This picture of Harry Oxley was printed in the Nov. 11, 1987, Seward County Independent.
It was 100 years ago on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month that the guns of World War I were silenced and the carnage of battle in Europe ceased - 11 November 1918.
The conflict touched almost every family in Seward County and each household in different ways. Henry and Lizzie Oxley of Pleasant Dale sent two sons, Harry and John, to serve.
Providing a comfortable household, Henry owned an implement store but by the time the war broke out had switched to selling real estate. Their oldest son, Harry, was born in Nebraska in 1887. John, the second son, followed in 1892.
By the time of the June 1917 draft, Harry, aged 29, had grown to a medium height and build. He was becoming an experienced carpenter and contractor. At 25, John was also a medium build but tall and worked as a drayman delivering supplies around the area.
The two were among the 12 Seward County young men set to leave for training at Fort Logan, Colorado, in early May of 1918. Harry joined the Navy and passed the examination as a carpenter in the U.S. Marine service. John served in the Army. Harry’s first post was the Naval Barracks in Buffalo, New York. John was assigned to a machine gun unit at Camp Fremont in the San Francisco Bay area.
On 11 June 1918, John wrote home, “Our whole battalion was out on the shooting range Friday, four companies of us; over 600 men. We were practicing in the trenches under fire. We all got in the trench and machine gun bullets were flying over our heads. It sounded like a hail storm of steel … one gun is equal to 100 rifles.” On another note he added, “The worst part of army life is doing our own washing.”
Military life was different for Harry. He related some of his experiences in a letter dated 14 June 1918.
“Today is the first day that I have been at what I call my work. I was out to a plant and helped on a boat. The boss said he wanted me back tomorrow … I was out to another dance last night, so I think I will go to bed early tonight. Of course if some nice young ladies come along in a car and ask me to go for a ride, by gosh, I am going … Cars drive up to our barracks every evening and take some out and even out to supper tonight, forty were invited out to a chicken pie supper … The Red Cross are going to give us all a bag of goods soon. It contains a sweater, socks, helmet, wristlets and some other little things. Say, when anybody kicks about the Y.M.C.A., Red Cross they ought to be shot.”
By September, Harry’s unit had moved to Quebec, Canada.
“We had a Canadian officer lecture us this morning along with a little church. The Y.M.C.A. entertains just about the same as in U.S.A. You know I can’t hardly realize I am so far from home.” Rated as a Construction Mechanic, soon after he was in Europe with the fleet.
Becoming a part of the actual war became a waiting game for John. In August 1918 he wrote home: “If we leave camp Saturday or Sundays now we have to leave the telephone number so they can get us on short notice. It has been that way for two weeks and we expect orders to leave at any time.”
Training also meant lectures. “When we are listening to a lecture from some French officer, it keeps our officers busy waking up the men … I have never been caught napping yet.”
The call did come to head east to New York. In late November, John, now at Camp Lee in Virginia, penned to his mother: “We were on the water three days and nights; left New York harbor on a big transport that just got back from France. There were 5,000 of us … I never expected to come to Virginia, we thought maybe we were going to cross, when we were loaded on the ship, but a soldier never knows where he is going until he gets there.”
At some point, the decision was made that John’s unit wasn’t needed in Europe. The men were sent to Camp Lee to be mustered out.
Harry returned to Pleasant Dale on Jan. 31, 1919 with the rank of C-M-2-C (Construction Mechanic Petty Officer 2nd Class) , U.S.N.A., A.E.F. John followed, arriving on Feb. 12. He had been part of Div. 8, M.G. Bn (Machine Gun Battalion), Co. B with a rank of private first class.
After the war the two continued to call Pleasant Dale home. Harry went into the construction business erecting a number of buildings in the area. John found work as a carpenter. Harry married and raised a family while John remained single.
During the winter of 1949, John broke his hip in a fall on an icy street ending his working days. He died in 1972 and is buried in the Soldiers and Sailors Cemetery in Grand Island. Harry was one of the last World War I survivors in Seward County. He died in 1988 at the age of 100 and is buried in the Pleasant Dale Cemetery.
Although World War I, the War to End All Wars, was not, the young men appreciated the support they received from home as they were sent to new horizons.
