"You know, he was gassed during the War." My Grandfather, World War 1, & Mustard Gas

“You know, he was gassed during the War.”

My grandfather, Verne C. Russell.
Undated photo.

I didn’t know much else about my mother’s father when I was growing up. I knew grandfather, Verne Russell and my grandmother, Margaret Henderson Russell, divorced when my mother was young. I know now that the divorce was official in 1932 when my mother was almost 11 years old. My grandmother lived with us when I was that age in the early 1960s, and I suppose we somehow knew he was not a topic to be raised. My parents did take us to visit him a couple of times and I know she exchanged a few letters with him over the years. He died in 1971 at the age of 78. I was 18.

My mother Betty. Her sister, Peg. With Verne and wife, Gladsia.
Peg, Betty, Verne, Gladsia. Labelled on back as early 1940s.

Nearly 50 years after my grandfather's death, it’s hard for me to remember when I learned things about him. A little bit here and little bit there. But generally, I saw him as a sad old guy who never got to fulfill his potential. A partial list of things I knew: 

• He was gassed during The War. It ruined his eyes. 
• He saw himself as a Great American Novelist or Newsman but was in fact, not exactly illiterate, but definitely uneducated.
• He lived in the Ozarks, for goodness sake. His California grandchildren couldn't relate to that.
• He really blew it when he had an affair. My grandmother was smart to leave him though I suppose she didn’t have much choice.

So, why write about him now? Did something about him change in the 46 years since his death? Of course not. But access to information has changed, thanks to the internet.

Verne C. (Vic) Russell didn’t become a famous author or newsman, but once upon a time, he wrote a letter to his sister and it was published in their local Kansas newspaper. I found it on the internet several years ago and shared it with family and friends. Then I transcribed it in April 2017, nearly 100 years after he wrote it. I was looking for some small tasks to do while flying to and from California for a cousin's memorial a few weeks ago. The action of transcribing the letter seems to have changed everything. 

Of course, coincidentally, PBS has a World War 1 American Experience airing and the Library of Congress has their own WW1 commemoration on their social media to mark the April 2017 100th anniversary of America’s entry into The War. Many of the social media accounts I follow have noted this. So I'm sure my subconscious was primed to think about WW1. 

(See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/great-war/; https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/world-war-i-american-experiences/online-exhibition/?loclr=blogloc 

and here’s a link to Library of Congress WW1 resources in general, https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/wwi/wwi.html)

I’ve worked on family history long enough to know that research changes what you know and what you think about people. Sometimes, it's not new information or records that change things. Sometimes it’s looking at an old record with new eyes or thinking about it in relation to historical events. My own years of genealogy research efforts added to the research done by my mother and her sister after their father died. I knew they had files on him, with records and family tree information on the Russells that they gathered on an epic road trip they took in 1990. But I hadn’t done much with it other than entering names and dates on Ancestry, along with the occasional census or military record received from the National Archives (https://www.archives.gov/veterans). 

I can’t pinpoint what it is that’s changed. I already knew about the letter and Verne’s military record. Maybe it’s the self-effacing way he describes his part in the events he survived during what I know now was major World War 1 battle. Look up October 4, 1918 in France! Look up mustard gas in World War 1! He was lucky. He not only survived with relatively minimal damage to his eyes. He survived and lived to 78 years old. The facts about Verne Russell didn’t change. My understanding of those facts changed.

Over the years and even in 2013 when I shared my “find” we often made jokes about how our grandfather saw himself as the Great American Novelist who just never got the break he thought he deserved. But I know now that he and his second wife Gladsia did publish a few pieces in their local papers and the big-time St. Louis Post Dispatch. They loved their mountain home that they built with their own hands, and even published a multipart series about their decision to leave St. Louis and build their home in the mountains. I have photocopies of the series from my mother's files, but haven't figured out where they were published. These articles show he was a very simple man, but with the help of Gladsia, he wrote and published. There's nothing wrong with being a simple man with roots in Kansas and Arkansas. I feel sad that he never realized his dream and I don't think he was sad about it either. I don't think less of him for that or for his roots. 

I hate that my grandfather had an affair. It's hard for me to respect people who do that. But as is often the case, my grandmother was probably better off without him. It’s a bit ironic that a man who probably saw himself as a strong man, with a CAPITAL M, married two very strong women. One was strong enough to leave him and raise two daughters without him. The other was strong enough to take care of him for 40 years, and try to make him into the man he thought he was. I'm proud to have my grandmother, Margaret Henderson Russell, as my role model of a strong woman.

As a young man, before my grandmother met him, he served his country from 1914 to 1919. He received two Purple Hearts, one for action in July 1918 and the other for the events of October 4, 1918 which are the subject of his letter. So clearly, he was a Strong Man. His military record is impressive for an uneducated man from the middle of America, or for anyone. I'm proud of his service to our country. 

He was handsome in his uniform when my grandmother met him. He had recovered from the gassing. He worked at Fort Leavenworth where both her father and grandfather had been stationed and worked as guards. My grandmother worked there as well as a telephone operator. We'll never know why she fell for him. There must have been something different about him, compared to all the other young men she met. Her scrapbook is full of pictures of her with young soldiers and veterans. She never remarried, but she always had gentleman friends. Her story is for some future blog post, or perhaps a book. 

The Leavenworth War College, where Verne and Margaret met.

In 1918, my grandfather really was “gassed during the war” and he wrote about it to his sister, while recovering in a hospital in France. This letter was surely dictated by my grandfather, perhaps to his nurse Ethel Hofer, perhaps to some other hospital volunteer. His eyes were just beginning to function two months after the gassing he experienced, so I don't think he wrote it by his own hand. But I can hear what I am sure is his voice coming through; for example, when he uses the phrase “dippy as a coon.”

Transcribing this 1918 letter from Verne Russell to his sister brought my grandfather to life for me after years of research. And so as the anniversary of his birth 124 years ago approaches, I honor the grandfather I barely knew. Verne C. Russell, the man who was gassed during The War.

Beaul, France, Dec. 20, 1918

Dear Sister and All:

  This will be a full account of my trip to the hospital. The fatal day was October 4th; time 10:30a.m.; place Argonne Woods; cause mustard gas.

  On the evening of the 3rd I had orders to take three men with me and stay at a switchboard station until the next morning when we would receive orders to move on at the right time.I picked my men and went to the station, those on duty returning to their dugouts. I knew that in the early morning hours we were going to throw a barrage into Jerry and of course the boys were going to follow, the Signal Corps going with the infantry. During the night I found out the barrage was to commence at four o’clock lasting one hour — then over the top.

  About 3:20 I went to the dugout to get my pack but could not roll it until the S.C. got out of the way for I got stepped on a number of times trying it. I gave it up and started to talk to a sergeant. While we were talking the barrage started and as the boys were to follow it up they started to file out. About the time our barrage started Jerry came down with just as good a one so you see we went out into shell fire that is something like going out of a house into a rain storm. I rolled my pack and beat it back to the station for I expected our lines to go out under that hail of shells. But as luck would have it not a line had been hit. Two things I forgot to mention: Early in the evening I had a few words with two officers about moving my station. My officers had told me to stay there but these officers from another outfit wanted the dugout I had the switchboard in for their headquarters, so I called my signal officer and we stayed. They felt sore and I can’t blame them. After the barrage started I made up for the feeling though, for they both got hit, hone in the hand and the other in the neck. I tied them both up in fine shape and they went on to their headquarters. The other things was the dugout where the S.C. stayed was large enough to sleep 150 men though we were somewhat crowded. About 6:30 our line went out but I found the break a short ways from the station. 

  I went back and took the switchboard myself to let the men sleep. I was at the board until  about 10:30 when a line was shot to pieces I found out later. I called the switchboard man, took another man and went to find the break. Jerry was shooting gas so we had to wear masks. We came to a place where the line ran through some bushes and here we located the trouble. After mending it we started back to our station to get a little sleep. I slept four hours when I had to go chase a line. I felt funny and a little sick and when I went out in the air my eyes began to burn and water but I went on. By the time I had the line fixed I had to force myself to keep my eyes open. The sickness had gone to my stomach and I did the seasick act proper. One of the sergeants was there and he took me to the first aid station. The only way I could see by this time was to pull my eyes open. They loaded me into an ambulance and sent me to a field hospital and for three weeks my mind was blank. Sometimes I would come to long enough to get a faint idea of where I was, once on the train, once in the hospital, and once here. In the filed hospital I remember I was sick at the stomach and I heard a voice I thought I knew. On the train was where I was scared and I had a right to be. I came alive and found I was all stopped up, could not get my breath and had a rattling in my throat. I called for a doctor and they carried me to the car ahead where I could get more air. From now on is what the nurse told me. She is Miss Ethel Hofer, of California, and if you want to thank anyone, she is the one. Miss Hofer has told me showed her a good time the first few days, said I was dippy as a coon. After I got my head back again I lay there thinking about my eyes. No one will ever know how much my brain worked those days. I knew the government would teach me some kind of a trade but I sure hated to think about not being able to see again. I asked the doctor if I would ever see again and he always said yes. But I thought differently though I never said so but once. The doctor came and pried my left eye open and I saw just a bit of light. Not long after that my right eye came to life and from that time I have been coming along in very fine shape. My eyes are just about as good as ever and my cough is better although I still cough a plenty. Can’t do much for one of these cough — just have to cough it out.

  Have been expecting to leave here but have decided to wait and let them do as they please. I will be home some time.

CORP. VERNE C. RUSSELL

Co. C, 5th Field Battery, A.E.F.

Clipping from the Iola Daily Register, February 11, 1919.
The "Happenings at Colony" column.