“Orders to move at 11… Set out. Hot. Packs like lead down the same side of river. Many fell out. Lunch on way. Toward Toul… Stayed at night at barracks built in 1904… Up awful hill to get there. Good beds. Canned supper by moonlight. Bathed feet. Good sleep.
Diary of Private Elmore B. Stone, August 21, 1918
There’s nothing romantic about canned supper in a war except when the bright moonlight shines down on the mean. Elmore mentioned moonlight at least ten times. Other moments that may have incited romantic notions are references to letters, cards, and packages from young female friends. He saw a young French woman who looked like one of those friend’s ‘double.’ He wrote, “Pretty.”
Elmore, and every other soldier in the war, depended on canned foods for nourishment. These foods included salmon, corned beef nicknamed canned Willie, and hash. Rarely did the men enjoy adequate quantities and quality. The men stole vegetables, fruits, and meats from the French people. They also gathered beech and hazel nuts. In villages and cities the men visited cafés, restaurants, and markets to buy additional food. The YMCA and Red Cross huts and also canteens provided various kinds of refreshments. In spite of such deprivation, the moonlight regularly enlightened their suppers.
The Diary
Very few people are alive who knew Elmore or know about his World War I diary. In 1969 the American Legion Posts of Oswego County, New York included his summary of the diary in Fifty Years, 1919 to 1969, of the American Legion in Oswego County. He added some details in the summary that are not found in the diary.
Elmore began to write daily war entries in his small, five-year diary on May 27, 1918. This first entry detailed his departure on a train from Little Falls, New York. He and five hundred other draftees journeyed to Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina. Many of them had never ventured below the Mason-Dixon Line. Elmore observed new kinds of crops and vegetation on the two day trip.
The six weeks of boot camp instruction supplemented Elmore’s two years of cadet training at Cornell University in 1915–1917. The officers at the Camp learned of his training and education and put him to work in drilling men in his unit and recording psychological scores in the administrative office . The work planted a tiny seed in his life that turned the interruption of his education by the war into a career in public education. Before the career change occurred, he had to survive many more canned suppers in the Great War.
Elmore saved his war diary survived the war. Philip Gerard didn’t have his one specifically in mind when he wrote about the importance of war diaries. In his Creative Nonfiction: Researching and Crafting Stories of Real Life Mr. Gerard stated, “For sheer primary access to the truth of event and emotion, there is nothing to match a first-person account by an eyewitness.” First-person accounts are sharply contrasted with what Paul Fussell claimed were the unreliable newspaper accounts, movies, and novels about war in his book, Wartime. Fussell explained, “One turns, thus, from novels to ‘non-fiction,’ especially memoirs, and especially memoirs written by participants not conscious of serving any elevated artistic ambition.” Fussell continued, “Because forbidden in all theaters of war lest their capture reveal secrets, clandestine diaries, seen and censored by no authority, offer one of the most promising accesses to actuality. The prohibition of diaries often meant increased devotion and care on the part of the writer.”[1] Elmore never gives the reader a hint his illegal diary was ‘clandestine,’ but it does provide one account of the ‘actuality’ of war.
The author received Elmore’s diary in October 2018 from the remains of his parents’ estate. He remembered the green metal box it had been stored in along with other curious old things. With the hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Armistice ending the fighting approaching on November 11, the author got the idea of posting the diary entries online. He transcribed the whole war diary and wrote a biography.
How did the author’s parents obtained the diary is unknown though the following explanation is plausible. Their oldest son Allen, the author’s brother, bought the contents of Elmore’s house after he died in November 1978. He never imagined his purchase would lead to a biography of his uncle. Among all the things in the house were the diary, war letters, and other World War I items. The war letters were taken from the house by Elmore’s niece and are now in the possession of her John.
Elmore joined the Stone-Davis American Legion Post in Mexico, New York, after retiring from his public education career. He urged the Post to invite his nephew Dr. Frederic A. Stone, Allen’s and the author’s father, to give a speech in October 1977. Dr. Stone served World War II as a pilot and as a surgeon in Vietnam.[2] A year later, Elmore died. Dr. Stone wanted to his uncle’s war diary.
Elmore’s house contents were stored in the author’s parents’ houses in Watertown and Henderson Harbor, New York, and finally in Arlington, Texas. Some of the stored boxes got separated from the rest of the house contents, so the diary and other things remained with the parents’ boxes until 2018.
The Man Behind the Diary
The author first met Uncle Elmore and his wife, Aunt Blanche, in their house in Mexico, New York in 1959. As a seven-year-old boy, they looked old, but they were pleased the youngster and his four brothers. Elmore’s six-foot two-inch frame meant a long look upward. His white hair still had some dark coloring in it. Blanche’s five-foot, two-inch height provided a nearly eye-to-eye level. She was chubby, but she owned beautiful eyes and a big smile. The eyes and smile conveyed welcome and delight to a young boy. She died in 1967. Elmore died in 1978 at the age of eighty-two.
Born the second son of Frederick and Lillie Becker Stone, in Mexico, New York, Elmore grew up in Dolgeville, New York, located among the hills and valleys northeast of Utica. The East Canada Creek ran through town along Main Street. It provided water for the people, businesses, and a cool swimming hole in the heat of summer.
The town acquired a great industrial heritage following Alfred Dolge’s immigration from Saxony in Germany. He made Brockett’s Bridge home for his piano felt pads manufacturing company. He bought wooded land for its valuable timber, built a railroad and important community buildings, and also instituted a retirement plan foreshadowing Social Security for his employees. In 1887, the residents renamed the town Dolgeville in honor of his tremendous contributions to the community’s prosperity.
Elmore’s father Frederick, mother Lillie, and brother Albert moved to Dolgeville in the latter part of 1893 to cash in on the town’s economic boom. Frederick knew a promising opportunity when he saw it and opened a dry goods store selling household items like clothe, apparel, and cards. His brother Ernest joined the business two years later. In 1897, Dolgeville’s economy suffered severely as a result of Dolge’s financial crisis and eventual departure, The Stone brothers persevered through the downturn. They moved the business to a building on North Main Street that became known as the Stone Block.
The Stones lived near downtown on West State Street close to the intersection with North Main Street. Lillie returned to Mexico to give birth to Elmore at her parents’ house on June 1, 1896. The family visited their relatives in Mexico many times while he grew, spending summers and holidays with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. He wrote home to his parents during these visits.
The family vegetable garden played a big role in Elmore’s life. His father and mother taught him to plant and care for the garden each year, as well as handle the family cow and horse. They planted potatoes, turnips, green beans, carrots, corn, and picked berries. These experiences gave him firsthand knowledge of gardening and animal husbandry. Elmore also assisted at the store unloading shirts and other merchandise. He played recreational baseball, learned to swim, engaged in Halloween pranks, and took piano lessons. His paternal grandparents told him in a 1907 letter that his musical aptitude and spiritual sensitivities reminded them of their son George who died in Oman in 1899 as a young missionary.[3] They hoped he would grow up to be a dedicated worker like him.
Elmore joined the First Presbyterian Church and maintained a lifelong affiliation with it. He participated in Sunday School and Christian Endeavor. As an eleven-year-old he pledged to abstain from alcohol, a pledge he kept. His parents and relatives were active Temperance Movement participants. His fathers served as an elder at the church and represented it at two national denominational conventions. The family owned a Studebaker automobile whose tires periodically needed repairing due to the road conditions and quality of the tires. The Studie, as they called it, was stored in the barn during the long winters.
Elmore graduated from Dolgeville High School in 1914. His grades were commendable. He served as the senior class treasurer, the director of the orchestra, and took second place in a Prize Speech contest. Elmore presented the graduation ceremony Class Prophecy. He also served on the planning committee committee for the graduation reception and dance the next evening.
A year later in September, he entered the Agricultural College at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York because he planned to be a farmer. The curriculum included a mandatory two-year military cadet program for freshmen and sophomores men. The training introduced Elmore to many aspects of military theory, procedures, and equipment that laid a foundation him for army service in World War I.
[1] P. 144. Waverly Press, Inc. Long Grove, IL. 1996. Used by permission.
[2][2][2] See the author’s A Last Chapter of the Greatest Generation, 2016.
[3][3] See author’s A Modest But Crucial Hero, 2023.