At the boundary: names the roll does not take

1941 – 1945

The captain on two community rolls and no federal list: Capt. Thomas J. Webster of Mishawaka stands in the University of Notre Dame's roll of its dead in service of 3 May 1945 — "Capt. Thomas J. Webster, '40, Mishawaka, Indiana" — and the county veterans index carries him too, a captain with no burial recorded. William L. Webster, killed in action, a different man), and not in the Navy Department's Indiana summary; and a sweep of the whole Army volume finds its other Websters — Blaine, James S., Virgil — in other counties, none of them a Captain Thomas. His death in service is therefore printed here, on the strength of the two community rolls that carry it, and he is not counted in the roll above: the federal record that would settle his service — a Marine captain whose next of kin lived outside Indiana would stand in another state's summary; a merchant-service captain stands in neither list — is named in the closing article as part of the unswept remainder. He is Mishawaka's by every local testimony and unproven by the lists, and the roll keeps both halves of that sentence.

Osceola's man, on a Mishawaka enlistment: Harry B. Kincaid Jr. stands among the county's 430 — the Army list's line is Kincaid, Harry B., technical sergeant, serial 35557270, died of wounds — and the county veterans index carries him at the same grade. The Army Air Corps Museum's extracts place a Harry Kincaid among the men who enlisted from Mishawaka; the county veterans index attributes Harry B. Kincaid Jr. to Penn–Osceola. Osceola is Penn Township's other town and keeps its own roll in its own build; on the index's attribution, which is the record built from the county's own burials and obituaries, he is Osceola's dead, and he is printed here so the conflict stands in the open rather than in a silent choice.

South Bend's dead with Mishawaka threads: The joining rule cuts both ways, and three county names show it. Sgt. Richard E. McLouth stands on the Army list (died of wounds); the county index carries him whole — died in France 9 August 1944, buried at Southlawn — and attributes him to Centre–South Bend. Pvt. Irvin H. Meier Jr. stands on the Navy summary's Indiana pages with his mother in South Bend; the index records him killed in action in France, 12 November 1944, buried at Riverview. 1st Lt. George Edward Murphy of the Marine Corps Reserve stands in the summary under his wife's address, 3023 Mishawaka Ave. — a street of South Bend, not the town of Mishawaka. All three are South Bend's dead. The battles of the boundary are fought over addresses, and the addresses govern.

Born here, counted there: Arthur Albert Huys, born at Mishawaka 3 December 1916 and killed at Pearl Harbor, was schooled, worked, and enlisted from Wabash, and Wabash's roll counts him — the wars file prints his case whole, and he is named here only to keep the boundary in one place. Elizabeth Richardson of Mishawaka, the American Red Cross clubmobile captain killed in France in July 1945 and lying in the Normandy American Cemetery, was a civilian; her city's marker and her story stand in the people and war heroes files, and a military roll does not take her. Charles R. 2nd Lt. Catharine R. Price of the Army Nurse Corps (serial N-771240, died non-battle) is the county list's one woman; no record swept ties her to Mishawaka or to South Bend, and she stands in the county frame with her attribution named among the unswept questions. Charles H. Lavine, an aviation machinist's mate of the Navy in the county index with no burial recorded — a kinsman, on the names, of the lieutenant above — stands in neither the Navy summary nor any record of a death, and is not taken.

Sources:

1. University of Notre Dame, Religious Bulletin, 3 May 1945 (Webster entry); St. Joseph County veterans index (Webster, Kincaid, McLouth, Foster, and Charles H. Lavine entries); Army Air Corps Museum, St. Joseph County extracts (Kincaid entry).
2. War Department, Honor List of Dead and Missing, State of Indiana (1946) — the Webster, Kincaid, McLouth, Foster, and Price lines, and the whole-volume Webster sweep; Navy Department, State Summary of War Casualties, Indiana (1946) — the Meier and Murphy entries.
3. The wars file, the Huys boundary case with its sources; the people and war heroes files for Elizabeth Richardson.