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Marietta to commemorate anniversary of WWI

Photo courtesy of Friends of the Armory Marietta’s Company B,7th Ohio National Guard stands on the steps of the armory on Front Street before leaving for Camp Sheridan.

MARIETTA — A number of activities in April will commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War I and the role played by Marietta and Washington County residents in that conflict.

An evening of music and history in downtown Marietta for “Founders Day” on April 7 will mark the centennial of the event.

That evening, Marietta Main Street’s “First Friday” will be themed “#MyMarietta History Night” and the Washington County Historical Society will hold its annual dinner. The pinnacle of the evening will be The Castle Historic House Museum will present the musical program “Lest We Forget: Remembering Washington County in WWI.”

Beginning at 7:30 p.m. at Peoples Bank Theatre, the concert will feature talented regional musicians and renowned speakers coming together for an evening remembering the role Washington County men and women served in a world-wide conflict 100 years ago.

Tickets are $15 per individual. General admission tickets are available at peoplesbanktheatre.com and will be available at the door the night of the concert.

Photo courtesy of Washington County Historical Society The Marietta College Student Army Training Corps Band at the steps of Irvine.

“Lest We Forget” will feature musical renditions by Marietta College Concert Choir and Wind Ensemble, The Wayfarers, Barefoot McCoy, Square Thirteen, Dan Heidt, Anthony Mossburg and Shawna Corder.

Inspiring the concert’s music is the Army Song Book contained within the Frederick Jackson Collection housed by the Washington County Historical Society. Jackson was a Marietta College graduate who served in WWI. The music contained within the book are popular tunes of that time.

Many songs also serve as important representative themes to the history of the war, which the event’s speakers will explore. Speakers will include Dr. Paul Lockhart, an author from Wright State University, Sergeant First Class Joshua Mann, a historian with the Ohio National Guard, Becki Trivison, the WWI Coordinator for Ohio History Connection, Dr. Matthew Young of Marietta College, and more.

On April 6, 1917 the United States Congress declared war on Imperial Germany.

During the following century, the cultural and historical significance of the First World War has faded to current society.

Photo courtesy of Marietta College Special Collections Red Cross Work Room located in the gymnasium of the armory on Front Street in downtown Marietta.

“We tend to think of World War I as being something that was fought over there and yet it is the biggest war that we fought up until that point dealing with Americans that had never left their county, let alone gone overseas” said Lockhart.

“This war did not simply impact the men who shipped overseas to France. At home, everyday life shifted to meeting the needs of a country at war. Men, women, and children volunteered with organizations like the Red Cross, YMCA, Junior Red Cross, and Salvation Army to aid both the soldiers and their families,” he said.

On April 9, 1917, the Marietta Chapter of the Red Cross met at the Washington County Courthouse and decided “at this critical time, it is the duty and privilege, of every citizen to contribute his share toward National Defense.” Towns and villages throughout Washington County started their own auxiliary branches of the Red Cross.

In just one month’s time, the Marietta Red Cross recruited 2,604 members. A women’s work room set up shop in the Armory on Front Street, along with other Red Cross offices, with local businesses loaning desks, work tables, sewing machines, and office equipment.

The work room opened on Wednesday and Thursday with volunteers busily sewing and knitting clothing and supplies for soldiers, prisoners of war, and refugees from the war torn countries. The first box shipped to Red Cross headquarters contained 1,824 articles, each packaged and proudly labeled “made in Marietta, Ohio.”

The Marietta Merchants Association operated a drive for local citizens to donate phonograph records and rolls for player pianos to be sent to Camp Sherman in Chillicothe. The Marietta Public Library collected books and magazines to send to soldiers. The Marietta Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution placed a notice in the newspaper to “Invite a soldier or 2 to eat dinner at your home on Sunday” before the local National Guard unit left for their cantonment in Alabama.

Frances Fielding Oldham, Helen F. Pfaff, and Elizabeth Maria Jones left Marietta to start their service overseas as members of the Army Nurse Corps. Ella Kathleen Hoff (Marietta) and Alice M. Young (New Matamoras) both died of disease while working as nurses in army hospitals. Women like Georgia M. Lyons labored as a Red Cross nurse in local homes afflicted by the Spanish Flu epidemic.

The Marietta College Ambulance Corps, consisting largely of students from Marietta and Miami College, left with the intent of serving as ambulance drivers. These men were the first to leave Washington County for service in the war, arriving in France before the U.S. Army. The local Company B of the 7th Ohio National Guard left Marietta in October 1917 for training at Camp Sheridan in Alabama before shipping out to France.

Men from all parts of Washington County were drafted into the army. Many who went overseas received training at Camp Sherman. For a short time, Marietta College was even converted into an army post to train soldiers as part of the War Department’s Student Army Training Corps program.

When the Spanish Flu hit the campus, even the President’s House was requisitioned as a hospital. Washington County’s toll in WWI is accounted to 122 deaths over the course of one year or less of service. In comparison, in WWII around 160 Washington County individuals subsequently died in the three years the U.S. was engaged.

As part of the April 7 activities in Marietta, Marietta. Marietta Main Street is coordinating with Glenwood Retirement Community to create over 300 DIY poppies to hand out to downtown visitors. Main Street and The Castle have worked together to provide a family-friendly scavenger hunt based on the true story of Winnie the Pooh as told in the book “Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear” by Lindsay Mattick.

Additionally, Main Street is partnering with Veritas Classical Academy to prepare an event at the Armory where the students will perform a lineup of poems and songs in remembrance of WWI.

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