Dem
47
GOP
53
Today, we hear from reader C.J. in Redondo Beach, CA:
About ten years ago I spearheaded an effort to rehabilitate a local World War I Memorial Park in Los Angeles and get the monument on-site restored. It is still an ongoing project, and probably will be forever—there's always stuff to do out there. Because the monument was dedicated on Flag Day in the 1920s, we always try to have an event there every June 14th.
Anyway, I have researched the people that we knew were memorialized here. All of them feel like "my" people. I cannot be sure any members of their families still honor them, but I do. Many have interesting stories and I try to highlight one or more every year during our ceremonies. Not all are from Los Angeles—in fact, many are not. Seems sorta fitting in a city full of transplants.
This year, I'm featuring George Percival Gabb (known as "Pierce" or "Percy" to his friends, depending on the source), who was born on Christmas Day 1890 in New York City. His father Fred passed away when George was a teenager. I'm not sure when Gabb and his mother Mary moved west, but she remarried and settled in Ontario, CA. Gabb did several kinds of jobs, everything from being an electrician to ranching. When the U.S. entered the war, despite being exempted from the draft, Gabb volunteered anyway.
Gabb was placed with the heavy Coast Artillery that was training at Fort Stevens, OR. A few months later his unit left for France, but he was ordered to remain at Camp Stevens as an instructor, which displeased him greatly. He wrote his mother: "It was the keenest disappointment of my life to part with the boys with whom I have been associated and whose fate I hope to share over there. I did not go into the service to be an officer, but to go to France."
While on guard duty in one of those famous Oregon rainstorms, he contracted a bad cold. That illness soon developed into pneumonia. His mother was informed of his condition by telegram and she rushed to be with him, but it was too late. He died on November 14, 1918, while she was in transit.
George seemed to have a premonition of his short life and service, since on his desk was found a poem. One verse of which follows:Dear Mother, who made my childhood sweet,
Mourn not for your son, nor cry,
In the course of time we will surely meet,
Till then, dear Mother, Good-bye.
Thank you, C.J. (Z)