming home to Lock Haven, and printed it out. It listed the names of all the soldiers. I crossed off the ones I'd already checked out, or names I already knew. It was the eightieth anniversary of when Piper Aviation came to Lock Haven, so we were holding a big weekend where we offered tours for eighty cents. So I took the page down to my office at Piper, and sat down for the most intense day of research I'd ever had.
Around a hundred names. I'd found a website that had draft cards, so I checked each one throughout the day. One at a time, I crossed them off the list. Some didn't have draft cards on file; I left them for later. A couple had intriguing notes; I copied them down.
In the best of all possible worlds, there was no reason the black soldier couldn't have been the first or second guy I checked. So of course, that didn't happen.
Midway through the day, Zach stopped in to say hi. He looked over my shoulder as I worked.
"What's all this?"
"Trying to find out who the other black soldier was with the 305th Ambulance Corps," I said. "I started out with a list of seven possibilities, and now I'm running through the whole unit. I have to search them all one at a time until I find my guy, or rule out everyone else but one."
He shook his head. "You're more patient about this than I am."
"I'm not entirely sure it's a good quality."
Charles Caldwell. Earl Hartman. One at a time, I searched each name and found "Caucasian" or "White" on each card. I felt a little stupid checking to see if guys like Luigi Rubino were maybe black, but I checked each one all the same.
I started before noon, and I worked clear past three PM. At the end of it, I'd gone through them all, and found a record for most of them. A couple of the unfound ones I was able to put on a list of unlikely candidates, as they had ethnic names that were probably Italian or Irish. And at the end of it, I wound up with a list of twenty-one remaining names, with a couple of frontrunners.
Most people would be able to handle a week-long work project plus a weekend anniversary celebration without having to have some side quest, as well.
What can I say? I'm easily bored.
"So what's on the schedule next for World War I Week?" asked Sue at the desk, back at the library.
"Tonight, a guest speaker on chemical weapons. The ghost hunters coming in Thursday to talk about a war-related investigation we did a few years back. Friday night, my World War I tour of the city. And Saturday, I have the book club and a barbershop quartet."
"You're gonna be busy. You know the third floor still smells like fried mush?"
"Yeah, sorry about that. Keep an eye on that list, okay?" I pointed to the scribbled list of names I'd drawn up. "It's real important."
I'd written down a new list of names that were still up in the air. I'd been running back and forth to the marriage records at the library, crossing guys off the list. The library has most of the marriage records---I'd have to go down to the county courthouse for the rest.
Frank Knecht---White. Lee Hanna---White. One by one, I ruled out soldiers, bringing the list down.
Our index showed that two of them had photos.
Most of the library's photo collection were kept upstairs, in a small room just off the Sloan Museum Wing. I went up and let myself in between my desk shift and my guest speaker on chemical weapons. Both Dare Lawrence and Walter Grimm had photos. Knowing what I'd probably find, I pulled them out and checked anyway.
Lawrence's was a group picture of all the railroad employees. Grimm's was a photo of the local fire department.
Both showed a sea of white faces. Jesus, I hate inequality.
On the other hand, I was getting a lot closer.
I crossed them both off the list, and went upstairs to learn about chemical weapons.
Between Piper and the library, I have an office on each end of the city. This means that I tend to spend a lot of time on my bike, travelling between the two of them. Early in the afternoon, I was on Mill Street when I saw a young teenaged girl with magenta hair.
I stopped to talk to her.
"Katelynn! How you been?"
"Hi, Lou. I was just coming to visit you at the library!"
I gave her a hug. Katelynn had been one of the earliest kids I'd trained in Teen Paranormal. We'd been very close before she'd moved down to North Carolina for a while.
"You home now for good?" I asked.
She nodded. "Moved back with my mom."
"Well, that's great! We're gonna have to hang out."
"What're you working on?"
"We got World War I week at the library," I said. "I'm on a little mission here. There were two black soldiers who fought with the 305th---One of them, William Raymond, lived not far from you, actually. The other one is a mystery. I've been trying to figure out his name."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Just came from the courthouse," I said. "I was able to pull the marriage records and cross off three guys there. I'm down to like my last three."
"That's so cool," she said.
I grinned. "Stop by the library a lot more, now that you're home," I said. "We'll do some searching together, have a few adventures."
Obviously, when you plan a WWI Week, you have to include the local ghost hunters. At least, I do. It's possible that the paranormal is a little too mainstream in my life. I'm working on that.
Jazmyn came in while I was preparing. I smiled and gave her a hug. It's always good to see her. "Hey, kid! What's up?"
"Hi, Lou! Just on my way to the mall, and I thought I'd stop by. What're you working on?"
I gave her the recap, and she grinned. "That's so cool. Everybody else just does boring stuff. How's it coming?"
"Pretty good, actually. I had it narrowed down to three guys. I checked what records I could, and found that two of them have obits. They'd moved from the area by the time they died in 1944 and 1953, but the local papers ran obits all the same. The obituaries don't specify race, but the fact that they even had obits tells me a lot---They were more likely to run out of town obits for whites in those days. It was a different time."
"Yeah, it was."
"So I've got the list narrowed down to one guy. Maurice Davis. Tomorrow I'm going to take some time and find out what I can about him." I picked up my paperwork. "You want to come learn about World War I ghosts?"
The next morning was the doughnuts. Zach had baked me a couple of dozen doughnuts using a WWI-era recipe I'd found, and I'd set them up in the lobby with coffee and some hardtack I'd made. We were offering them free to any patron who wandered by. I like these sort of programs, because A- They're very educational; B- It's passive programming, requiring very little in the way of effort; and C- I get doughnuts.
I took a doughnut and a Bigfoot mug full of coffee. As I walked past Adam, he asked,"How are the doughnuts?"
"A damn sight better than the fried mush," I said, and retreated to my desk.
I looked at my list. I was down to one guy---From the original article listing all the members of the 305th, I'd crossed off every name but Maurice Davis.
I got online and brought up his draft card. I looked at the question of race.
Black.
That was him. Maurice Davis was the guy I'd been looking for all along. I hadn't initially found his record because I'd been filtering out soldiers not from Pennsylvania. Davis hadn't originally left from Lock Haven; he'd come up from Florida and been transferred into the 305th. That was why it had taken me so long.
Sometimes you can substitute obsession for skill.
I've had a pretty good week.
I'd found him.
That evening, I began my tour outside the library. A small group of people waited for me to begin.
"Everyone, thanks for coming," I said. "We've had a good World War I Week here at the Ross Library, and I'm grateful to all of you for being a part of it. Tonight's tour will talk about some of the World War I soldiers and their homes, and tell you some of the stories."
Everyone was listening.
"And I have a new one for you tonight, An African-American soldier who was unknown up until now. This tour is the first time I've ever talked about him."
Looking at the crowd, I smiled.
"His name was Maurice Davis. Anyone want some fried mush?"
