Of War: Stripling Warriors and Refugees

Leslie Thomas Foy, WWI

My mother remembers little of her father as she was just eight years old when he died. In family stories, however, he is larger than life, a missionary for God, a soldier in the Great War, a man of letters, a businessman, a loving husband and father. On Memorial Day weekend we remember his service to country thanks to a history of that service written by mother, his daughter Inez, and a synopsis by her brother Leslie printed by my cousin Shelly.

The brave die never, though, they sleep in dust:

Their courage nerves a thousand living men. 

                                            - Minot J. Savage

Leslie was intimately associated with war beginning with the black clouds which boded ill in 1913, while stationed in France as part of a hospital evacuation unit and continued after the armistice in occupied Germany. War didn't end for Leslie at his discharge either. It extending through physical and emotional after-effects which haunted the family for years.

Leslie was serving a mission in the Netherlands or Holland in when conflict began in Europe. He wrote home from the War Zone from Leemwarden, Holland, October 10, 1914.

"...Holland has not yet been forced to take part in the present conflict, thereby escaping that great calamity which is waging in this part of Europe. She has become the refuge of many thousands of fugitives who have been driven from their homes penniless, seeking shelter at the hands of their hospitable neighbor, the Dutchman. Many rumors have reached my ears of the great tragedy which is being played in Belgium and France; of the people who are being slain, of the cities which are being burned; but is was not til last night that I could really sense the terribleness of the situation. Last night brought a climax to the whole problem, when two extra trains pulled into the station at midnight carrying between five and ten hundred fugitives. The whole population had turned out and awaited the arrival of those homeless wanderers and when they emerged from the station, what a sad sight met our eyes! There were mothers and babes in their arms; children with nothing but a bundle of clothes - no father nor mother, no home. On they came, a little army of rich and poor. Such a scene had I never witnessed before. They were taken to a large exchange building and given food and clothes, and from there they were taken to several different school buildings which had been arranged for their comfort. Those who the day before were millionaires slept side by side with their servants on a bundle of straw. This is but one of the hundreds of similar incidents that occur everyday. It will be a great lesson to mankind and they are paying dearly for it. I only wish they could see it as I do. Experience is a dear school. There is no wheat bread here in Holland. All we get is brown bread and I am afraid that if things continue so, that we will have a famine. The cost of living is raising everyday and work is becoming scarce. All we can do is to live and hope. I am one of the eight missionaries who have been called to remain..."

Belgians fleeing into Holland

I think of that young missionary who had been called to Holland just one year after his mother, Juliette (Julia) Burr Foy, had died. This put a great strain on the family. Leslie’s father was finding it impossible for him to be caring for his younger children and be earning a living for them with his cattle on the range. For Leslie to leave was a great sacrifice. Today in church a woman likened the Sons of Helaman to the veterans of our era. Having learned at his mother's knee, Leslie knew he should serve a mission. He later knew, just as those stripling warriors had know from their mothers that he should enlist in the war effort.

"1917 was a year which changed the lives of most of the citizens of the United States, including the Foys.  When war was declared, Leslie and his cousin, James, who had lived with the family while he attended high school, dutifully registered for the draft along with the other young men of the area.  Little did anyone realize what the future held for the two cousins, especially James, but the Master weaver’s shuttle was deftly passing back and forth through the loom, repatterning the lives of these two young men as they appeared on the family tapestry.  James’ registration number was the first one to be drawn of all the draftees in the entire country.  Leslie’s was low enough that he got busy applying for admission to the medical corps.

"Leslie had been working hard to get as much of the dry farm plowed for planting as possible before winter set in, when opportunity came knocking.  The school at Bluff needed a teacher, who would also act as principal.  Although he knew he might be called up for military service at any time, he still decided to take the job.  What a shock when he learned that James had died in an army hospital in Virginia and that his body was being shipped home for burial.  Not even waiting for his pay, Leslie, very downheartedly, left Bluff for Moab to attend the funeral of his cousin.

"Leslie didn't go back to Bluff. In February he left for basic training in the medical corps at Fort Riley, Kansas (Barker). 

No doubt, it was in part because he knew his rancher father would need him to return home alive to help care for the motherless children in the family that Leslie applied to the medical corps. Patriotism and responsibility must have weighed heavily. Excerpts of a letter published in Moab's newspaper, "The Independent" which was sent by Leslie from Ft. Riley, Kansas.

Leslie above training trench at Ft. Riley

 "...Every one is eager for action and I guess that we will get it and perhaps mighty sudden at that...The big drive that is being launched present is a very serious one. It is filling the army hospitals with wounded men. They are over worked and it is up to us to lend them aid...

"As many of your readers might wonder as to the duties of an Evacuation Hospital, I shall try to describe some of the details and labor connected with this organization. In the first place, Evacuation means that we must be ever ready to sway back and forth with the ever changing line of action. We must be prepared to move - in case of a drive on our lines from the enemy, to the rear - carrying with us all our patients and equipage and in case of an advance we must follow keeping always just within the line of communication which is approximately eight miles behind the first line of trenches. There are in this company about fifteen officers who are experienced doctors and surgeons who will be in charge of everything connected with the hospital. Attache to these is a corps of about two hundred hospital men - such as myself - who perform general hospital work..." 

Excerpt of letter from Kansas dated March 7, 1918.

"Sure gets lonesome sometimes for a good talk with some of the home people. Those of the world are so much different you know. You can be mighty thankful that you are a L.D.S. Saint."

Leslie loaded with gear. Ft. Riley, Kansas, 1918.

Excerpt of letter from Kansas dated March 28, 1918.

"We are asked not to disclose any names, towns, companies, ships, trains or dates of moves or arrivals. This much I can say, we are ready to go... Have you ever received any notice that you are the benefactor of that $10,000 Government Insurance I took out in your favor? If not I will see into it."

Excerpts of letters to his father and siblings from Kansas dated April 1918.

"...One cannot take life too serious. You must all work together and help Papa. It would make him feel like we were grateful for the sacrifices he has been making for us...By all means kids, choose good companions and read good books. You are judged by the company you keep...What is the use of living if we cannot be or do something above the ordinary. Lead good, clean, moral lives...Cultivate cheerfulness and by all means kindness and good will toward each other. Your best friends are your brothers and sisters...Well, be good and be thankful that you were raised among the Mormons...Kids, if you could only see what comes out of careless and loose morals. Dirty, irksome diseases are eating out the vitals of our young men and women. I have seen lots of sin and sorrow in my rounds, but what I have seen here in these hospitals since my sojourn here puts a cap on it all."

Excerpt of letter from Kansas dated May 10, 1918.

"...I want to go where I can do the most good. Am proud that I'm here protecting you loved ones...You must do your part. Be good, live clean lives."

Those bound for Evac Hospital 8 boarded a small Italian liner at Hoboken, New Jersey. The following excerpt is from the book Stretchers written by a comrade and friend, Fred Pottle.

"We entered the vast, echoing sheds, passed boat after boat, and finally stopped beside the smallest and least impressive vessel we had seen that morning, a vessel bearing an Italian name, the Caserta. We had secretly expected it. Things for some time had been going much too well. Our quarters, we found, were the very worst in this very bad ship, at the lowest level, far below the water line.  The whole middle of the ship had been cleared out and filled with tiers of rough wooden bunks. Our dungeon naturally had no portholes, but received such light as it did get from the open hatch in the deck, far above. The impression one received as he looked up was something like that of being in a well, a shaft having been left open from the hatch, down through the various levels of bunks, to our quarters. At the bottom of the well, under the hatch, were built rough tables, while the bunks rose up in tiers on all four sides. It was pitch dark at all times in the tiers against the sides of the vessel, and there was none too much light anywhere. When it rained, or the sea was rough enough to break over the deck, the hatch had to be covered up with canvas, which allowed still less. Below decks it was stuffy and intolerably cramped, and when everyone was on deck it was equally cramped there. Our extravagant enthusiasm for the pleasures of ocean travel on an army transport was considerably damped, and matters were not improved by the execrable mess to which we were soon served. As dark came on, we went to bed early, for lights were not permitted, and it was difficult to grope your way down into the bowels of the ship and find your own bunk in the dark (Pottle)."

Eating aboard ship.

"We were thirteen days on the way, and had had a great deal too much of ocean travel after three or four... Of all lands and cities, is any lovelier than Brittany or more picturesque than Brest?...France at last (Pottle)!" 

My heart is tender as I think of this honorable young man leaving home to serve his country in a conflict meant to end further wars. He is so concerned about helping others and living clean while he does so. Much bloodshed and horror, mustard gas and ill health are in his future. His family is forever grateful to this stripling warrior and all the other patriots and pioneers we memorialize this weekend.

Note:

History of Leslie T. Foy in World War I by Inez F. Barker.

Stretchers by Fred Albert Pottle.

The photograph of Belgium refugees fleeing into Holland was found on the Kings Academy site by Miles Hodges http://www.kingsacademy.com and attributed to Abbot, p. 43. Further citation information is welcome.

Titanic Impressions

One hundred and one years ago tomorrow the Titanic disaster occurred on her maiden trans-Atlantic voyage. Sailing calm seas under a moonless sky on the evening of April 14th, 1912, this seagoing miracle of industry plied the waters of the North Atlantic. At 11:40 p.m. she hit an iceberg and sunk just over two-and-a-half hours later.

Picture is taken from a contemporary newsreel introducing the Titanic. With the dockworker in front, it is easy to imagine the enormous size of the ship.

The following year Grandpa Foy was called on a mission to Holland and later served in the army during and after the first world war. Returning home from either event he would have traveled the same ill-fated route as the Titanic and just a few short years after the event. One of those times he traveled over the very position of the catastrophe. Years later Leslie wrote down his impressions of the experience and the position of man in a perilous world:

The port of Brest, France, taken by Leslie Foy.

Experience of Leslie T. Foy

"It was my opportunity - once - to sail over the identical spot where the Titanic sank. I have thought of this many times in my more serious moments - just as I, then, reflected the fullness and significance of it.

"We had been notified that morning by our captain that we were approaching the spot where the Titanic went down and that his ship would send out signals as we reached the exact latitude and longitude.

"I recall now, vividly, just how I felt as the ship's fog horns sounded this salute. My heart seemed almost to stop as did the great ship upon which we were afloat . . . it too seemed almost to shudder at what had happened as there passed before my memory's eyes - a panorama of that fateful day. I beheld the Mistress of the Sea - the Titanic, then the World's largest and most palatial steamer and it's cargo of human lives . . . lives teaming with a fullness of all that the then prosperous and socially intoxicated world had to offer. I saw the magnivicent dining room with its social elite, its diplomats, Millionaires; Elbert Hubbard, the writer, and his like. I saw wine and women, bands, dancing and what not - all so engrossed in the magnitude of the thing that - not even the sentinel in his look-out, or the captain at his helm even dreamed that in the short space of a few minutes the great titanic would be sleeping just one mile down directly beneath where we then cruised. I beheld in my memory all these things - and more, but mainly I came face to face with the solemn reality of the insignificance of man - the nothingness of the great Titanic - and the mere speck that man is of minself in the great plan of life. 

"Yes! How unimportant MAN IS ALONE but how great he might become in God's omnipotent plan."

As we chart our own courses through life, we might remember Grandfather's insights.

Note: Grandpa's memory has been typed exactly as he wrote it except with the correction of a few spelling errors. Whether these were his errors or a later typist's is impossible to tell so I eliminated them. Thanks to the geniuses of technology that created spell check.

Character Gets Us Through Hard Times

Are we going to fall of the fiscal cliff? Are we going down with a fiscal avalanche? In difficult economic times it becomes easy to view personal finances through a negative lens. It is easy to fall into the trap of depression and negative thinking. I have to stop and remember that those who came before me, the family members that came down first to pave the way, suffered through similar hard times, if not more adverse conditions. If we take the time to ponder our place in the long chain of our family here on earth, we will have the hopeful experience of sensing our "historical continuity, the sense of belonging to a succession of generations originating in the past and stretching into the future" (Clark).

A business leader, Timothy R. Clark, writes that "to live for the moment, is the prevailing passion - to live for your self, not for your predecessors or posterity." He questions whether we of the 21st Century have the moral fortitude to learn from the lessons of the great recession just as our ancestors learned those of the great depression. We need to internalize those lessons before we can teach them to our posterity. Clark goes on to list four pillars of a WWII communications campaign mounted to help citizens survive the austerities of that war: 1. Don't waste anything, 2. Buy only what is necessary, 3. Salvage what you don't need. 4. Share what you have.

In reading through the Thomas Bingham Foy Book of Remembrance, I see many evidences of those lessons learned in the lives of our ancestors and a few additional ones as well: 5. Work hard, and 6. Don't give up. They were a hardy lot who were able to endure much. That is not to say that they never resorted to negative thinking or pessimism, but especially during the month of new resolutions, it is important to realize that they kept picking themselves back up, re-making themselves, and I'm sure at times had to even start over.

Grandpa Leslie fortified himself in times of difficulty with self-reliance and the ability to stick to difficult assignments. From one history of Leslie Thomas Foy by Florence Foy we find that he learned to work hard,  from his father, Thomas Bingham Foy. "When just a small boy they moved to Cane Springs, about half way between Monticello and Moab, Utah. Here his father operated a Pony Express Station, while the cattle were out on the range" (Foy). I can easily imagine the pony express rider and cowboys as they made do with little. Thomas's grandchildren often related grandpa's ability to make delightful biscuits with no bowls or utensils, just rolling down the top of the flour sack and mixing the ingredients on top.

Leslie on the right of his sister Edna May

Leslie once wrote: "Ever since my Grandfather William Bosley Foy trailed upwards of five hundred head of cattle and some horses into Southeastern Utah from the settlements in the central part of the state, swimming them across the silvery Colorado River at Dandy Crossing, my people have been linked with the livestock industry here and I - in my time - with them. The drive was more than forty years ago and at a time when Grand and San Juan counties were in the pink of condition from the range viewpoint. My father was an older son and was given active management of the cattle while grandfather strove to build up a ranch and a home for his family. Naturally, cattle and sheep formed the principal topics of conversation for the family and as soon as I was large enough I forked a pony and joined my father. I learned the business from the ground up and rode the range while it was yet in its virgin state" (Foy).

Thomas Bingham Foy is located top right in the picture with his family. Notice that the older boys all have sunburned cheeks where the sun beat down on them as they herded cattle and pale foreheads which had been shaded by the cowboy hat. These are, sure enough, tootin'-tootin' cowboy tans resulting from a hard day's work. William Bosley Foy and Lucinda Bingham Foy are seated center row left and center.

William taught Tommy to work, then Tommy taught Leslie to work, and the mothers taught the girls and younger boys. Leslie's history continues: "By living on the frontier he knew all about pioneer life even to the making of candles. There is a story told by a friend of the family to the effect that one time Leslie's mother was driving a team and wagon to Arizona to see her parents who were living there at the time. This one girl, Mag Taylor, and Leslie both wanted to drive. The mother in order to keep peace let one take one line and the other one the other line" (Foy).

Leslie was called on a church mission soon after his mother died. When he returned home he taught school for a half a year and then enlisted in the army. He served as a medical corp orderly in World War I in an evacuation hospital in France. Leslie's history records that "He was the only Mormon in his corps and very often he would have to take the place of Chaplin." Later he was a reporter for the Fourth Corps Flare, the first American Army newspaper published in Germany, contributed to the Stars and Stripes and was on the staff of the Amerioc, the official Army of Occupation newspaper in Coblenz, Germany.

Preparing for burial the body of soldier who died from battle wounds. Leslie experienced many of the horrors of war while working in Evac Hospital 8 in France.

Unlike many citizens who businessman Clark decries as living for self alone and "not predecessors or posterity," Leslie expended untold energy in serving his fellowman. He volunteered his time, talents and efforts to his church, his country, and community. According to his wife, Florence, "Leslie worked just as hard in civic affairs as he did in Scouting and his church. He was a member of the Rotary Club, the American Legion, the Lions Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the Associated Clubs of Southern Utah" (Foy). He offered his skills as an officer in many of those groups and volunteered to help erect historical monuments for the Idaho State Historical Society. It is not surprising that he served as chairman of the Idaho Anti-Tuberculosis Association of Malad since this is the disease that took his own mother's life.

Our grandfather carried the psychological trauma of war then known as shell shock and now classified as post-traumatic stress syndrome throughout his life and may have also have suffered the after effects of nerve gas. Despite the scars of war, he picked himself up and kept striving for a better life. A few of the jobs for which Leslie was employed throughout his life include the following.

Principal of the school in Bluff, Utah
Several years of service in the U. S. Army
Several years of ranching and stock raising
Editor of the San Juan Record
Manager of the Foy-Lester Garage (carried the U.S. Mail)
Advertising Manager of the Twin Falls Times
Owner of three small papers in Nevada and Idaho
Owner of the Cache Valley Herald
Managing Editor of the Idaho Enterprise
Manager of the National Re-employment Office of Grand and San Juan counties

For those of us struggling with tight streams of money due to a variety of causes, Grandpa Leslie would identify. He once wrote, "Of course, the real thing that caused me to cast my lot with you newspaper fellers was the need of a little occasional spending money. As a sideline at school I used to hand peg a few sticks of ink up to the old Franklin on press day for our home town papers. I guess I got the smell of the printer's ink then and it sorta lingers on" (Foy). What I hope lingers on in our minds and hearts is the sacrifices our ancestors endured. If we can accept that in our genetic memory and personality is embedded the ability to work hard, be frugal, pick ourselves up and try again.

Happy New Year, loved ones!


Clark, Timothy R. "WWII offers many lessons on finances." On Leadership. Deseret News: 8 Jan. 2013.     Print.

Foy, Florence T. "Leslie Thomas Foy." n.d. Print.

Foy, Florence T. "History of Leslie T. Foy." n.d. Print 

Our Grandfather, Leslie Thomas Foy

Leslie Thomas Foy is a grandfather we grandchildren never knew in this life. We have heard stories of his youth in rugged southern Utah and his LDS Church mission to the Netherlands. We have heard of his subsequent tour of duty as part of a hospital evacuation unit in France and as part of the occupying army in Germany during and post World War I.

While his maternal Burr ancestry is documented, his paternal Foy ancestry beyond the first American immigrants is a long pursued and equally long evaded mystery. We wonder, though, did those leaves from the family tree drift down in the forests of France, the green hills of Ireland, or the mountain valleys of Germany?

Be an armchair traveler with us as we explore his Foy and Burr ancestry. Read the recollections of his short life on this earth as we share reminiscence of his children. Help us remember him and magnify his legacy.