Tag Archives: Jesse James Bryan

The 1918-1919 Flu Epidemic – Jesse J. Bryan at Camp Gordon

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Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.

Exercising On The Beach (1935) The National Media Museum : Sepia Saturday 542, 17 October 2020

I’m continuing a series on how epidemics, pandemics, and other public health crises have affected my families. Today is a look at what life at Camp Gordon, GA might have been like for Jesse James Bryan. His daily life in the Army included a lot of physical exercise, although not on a beach.

You can catch up on the series here:
Woodrow Wilson (Woodye) Webber
Lizzie Strange
Jesse James Bryan, part 1
Ice Cream for what ails you

Jesse (Joe) Bryan was first cousin to my grandfather Thomas Hoskins.

The index card that verifies Jesse Bryan’s death also provides his date of enlistment – 23 July 1918. My assumption was that this was the day he arrived at Camp Gordon, Georgia. I have read that, in order to ensure better behavior among the men catching trains to report for duty, the Army decided to provide the men arm bands and papers so that they were under the authority of the military before they got on the trains. So it is possible this date is not the day he arrived, but the day he came under the authority of the Army. His train trip probably took a couple of days. In either case, it was late July when Jesse entered military service. He had just celebrated his thirty-first birthday on July 4.

This newspaper clipping from the Atlanta Constitution confirms that a large number of new recruits from Iowa arrived that week. Did Jesse know anyone on the train with him? Did he meet some fellow recruits on the train? Did they stick together once they arrived?

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, GA), 25 Jul 1918

July 23rd was a Tuesday and the clipping above states that approximately 8,000 men had arrived by Wednesday. At its peak, Camp Gordon, located where the DeKalb-Peachtree Airport is now, held 46,000 troops. The photo below shows officers meeting new recruits at Camp Gordon in front of the YMCA building, where they were processed. The photo is not dated, but the day Jesse Bryan arrived at Camp Gordon may have looked something like this.

Camp Gordon, GA 1918

Searching newspaper clippings, it has been interesting to note that nearly every article includes a reference to “white” soldiers – or to “Negro” or “colored” soldiers. There were both at Camp Gordon, but the rules of Jim Crow applied and these fellow soldiers occupied opposite sides of the large camp. Camp Gordon reflected a wide variety of cultures, ethnicities, religions, and languages. Many of the recruits were immigrants who did not speak English, so language classes were also part of training. For a farm boy from Iowa, who had likely only traveled into neighboring states, this must have been a new experience on several fronts.

Jesse was recruited as part of The Personnel Replacement System – he in the September Automatic Replacement Draft. I haven’t been able to determine what number (First, Second, etc.) the September ARD was, which might have given me the opportunity to be more specific about Jesse’s time at Camp Gordon. Rather than being assigned to units that would be shipped off together and serve together in the war, the draft replacement recruits were given general training and were assigned where ever they were needed once they arrived in France.

“The Army began its initial foray into individual replacement training following the overseas deployment of its combat divisions in late spring 1918. Heavy combat losses required an individual replacement system to maintain the integrity of front line units. Depot staffs provided immunizations, medical examinations, job classification interviews, proficiency testing, and initial uniform issue to new recruits. The overworked and understaffed cadre had little time to conduct Soldier training other than rudimentary manual of arms drill and marching. The Army established fourteen Replacement Training Centers (RTCs) at camps vacated by deployed divisions in spring 1918. The hastily formed centers and training cadre required time to incorporate the systems and processes required for individual Soldier training. The centers were operating at full capacity by August 1918. The cadre created a 12-day training program for individual Soldier training and received augmentation from veteran officers and non-commissioned officers returning from France. New troops were assigned to a replacement battalion for additional training upon arrival in France. Replacement battalions emulated the French and British models and conducted training designed to reinforce basic Soldier skills and accustom green men to the operating environment.” Excerpt from:
Learning the Lessons

Once he was processed, Jesse would have been assigned to his barracks and I would guess that training began immediately. I wonder if everyone called him by his given name, Jesse, or by the name his friends and family called him – Joe.

The photo below is titled “At Mess, Camp Gordon.” So much going on in this photo! I downloaded the high res image, so it takes a minute to load if you click to enlarge, but it’s worth it. You can also zoom in once it is enlarged to take an even closer look.

At Mess, Camp Gordon. Image National Archives Catalog

I imagine the soldiers were happy to take off those wool jackets for exercise.

Physical exercise, Camp Gordon, National Archives Catalog

Groups rotated in and out of the Norcross Rifle Range, located seven miles north of Camp Gordon. Each group stayed there for about a week.

Norcross Rifle Range, Feb. 1918. National Archives Catalog

Jesse’s farm experience must have come in handy while training at Norcross.

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, GA) 20 Aug 1918

Since the soldiers were training to fight a war in Europe, foreign instructors provided training useful for the French landscape (like rifle training in trenches pictured above) and in the use of bayonets.

Foreign Mission, Camp Gordon 1918. Nation Archives Catalog

“In a tilt to show American fighters the fine points of bayonet fighting a British sergeant and a captain, instructor at Camp Gordon, Atlanta, Ga. went through the various ways of scientific parrying.”

I would guess that this excerpt from Learning the Lessons about recruits at Camp Greene in January 1918 would have also applied to the new recruits at Camp Gordon:
“Instilling the killer instinct also proved difficult. The division Chief of Staff, COL Christian A. Bach, summed up the problem: Many of the men drafted had never struck a blow in anger in their lives. The bayonet instilled a fighting spirit and gave them individual aggressiveness, but it was never really popular. The rifle was the national arm of the American people, and they do not take kindly to the use of cutting or thrusting weapons. But, although the men of the 4th Division had few occasions to use their bayonets in hand-tohand fighting, the training received was of real value and had a distinct psychological effect.”

Soldiers were trained to go “over the top,”

the use of automatic rifles,

small arms, hand grenades, marching, bombing, machine guns, drills …

This photo, titled “Camp Gordon Sanitary Museum” leaves me with more questions than answers. Take a closer look.

Sanitary Museum Camp Gordon 1918. National Archives Catalog

The camp also provided resources for relaxation and edification – a library, YMCA, religious services, and entertainment. Did Jesse take some solace in conversation with other soldiers and the YWCA volunteers?

The Saturday after Jesse arrived at Camp Gordon, there was a big baseball game between the Gordon team and the team from Camp Jessup. It was reported that 10,000 from Camp Gordon would view the game. Was Jesse one of them? Did he get a pass to go into Atlanta during his first weekend?

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, GA) 23 Jul 1918

In mid-August, a politician from Iowa who had a brother at Camp Gordon addressed the troops. Did Jesse listen to his fellow Iowan?

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, GA) 15 Aug 1918

The exercise training program at Camp Gordon received high praise in a review conducted in late July/early August.

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, GA) 3 Aug 1918

The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, GA) 3 Aug 1918

If you would like to see soldiers and their trainers in action, here you go! Around 8:00, the men are playing fitness games and may be having as much fun as those folks on the beach in the prompt photo.

There seems to be an emphasis on boxing as part of the physical training and I found lots of newspaper articles about boxing matches at camp as entertainment.

Jesse’s time at Camp Gordon was filled with a great amount of time engaged in physical training. Hopefully there were also a few laughs and a sense of camaraderie.

Work out a bit of stress and run over to visit others who have interpreted the prompt for Sepia Saturday. 

Sepia Saturday – Ice Cream for What Ails You

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Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.

I have spent a lot of time this week working on a project I started several (ahem) years ago. I have a photo album my Grandmother Abbie made and I’ve been reconstructing it, scanning all the photos, and sharing it as a facebook album with family members. One of the photos in Abbie’s photo album is this shot of her husband, Charles Smith, buying ice cream.

It was taken in 1953, but I don’t have a location. Somewhere in Iowa, I would guess. My grandfather was not a thin man and we might suppose he ate his share of ice cream over the years. He and my grandmother ran a gas station, cafe, grocery – a full service truck stop, in southeastern Iowa. I’ve written about them and their home/business a couple of times. This post provides the most background: Charles’ and Abbie’s Place.

I had intended to continue the story of Jesse J. Bryan today, as part of my series on epidemics and pandemics, but I’m going to go a little sideways with his story and link ice cream with things I’ve stumbled upon while researching WWI and Jesse Bryan. I have mostly searched newspapers in the Atlanta area, because Camp Gordon was located outside Atlanta and Jesse received military training there in late summer 1918.

In May, a local drug store asked patrons to order ice cream rather than ice cream sodas to conserve sugar for canning.

7 May 1918
The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA

One of the things I have learned recently is that Americans were asked, not only to cut consumption of certain foods, but also to eliminate between meal snacks and to eat only three meals a day. You wouldn’t want to be an unpatriotic “food slacker!”

6 June 1918
The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, GA

This did not deter the ladies of the Baptist Church, however.

15 June 1918
The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Gt

On the other hand, eating ice cream might be more patriotic that eating meat or wheat.

26 July 1918
Thomasville Daily Times Enterprise, Thomasville, GA

An article in The Atlantic, How Ice Cream Helped America at War, offers this bit of ice cream history:

“An editorial in the May 1918 issue of The Ice Cream Review, a monthly trade magazine, spooned out sharp criticism for the scant availability of ice cream overseas: “If English medical men knew what ours do every hospital would keep ice cream on hand for patients.” It cried for Washington to intervene by subsidizing Allied ice-cream factories throughout Europe:

In this country every medical hospital uses ice cream as a food and doctors would not know how to do without it. But what of our wounded and sick boys in France? Are they to lie in bed wishing for a dish of good old American ice cream? They are up to the present, for ice cream and ices are taboo in France. It clearly is the duty of the Surgeon General or some other officer to demand that a supply be forthcoming.
The ice-cream industry didn’t have much lobbying power. Few Americans had refrigeration. Worse, Hoover had downplayed the scarcity of domestic sugar supplies, hoping to avoid a panic. There was hardly any sugar left for America, let alone for allies in France and England—and the promotion of ice cream as a wartime cure-all wasn’t helping. Instead of bolstering ice cream production, Hoover’s Food Administration ordered a reduction of manufacturing domestically—ruling in the summer of 1918 that “ice cream is no longer considered so essential as to justify the free use of sugar in its manufacture.'”

As reported from London, an American devised a recipe for mock ice cream which did not require milk products or sugar.

Wounded and ill soldiers on hospital ships apparently had access to the comfort and nutrition provided by ice cream.

Ice Cream Machine aboard U.S. Hospital Ship “Mercy”
1918

Jesse Bryan was sent to Camp Gordon, Georgia, for his military training. Below is a letter sent from Camp Gordon by Lonnie T. Graham to his family on 17 Sep 1918 – just days after Jesse left Camp Gordon. The letter was accessed from the North Carolina Digital Collection.

I was only going to include the paragraph that references ice cream, but as I read the letter, I wondered if Lonnie had the flu. Influenza hit Camp Gordon mid September 1918. Jesse left on September 3, I think, just missing the outbreak. (I did my best to decipher his handwriting.)

… I am at the Base Hospital getting good attention and about well again.

I am writing in the bed where I intend to stay as long as they will allow me for they say if I get up I have to go to work. And will not will have to stay in here from 5 – 14 days. If any one gets out in 5 days I think I will be the one for I got in here Tuesday night & a square was placed before me Wednesday at dinner. I was so sick at my stomach that I didn’t want anything. But could not refuse such a nice piece of chicken and block Ice cream. The cream was strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate. It wasn’t long before I lost everything. That were’t soup for supper and coffee for breakfast. I got sweet milk from night orderlies. Today at dinner I got another fine meal. I enjoyed the canned cherries more than anything else. Guess they will feed me from now on, as my fever has left me.
    I was better Sunday when I wrote. I washed dishes smartly Monday ____ To get some time _____ provided & there had to rub of wind____
    I learned to (beat) for I kept feeling worse all day. I didn’t report for duty Tuesday am and was (worked) quarters by the surgeon, and that pm. part of us were sent over here. I was glad to get to come for I needed medicine and rest.
    I received Friday’s letter Monday. That was the only mail I had got since I came here. I received Sunday’s letter Tuesday just before I came over, but did not have time to address others. Hester a Cle_son boy said he would hold all my mail, for if it was sent over here I might never get it, so guess I will have some Sunday piled up when I get out of here.
    Unless the time is extended we will be out from under quarantine Monday. It will probably be ______ ended longer.
    You will have to excuse my penmanship for I am writing on my pillow. I could get up, but prefer bedsores and cover to K. P. duty.
    We have some very nice nurses, and several _____ ??h are as good as they can be to wait on us. It is very different from what I was afraid it would be.
    There are about 35 or 40 in this ward & some few on the porch.
    I will write again Sunday. You need not be worry for I will have to stay here until entirely well. Closing now.
Lonnie

Lonnie just couldn’t resist that block of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate ice cream even though his stomach was upset. At least it is good to know that the base hospital had ice cream available for the sick soldiers, should they be able to stomach it.

When I was a little girl and had my tonsils removed, I felt very betrayed by the promises of ice cream when it was all over. It tasted like blood. Ice cream did not make it better!

My husband and I find ourselves frequently eating ice cream during the current pandemic. We seem to think it makes us feel better.

There is more information out there regarding the intersection of ice cream and war – especially during WWII, where some pilots devised a way to make ice cream on their fighter planes.

I will close with this photo, which bears some similarity to the prompt photo.

Sean Connery feigns shoving a vanilla ice cream cone in retired Lt. Col. Charles Russhon’s face during the production of “Thunderball”

There must be 32 flavors of ice cream available to those who visit Sepia Saturday . See how others have responded to the prompt photo.

The 1918-1919 Flu Epidemic – Jesse James Bryan

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I’m currently researching and writing about how my families were impacted by epidemics, pandemics and other health crises, starting with the 1918-1919 Influenza Epidemic. First was Woodye Webber, followed by Lizzie Strange. Now, Jesse James Bryan. I’m still collecting information on him, so I’m only telling part of Jesse’s story today.

I first encountered Jesse James Bryan in the pages of the George Washington Bryan and Sarah Stokes family Bible. He was an Independence Day baby!

Jesse James Bryan was born July 4th 1887.

Jesse is also found on an otherwise blank page of the bible.

Jesse James Bryan died Nov. 13-1918. Age 31 In France. Died with the Flu.

And there is a Joe Bryan with the same information on the Deaths page.

Joe Bryan died Nov. 13, 1918 with the flew in france.

My mother had a few photographs from her father’s family and had identified this photo as Joe Bryan, Aunt Rose’s son. It took me a while to figure out that Joe and Jesse James were the same person, but the bible confirmed it.

Jesse James Bryan

 

Jesse, or Joe, Bryan was born in Drakesville, Iowa, the second of fifteen children born to James Washington Bryan and Rosa Luella Hoskins. Joe was first cousin to my grandfather Thomas Hoskins. In fact, he was Grandpa’s first cousin on both sides of the family. Joe’s father, James W. Bryan was the brother of Grandpa’s mother Sarah Elizabeth Bryan. Joe’s mother, Rosa (Rose) Hoskins, was the sister of Grandpa’s father Thomas Franklin Hoskins. My mother remembered going with Grandpa to visit Aunt Rose many times, so I’m assuming the families got together fairly frequently when Joe and Grandpa were growing up, despite not living in the same town – especially with the double family connection.

Jesse (from here on I’ll use his given name) is listed in the 1900 US Federal Census with his extended family on a farm in Davis County, Iowa. In the home are Jesse’s parents, his grandmother Sarah Bryan Hoskins, his uncle John Bryan, and nine siblings who range in age from fourteen to four months. Jesse, twelve, and his older brother William, fourteen, are listed as farm laborers. Only sister Georgia, age nine, attends school. The growing family is documented again in the 1905 Iowa State Census in Davis County, Iowa.

I was confused when I saw that Jesse registered for the draft in Calumet, Iowa because it is so far from Drakesville. But it also says that he was employed by Ed Heinel in Paullina, Iowa, which is in the same county as Calumet.

That sent me looking for Jesse and his brother William, who are not listed in the 1910 Census with the rest of the family. I found them together on a farm in Humboldt County, Iowa.

William, 24, is listed as a farmer and head of household. Brother Jesse, 21, is listed as “working out” – earning income working on other farms. William didn’t register for the draft until September 1918 in Pocahontas County, Iowa and at that time listed his mailing address as a P.O. Box in Laurens, Pocahontas, Iowa. So it seems that the two older brothers had left the family farm before the 1910 census and were in northern Iowa by at least 1917.

Jesse registered for the draft on the first national draft registration day, June 5, 1917. The recently enacted Selective Service Act of 1917 required all men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register in order to raise an armed service sufficient for participation in the war. Jesse was not immediately called into service, so I’ll assume he just went on farming and working while waiting and listening to news of the war.

Jesse’s Army record of death provides the date of his enlistment – July 23, 1918, a little over a year after he registered for the draft.

I went to the internet looking for information about Camp Gordon this week and found a man in Atlanta whose passion is researching Camp Gordon, among other things. I saw an email address for him and decided to contact him with some questions I was trying to answer. He responded within minutes, offering his phone number so we could talk. With his help, I think we put together most of a timeline, some interesting context, and some suggestions to help my research.

From our phone conversation, I learned that the enlistment date of July 23 makes perfect sense because the large 82nd Airborne Division left Camp Gordon in late April, leaving plenty of room for new recruits. Jesse would have received his orders and boarded a train bound for Georgia, presumably arriving on July 23, 1918. Jesse got off the train at the “back door” to Camp Gordon in Chamblee, GA, walked across the railroad tracks, and waited for his turn to be processed. I wonder if this undated photo taken at Camp Gordon depicts what it was like when Jesse arrived. At its peak, Camp Gordon held 46,000 troops. It was a small city.

Iowa sent 6,440 recruits to Camp Gordon during the course of the war.

I’ll stop here for now with my link to the prompt photo. Jesse was able to go home on furlough before he went overseas. His youngest sister, Hattie, was just a little girl at the time. She didn’t really know her brother, since she was born in 1912 – after Jesse had moved away from home. Hattie told her daughter that she was in the yard swinging when he arrived and introduced himself to her. If she had met him before, she didn’t remember.

Maybe Jesse also enjoyed some time with old friends during his furlough.

For a good time visit other participants at Sepia Saturday.