WWI Arthur the Chef

Last Months at
Camp Funston
On October 20th the cooks were issued their white uniforms. In the picture you see Elmer Erikson and Arthur on the right. Arthur begins to express his hope to be sent overseas. This is a recurring topic through the next seven months. "I made 38 loganberry pies yesterday afternoon and they must have been pretty good too, the way this bunch of buzzards flew into them. I heard today that we are to stay here until the 4th of January. I hope not. I don't suppose we'll get started to France before the first of February, if we do then." I am personally quite impressed by those 38 loganberry pies! If I make 2 or 3 at a time it seems like quite a feat, and I never saw my dad make even one pie during my growing-up years.

For Thanksgiving there was entertainment on the base, as the soldiers watched a football game. This pictures gives us some idea of the number of young men stationed at Camp Funston. Arthur also mentions concerts, dances, baseball and boxing during his time there. In December
he tells of seventeen train carloads of
Christmas presents arriving on the
base.

By February Arthur is resigned to staying on at Camp Funston. He mentions cooking for the officers, a duty that continues until a month before he is shipped to France. "Naw, I ain't never going to leave this place. Got a life sentence! Am still cooking for these 'big guns'. I have 30 now. Holy smoke! Can you imagine me doing the same thing for six months? We cooks are taking a two month course at a cooks and bakers school. The instructor is a nice little fellow, a good cook too. A person can learn a good deal from him, and as you know I have plenty of room to expand."

At the end of the cooking course he says, "I am still 'burning slum' for the 'High Powers'. I took the cook's exam the other day and passed as First Cook, ha, ha." The strange thing is, I never knew he was a cook. My mom mentioned that when they were married she was nervous about cooking for him, but I thought that was because she had been teaching and living in a boarding house, so hadn't had much practice. He never cooked, while I was groing up, unless my mom was sick or away. He did teach me the correct and easy way to dress a chicken and cut it up to fry. Maybe that is something he learned at the cooks school??

At the end of May they close the officers mess and Arthur goes back to drilling with the infantry. Finally on June 26th he is on board ship, headed for France, with the 89th Division. After arriving at the front he cooks for the dressing station and drives ambulance. "We are in active service now, quite interesting at times, with occasional air raids and gas alarms, and the firing of the big guns. There is a gun sitting back about a quarter of a mile and shooting right over me."

This is the last of my World War One entries for now. Maybe next November 11th I will think of more to show and tell. I do hope to use some of my dad's experiences in a novel when I complete my current work in progress.

WWI - Arthur at Camp Funston

Arthur Enlists
Here are some further WWI pictures for you history buffs. In 1917 the war was raging in Europe. According to an entry in his mother's diary, Arthur received his draft notice on July 22nd. On July 25th he and his buddy Elmer Erickson left for San Francisco to enlist. They were destined to remain together throughout their time in the service.

My father told me that shortly after he and Elmer enlisted there was a call for cooks. After a quick consultation they decided cooking sounded more attractive that shooting and being shot at, so they volunteered for the job. Arthur's previous cooking experience consisted of helping his mother and batching, but this decision defined his time in the army. In a letter from Angel Island on August 3rd, he wrote, "I just got off of kitchen duty, and believe me, I am some hasher. Waited table for 24 men, 3 meals. A person doesn't have much company. The dining room I eat in only holds 1,500 men and half of it has to be set twice."

On August 28, their last night in San Francisco, Roderick McArthur took Arthur and Elmer on the town and they had the above picture taken. Arthur is on the right. The next day they left for Camp Funston, Fort Riley, Kansas, arriving on September 1st. Unlike most of the men, trained at that facility, he was to remain there for nearly a year. He wrote, "Ha, ha, here I am in Kansas. Who would have thought it? I'm getting to be quite a tourist aren't I? I've traveled around 1500 miles in the last 6 weeks. We had a fairly good trip coming here. One thing we saw, worth seeing, was the Salt Lake. Say, that is certainly a wonderful piece of work. It is about 45 or 50 miles across and 35 miles of it is bridge. I wouldn't have missed that for anything."

By October Arthur is settled in as a cook. "Elmer and I are signed up in the same Co., and also as permanent cooks, if we make good. Him and I were on, today, so I'll tell you what we had for dinner. We had braised beef, sweet potatoes, creamed peas, apple pie, bread and butter and tea. The boys all thought it was a good dinner; even the pies and I made em."

Below is a picture of some of the fellows who cooked. Arthur and Elmer are 2nd and 3rd from the right side.

I

have a couple more pictures to show you on my next post. See you soon!