Memorial Day 2018 - Wendell War Memorials

Wendell's war memorial sits on the old town common. Bronze plaques have been affixed to millstones as uniform monuments to the 20th century conflicts. I will check back in the future and see if the fourth stone will also hold names from the earlier wars. This transcription is part of The Honor Roll Project

The first plaque reads:

In Memory of Those Who Served in The World War from Wendell, Massachusetts

*Frank E. Richards

Edwin D. Austin

Clarence C. Begor

Frank Betters

Edith F. Bowen R.M.

Webster M Brown

John E. Burkhardt

George A. Cogswell

Frank H. Day

Marvin N. Ellis

Jesse L. Haskins

Gustoff A. Hook

Ralph L. Jennison

Arthur Parent

Carl J. Sandberg

Gustav L. Sandberg

Leon O. Taylor

Erected by Wendell Grange 1930

On the 150th Anniversary

Of the Incorporation of the Town

World War I Monument

In Memory of Those who Served in World War II From Wendell Massachusetts

*George H Gardner

* Calvin P. Merchant

Raymond E. Avery

Edward J. Bezio

Clayton J. Bezio

Leon Bezio

M. James Bowen

Kenneth W. Clarkk

Adam Drozdowski

Joseph Drozdowski

Robert E. Ellis

Andrew J. Fox

Myron A. Gibbs

Rubert V. Goddard

Avery H. Harrington

Eugene A. La Valle

Arthur B. Lewis, Jr.

Dale W. Lewis

Donald G. Lewis

Ralph E. Lewis

Ruth V. Lewis

Albert H. Hulholland

Merrill A. Noyes

Lewis E. Powling

Merle O. Powling

Clarence H. Pratt

Jesse W. Pratt

Charles F. Reed

John L. Van Rensselaer

Earl E. Sabot

Sherman W. Sadler

Roland L. Sears

Charles M. Wetherby

Francis E. Wetherby

Clarence O. Wetherby

Raymond C. Wirth

Erected by Town of Wendell and Grange

World War II Monument

In Memory of Those Who Served in the Korean and Vietnam Conflicts from Wendell, Massachusetts

Korea

Elmore Andrews

Richard Bezio

Edward Duhaime

Donald Ellis

Harry Lewis

Roy Sampson

Merrill Wetherby

Robert Ashley

Kenneth Clark

Theodore  Lewis

Edward Wirth

Stephen Clark

Richard Hurtle

John Peettit

William Starkey

Myron Bowen

Vietnam

Joseph Bagdonas

John Carey

Donald Cornwell

Gary Cornwell

David Hisdreth

Arthur Taylor

David Wilder

Leonard Wirth

Anthony Diemand

Joseph Diemand

Ray Chevalier

Edward Chase

Robert Durkee

Kenneth Wing, Jr.

Dennis Lewis

Erected by the Town of Wendell and Through the Generous Donation of Many Private Citizens

Allison Update - Good News

The Allison family of Galveston and New Orleans, profiled earlier, was not completely wiped out in the 1900 storm. The eldest son, Walter, survived!

Walter was born in December of 1881, according to the 1900 census of Galveston, recorded just a few weeks before the storm. At 18, he was employed as an apprentice machinist at a foundry. We can speculate that he was at his job when the storm began, and was prevented from returning to his home near the Gulf. Several iron works were listed in the city directories, the largest being Lee Iron Works, near the railroad station on the north side of the island. He may have been the informant that enumerated eight children of his parents among the storm dead, including his two uncles, Edward and Archie Reagan.

In 1910, Walter can be found still living in Galveston, in the household of Lewis Cook on Avenue F near 12th Street. He married Katie Beagor(?) soon after and had a daughter Ethel in 1911, and a son, Walter, jr. in 1914. Walter Allison died in San Antonio on 19 October 1918 of influenza at the peak of the epidemic there. The disease had spread very quickly through the city. and its Army installations. See more details here.

Walter was buried in the Lakeview Cemetery in Galveston, near the Gulf. His wife, Kate, returned to Galveston and remarried to Gustov Hoff, a German tailor. They moved to Washington, D.C. by 1930 where they had a shop. Ethel married and had a son whom she named Walter. Her brother, Walter, had married and was working for the Treasury Department, but had no children at the time of the 1940 census. Several more generations of Allison descendants could be alive today, far removed from the horrific storm of 1900.

Helen and Wylie Smith

Included among the Galveston storm dead from 1900 are Wylie Smith, with his wife and child. They are designated as African Americans with the notation (c) next to their names on the Galveston and Texas History Center list. We can add a few details that characterize them beyond their listing among the many Smiths who died that day.

The 1900 Galveston census names Wylie's wife, Helen, whom he had married four years earlier. She was 45, born in 1855 in Texas. She states that her parents were born in Virginia and Alabama, respectively. She didn't give a month for her birth, although Wylie did: February of 1848. He was a "drayman" in 1900, transporting goods with a horse and wagon. He was born in Alabama, as were his parents. Although both Helen and Wylie could have been born into slavery, in 1900 they owned a home without a mortgage at 3314 Q Street. They were older parents of one-year-old Helen F. who was approaching her second birthday.

This snapshot in time on 8 June 1900 cannot give more than a hint of their past lives. Had they raised or lost more children or spouses in their younger years? Carrying a surname like Smith makes further investigation even more difficult.

He Was an Inventor

The Galveston and Texas History Center at the Rosenberg Library in Galveston maintains a database of the storm dead from the hurricane of 1900. There are 5,132 individuals tabulated. Estimates are that 8,000, or even as many as 12,000 were killed. Only 215 names were available to be taken from the coroner's records. It was truly "the worst of times" and so many individuals could not be identified, or were never found. We are reminded that only those who were killed during the storm are listed on the GTH Center web site: "This list does not include victims who died of illness apparently received as a direct result of the 1900 Storm, such as insanity, exposure, skull fracture, tetanus, trauma and suicide. Many deaths through the months after the 1900 Storm were a result of malarial fever, dysentery, pneumonia, and tuberculosis."

Each of the victims had a story, although many did not leave records or descendants to tell that story. Many can be found in the census of 1900 in Galveston, taken at the end of June. City directories can add details for some. Some may have arrived on the ships that came to the harbor after June, or were transient workers. The family of Samuel B. Allison is one that leaves us enough clues to stimulate further exploration.

The census tells us that they lived at 2532 35th Street in Galveston in a home they owned without a mortgage. They had also been in Galveston in 1880, living in the heart of downtown on the Strand. Samuel was 29, with his wife Mary at just 19. Their first child, Daisy, was an infant. Their next child, Walter, was also born in Texas, two years later. Sometime between 1882 and 1886 they moved to Louisiana, where their younger children were born: Clarence, Arthur, Herbert, and Alberta. Mary stated in the 1900 census that she had borne 7 children and 6 were still living. They had adopted another son, John, aged 11, who had been born in Louisiana. Mary's Texas-born brothers, Edward and Archie Reagan, were also in their household.

It is the occupation Samuel gave on the 1900 census that led to another discovery: mechanical inventor. He had applied for two patents. In 1898 and again in early 1900 he submitted applications for machines that would more efficiently separate fiber from stalks, such as flax. Both were granted in 1902 and acknowledged that he was deceased.

A few details about Samuel's appearance are found on his application for a passport in 1892: 5 feet 7 inches tall with hazel eyes and graying hair. In 1897 he can be found a the passenger list returning from a trip to Belize to New Orleans. 

When the storm came to Galveston on 8 September 1900, the Allison family had only been in residence again for a short time. Their youngest child had been born in Louisiana in August of 1898. Further research into their life in New Orleans could add more details to their narrative. A C. A. Dorrestein was acting in his behalf when the patents were granted in 1902.

Jaques Ardisson, Carpenter

So many families huddled in their homes during the 1900 hurricane in Galveston, hoping to ride out the storm. They may have raised the structures on stilts to stay dry above the high tides of past storms. The homes near the Gulf of Mexico on S Street were relatively small frame residences on lots that were 40 feet wide. The family of Jaques Ardisson, a French-born carpenter, lived in such a home on S 1/2 Street near 37th Street. The 1899 Sanborn map shows no other homes on the block between their front porch and the Gulf. They could enjoy the view of sunrise over the water.

The census that was taken in Galveston in June of 1900 enumerates the residents of the neighborhood. Jaques was 41, living in a mortgaged home that he owned. His wife was Josphine Falco, who had been born in Louisiana, but stated that her parents were of German and Spanish origin. Her brother Joseph Falco was living with them and was also working as a carpenter at 24, likely assisting his brother-in-law. Josephine said she had given birth to 10 children, of whom 8 were living. At 33 she had a 15-year-old, Joseph, who had left school and was working as an office boy. Did they have an older child, who had already married and left home? The younger six children are listed in sequence: Annie G. 13, James S. 11, Francis M. 9, Russie F. 6, Viola, 4, and Louis 2.

The Ardisson family are all counted on the official list of storm dead, as well as J. A. C. Falco. It is unlikely that any of the small homes could have withstood the power of the hurricane, virtually on the beach, and at sea level before the construction of the seawall.