It's been an interesting Flag Day.
Today, I covered a story as interesting as it is significant to American History. And in covering this story, which started several weeks ago, it led to a nostalgic look back at my own family history.
Four Revolutionary Battle Flags under the ownership of a British family for more than 225 years were sold at auction at Sothebys here in New York. The british officer who captured the flags at the Battle of Pound Ridge in New York in 1779 and at the Battle of Waxhaws in South Carolina in 1780 passed them down through six generations of his family until the current man, his great great great great nephew, realized that they are the only examples of the "Stars and Stripes" that exist in the world today, and decided they were too valubale to hang on his wall, not to mention not easy to insure.
So when I started covering this story, it made me look back on the items of my family. My own family history.
Urban Fredrick Farabaugh, U.S. Army 1918
For years, I remembered that my grandparents had my Great-Grandfathers (Urban Farabaugh) World War I uniform in the attic of their house in Pittsburgh. It was in a cedar chest, and I distinctly remember that cedar smell when I would take a peek at the uniform. It was a perfectly preserved wool tunic and pants along with the famous Doughboy leggings and his heavy metal helmet. There were red Keystone patches on the arm and a red Keystone on the helmet (he was from Pennsylvania, and so he served in the Pennsylvania regiment) and it became something I took great interest in. But it was more than just a uniform.
Urban Farabaugh, post war 1919
My Great Grandfather is a man I never met. He died decades before I was born. But I am connected to him in a way few people can be. You see, he did what few people did after the "war to end all wars." He wrote about his experiences. Actually, he did what even fewer did. On February 11, 1920, he sat down at a desk with the Pittsburgh Water Heater Company, his employer, and typed out a narrative almost 15 pages long about his experiences in the trenches of the First World War in France. As a result, I know a man I never met.
Urban (left) somewhere in France, 1918-1919
An interesting point here is the man only saw active combat for exactly 24 hours. As a combat medic with the 109th Ambulance company of the 103rd Sanitary Train (all part of the 28th "Keystone", or "Iron" Division) he was called to the front on November 10, 1918. The truce was called on the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month of the 18th year... November 11, 1918. This is why we celebrate veterans day as a national holiday on this date.
He did however, see enough of the war. Trench warfare, aerial dogfights, wounded, dead, and dying men. For the next year he would meet the Germans they had fought in that war as part of the occupation force. And it's all in his type written account.
But the uniform itself was a tangible piece of that written family history. I had heard a few years ago that my Grandmother had donated the uniform to the Pennsylvania Military Museum in Boalsburg Pennsylvania. In covering the story about these Revolutionary War Battle Flags, I was curious to see where my Grandfathers war trophy had wound up. I called the museum. By the end of the week I had called several museums, and all of them had news I had never hoped to hear. There is no record of a uniform ever donated to any of the musuems related to military history in the state of Pennsylvania in my great grandfathers name.
Pennsylvania Military Museum, Boalsburg Pennsylvania
I talked to curator after curator only to be disappointed at every turn.
While I haven't given up yet, I hold little hope of ever finding them. My grandmother insists she mailed them to the museum at Boalsburg, but the folks there never recieved it if she did, or never recorded it.
103rd Medical Battallion & Regiment Monument
And there is a lesson I learned here. It's to save my stuff as well. I still have the uniforms I wore on active duty in the Air Force. Several times I've though about donating them or throwing them away. And I've also kept my kevlar vest and chemical weapon suit with gas mask that I wore during the Iraqi Scud missile attack near our encampment in Kuwait during the 2003 Iraq war. Yeah, they take up space, and might even be able to grab a few bucks on EBay. But they do mean something to me, and as nostalgic as I am sometimes, they are only as valuable to me. And what would someone say to the great grandchild of mine who reads this blog some eighty years from now and wonders... where did that uniform and gas mask go?
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