The First World War: the Gold Star twelve

1917 – 1919

The roll and how it was made: The state's own necrology of the war is the Gold Star Honor Roll, State of Indiana, published by the Indiana Historical Commission in 1921. Its introduction states its method plainly: the names were gathered from the United States Official Bulletin, from Indianapolis newspaper lists, and from the adjutant general's lists of July 1920, classified "according to the county in which they had lived," and verified by county committees. For St. Joseph County the roll prints 109 dead — 102 with complete records and seven more in a closing list "for whom complete records could not be obtained" (pp. 554–575). That county figure is itself a correction carried in South Bend's record: an earlier count of the same volume stopped at 94, and the full count of 109 was settled only when the volume was read to its end. Mishawaka's dead were extracted from the roll entry by entry, and the county section was then swept whole for every Mishawaka line, so that the count below rests on the roll itself and not on an index.

The eight with complete records: Achiel H. Busschaert, private — born in Belgium in 1897, a shoemaker at Mishawaka when he entered service on July 3, 1918; Supply Company, 326th Quartermaster Corps; died of acute appendicitis in France, December 6, 1918. Gordon O. Fullerton, private — born February 7, 1896, in Putnam County, Ohio, and come to Mishawaka in 1915, a machinist; Company I, 4th Infantry, 3rd Division; killed in action in the Argonne Forest, October 22, 1918. Francis Casper Gehring, private — born March 12, 1897, at Mishawaka, a shoemaker, entered service at Mishawaka on May 22, 1918; Advance Ordnance Depot No. 4; died of influenza-pneumonia, February 10, 1919. Paul F. Oppelt, private — born February 17, 1896, at Mishawaka, a machinist; Company C, 49th Infantry; died of pneumonia at Camp Merritt, New Jersey, March 28, 1918. Edward Richter, private — born October 20, 1889, at Mishawaka, a mechanic; Company H, 339th Infantry, the regiment of the North Russia expedition; killed in action at Kasco, Russia, October 1, 1918. William Franklin Shelton, cook — born September 2, 1885, at Defiance, Ohio, and come to Mishawaka in 1895, an employee of the Mishawaka city water works; Bakery Company 407; died of influenza at Camp Taylor, Kentucky, October 14, 1918. Ora La Verne Snyder, bugler — a drug clerk at Mishawaka, where he enlisted in the Regular Army on February 13, 1914, three years before the country was in the war; Company G, 2nd Engineers; killed in action at Belleau Wood, June 7, 1918. Firman C. Van Holsbeke, private — born in Belgium on June 25, 1896, a laborer at Mishawaka; Company L, 9th Infantry; fought at the Marne and at Soissons, and died on July 21, 1918, of wounds received in action.

The four on the closing list: Ward Lester Adams of Mishawaka, chief electrician, United States Navy, died at sea, September 28, 1918. Floyd E. Godfrey of Mishawaka, corporal, Company A, 61st Infantry, killed in action, October 12, 1918, in the Meuse-Argonne. Julius Van Camp of Mishawaka, private, Company B, 113th Engineers, died February 24, 1918, at Camp Taylor, Kentucky, from accidental causes. Joseph Van de Putte of Mishawaka, private, Company H, 16th Infantry, died June 6, 1918, "somewhere in France," in the roll's own words. Eight and four make twelve: that is Mishawaka's First World War death roll as the state's Gold Star volume gives it, counted from the volume itself.

The shape of the twelve: Two of the twelve were Belgian-born workmen of the town's shoe and rubber shops, and a third bears one of the Belgian colony's names; two died of influenza and one of appendicitis in the camps and depots, against six killed or dead of wounds in France and one — Richter — killed above the Arctic Circle's approaches in Russia, in the war's strangest American campaign. One, Snyder, was a pre-war regular who had waited four years for his war. The roll prints no woman among Mishawaka's twelve; the volume carries fifteen daughters of Indiana elsewhere in its pages, and the negative for this town is printed at the roll's strength in the women-and-nurses article below.

Sources:

1. Indiana Historical Commission, Gold Star Honor Roll, State of Indiana (Indianapolis, 1921), introduction (method) and St. Joseph County section, pp. 554–575; the Mishawaka entries extracted and the section swept whole.
2. South Bend pass, wars-second-pass file, for the county count of 109 settled against an earlier count of 94.