Minnesota in World War I
Stories from Minnesota’s World War I Veterans
Episodes
SHARE:
Minnesota in World War I:
Red Cross Hospital in Paris
April 9 1918 – Alice O’Brien, 26, from St. Paul, arrived in Paris to work on cars but ended up in a Red Cross hospital with absolutely no nursing training tending to wounded soldiers. Here’s Britt Aamodt.
SHARE:
Minnesota in World War I:
Capital of Chemical Warfare
February 1918 – John Bernard McGillis, White Earth member, left his job at the Indian Agency. He wasn’t going to France but to Washington, D. C., and the Chemical Warfare Service. Here’s Britt Aamodt.
SHARE:
Minnesota in World War I:
A Railroad in Revolution
December 14, 1917 – Peter W. Copeland, a railroad engineer and superintendent from St. Paul, and the other men who volunteered for the Russia Railway Service Corps arrived in Vladivostok, Russia. They were here to get the Trans-Siberian Railroad, in chaos after two Russian revolutions, moving again. Here’s Britt Aamodt.
SHARE:
Minnesota in World War I:
The Balloonatic
June 5, 1917 – Joseph Shabb, 22, a member of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, stood in line on the day America instituted the first draft since the Civil War. He’d ship overseas with an infantry unit but end up a “balloonatic” with the 13th Balloon Company. Here’s Britt Aamodt.
SHARE:
Minnesota in World War I:
F. Scott Fitzgerald at War
April 6, 1917 – F. Scott Fitzgerald was failing his classes at Princeton University. But now with the country at war, the university offered to give him credit for his classes if he volunteered for the army. What he really wanted was to be a novelist. Here’s Britt Aamodt.
SHARE:
Minnesota in World War I:
The Opera Singer and the U-Boat
May 7, 1915, Millie Baker, 27, an opera singer from Duluth, was aboard the HMS Lusitania en route to England. She had plans to resume singing studies in Paris. But a German U-boat was on the prowl. Here’s Britt Aamodt.