Rochester Review :: University of Rochester

Alumni Gazette

ARMISTICE ANNIVERSARY ‘I’ve Got to Do Something for Uncle Sam’ More than 800 alumni, students, and faculty served during World War I. To mark the 100th anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, here are a few of their stories. By Jim Mandelaro

Jules Fish (Photo: University Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation)

When the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, Jules Fish knew he must serve.

“I’ve got to do something for Uncle Sam,” the Rochester first-year student told his mother.

At 19, Fish was two years under the draft age. And at six and a half feet in height, he was rejected by several branches of the military for being too tall. But he persisted, and the 23rd Infantry finally accepted him that summer. Fish’s parents reluctantly signed a consent form, and he set sail for France that September.

“It will all be over in a few months,” he reassured his worried mother. “I’m not going to be gone long.” On April 6, 1918—the first anniversary of the United States’ entrance into the war—Fish was killed in a battle near Maizey, France.

“We all lived in hopes that the inevitable had not occurred,” infantryman Donald McGary wrote in a letter to Fish’s mother. “But after the attack was over, our hopes were shattered as we witnessed four Red Cross men carrying a real hero, our pal Jules Fish, to his final resting place.”

Fish is buried in St. Mihiel American Cemetery in France. The University awarded his degree posthumously in 1920. Fish was one of 862 University students, alumni, and faculty members who served for the Allies in World War I—at home and abroad, on the front lines, in hospitals, and on American training bases. Of them, 326 served outside the United States, at sea, on land, or in the air.

Twelve Rochester women are also known to have served. Eleven men gave their lives.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the armistice for “the War to End All Wars,” here are some of the members of the University community who answered the call.

Margaret Neary Bakker, Class of 1913

She graduated with a degree in chemistry and served as a bacteriologist at Base Hospital 19, in Vichy, France, during the war, then joined a Red Cross unit for 16 months. Never content to stay in one place, she lived in Hawaii, Austria, China, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, England, and France.

Harold Kimball, Class of 1911

He became the first University community member to die in the war, when he was killed in France on April 9, 1917. At 25, he had joined the Canadian Army in 1916, a year before the United States entered the war.

Eleanor Gleason, Class of 1903

A member of the University’s third female graduating class, she received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. During the war, she was a YMCA canteen worker at a French hospital and set up a library system in the Virgin Islands after it became a US territory.

Vernon Brown, Class of 1920

The Canada native left school after nine months to join Britain’s Royal Flying Corps and was credited with downing at least two German planes. He went missing in May 1918 and was presumed dead. In fact, he had been shot down, wounded, and placed in a German prisoner of war camp. Although he didn’t return to the University, the faculty awarded him a bachelor’s degree in 1920 in deference to his war service.

Nathaniel Kendrick, Class of 1921

The first to enroll at Rochester after active service in France, he left high school during his senior year to join the American Field Service and drove a front-line ambulance for six months. He became a longtime history professor and dean at Bowdoin College in Maine. His grandfather, Asahel Clark Kendrick, was a member of Rochester’s original 1850 faculty and taught Greek for 45 years. His father, Ryland, taught Latin and Greek at the University from 1881 to 1937.

Prentiss Gilbert, Class of 1906

The son of William Wallace Gilbert served as a captain in the Military Intelligence Division during World War I. He became the University’s first director of its Extension Division and later was named US representative at the League of Nations and appointed chargé d’affaires at the US Embassy in Berlin, Germany, by President Roosevelt. He died of a heart attack at the embassy in 1939, at age 55.

Charles Evans, Class of 1918

Evans left school in the spring of 1917 to join the US Navy Reserve. That June, he was on a patrol boat off Boston Harbor when an excursion steamer emerged from heavy fog and smashed into the boat’s cabin, tearing off Evans’s left arm. Five comrades gave blood transfusions in a desperate effort to save his life, but he died two days later and received his degree posthumously from the University.

John Lehnen, Class of 1912

The former University football star was working as a law clerk when he entered military service in April 1918, at age 30. He was killed by enemy shellfire five months later in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel and is buried in the same American veterans cemetery as Jules Fish.

Lawrence Atkins, Class of 1915

Atkins served as student body president at Rochester and was a member of the baseball and track teams. He joined the 106th Ambulance Company and was sent to France, where he was a victim of the historic influenza pandemic that would eventually kill an estimated 30 million people. He died in a French hospital of bronchial pneumonia on October 30, 1918, just 12 days before the war ended.

Raymond Ball, Class of 1914

The Wellsville, New York, native enlisted in the US Army in 1917 and served two years as a captain of a machine gun battalion in France. He went on to hold several executive posts at the University, including treasurer and chairman of the Board of Trustees before embarking on a long career in Rochester as a banking president.

Carolyn Emerson, Class of 1908

She was University class president her sophomore year and interrupted her career as a French teacher to join a wartime YMCA canteen service in France, providing food, beverages, and personal items to soldiers. Emerson’s University yearbook quote spoke to her character: “Many are called, but few get up.”

William Wallace Gilbert, Class of 1861

he nephew of Martin Brewer Anderson, Rochester’s first president, had a military career that spanned six decades and included the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, and World War I, where he came out of retirement at age 77 to serve in a recruiting base in Texas.

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