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The Whitehurst Diaries: Our Doughboy, Uncle Lawrence In the photo, Uncle Lawrence Henry Ross is in the center with two unnamed fellow doughboys at Camp Devens- SHARON Sharon Whitehurst's families recall nearly a century later, the sacrifice her Uncle Lawrence Henry Ross endured helping make 'the world safe for democracy,' detailing memories from his letters about the brutal winter endured, both in training at Camp Devon, and the families still wrenching message after the Second Battle of the Marne. Click on headline for complete diary entry. Related: Jamestown's Doughboy in winter - 14 Jan 2018 By Sharon Whitehurst Linda's photo of the Jamestown Doughboy, brings to mind the letters and photos treasured by our family of my great uncle, Lawrence Henry Ross. Uncle Lawrence was 27 when he was drafted into the army. He was part of a group from Essex County, NY, who boarded a train on 22 September, 1917, arriving at the hastily constructed Camp Devens in Ayer, MA in the cold early hours of September 23rd. His first letter home, written at the end of that day, details the journey, the arrival, and the noisy teeming mass of young men decanted into the cold and draughty barracks. On 23 October, 1917, Lawrence wrote to his parents: "Can you imagine how it would be if you went out to your barn and sat there all the evening without your coat or hat on and then went to bed out there, got up in the morning, went outdoors to the tub where the water is like ice and washed, then went back into the barn--no fire to warm yourself by. I started out for drill this morning a-shivering and shaking so I couldn't stand still, and the worst of it is we haven't any blouses [coats], and they won't let us wear anything over the O.D. shirts. That is the regular army shirts. We can put all we can get or want under them but nothing over them, not for drill.Other accounts testify that the autumn of 1917 was one of record cold in New England, settling into the seemingly interminable winter of 1918. Uncle Lawrence sent home for his woolen 'union suits' which did little to alleviate the bone-wracking cold of drill in the snow. In the accompanying photo, Uncle Lawrence is in the center with two Army 'buddies', un-named. Their motley layers of garments testify to the cold and to the fact, also a matter of history, that proper woolen uniforms were behind schedule in production. In March, 1918, Lawrence crossed the Atlantic on a troop ship bound for "Somewhere in France." His letters indicate that France in springtime was little improvement over Camp Devens in winter. In a July letter Lawrence rather gleefully described a few off-duty hours when he and several other 'doughboys' shed their flea-ridden uniforms and plunged into the chilly brook which ran past the encampment. Uncle Lawrence died 1 August, 1918, a casualty of the Second Battle of the Marne. - Sharon Whitehurst This story was posted on 2018-01-15 10:32:57
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