Timelines and Stories: LATER TEEN AGE AND EARLY TWENTIES Part 8

So it looks like Alfred is on his first trip outside Indiana. He has left Valparaiso, Indiana headed to Vermont via Buffalo, New York.

"We found out that we would be assigned to the Signal Corpe. We had a special train, only 4 passenger cars & 1 baggage car. No trouble in making fast time. At Buffalo, N.Y. the next day we were met at the station by the Red Cross and escorted to a dining room for dinner. They had made a mistake; the dinner had been ordered for a troop train from California with 1200 men. They found out about the error when our bunch of 200 sat down to eat. When we got through and back on our train the other troop train pulled in the station. I don’t know how they fared but we were well fed.

Red Cross meeting a troop train in Washington, D.C., 1918

The trip through Vermont was beautiful. It was there I saw oxen hitched to high wheeled carts pulling logs. The first time I ever saw oxen work. We got to Burlington around 10 pm. It looked like the whole town was out to meet us. It was the first contingent of troops to the University and I guess was sort of a novelty to them. Accommodations were good; we got the schools dormitory for our barracks – They had a private dining hall manned by civilians so we had no K.P. duty to perform. I learned pretty fast about some things in the army – One was to keep mouth shut. An old sergeant that escorted us to Burlington told me – Be a buck private in the rear ranks, don’t talk unless a superior asks you something and don’t volunteer for anything. Most attractive offers turned out menial work such as latreen duty. We had to put in a lot of time in class and study. A new line for me: centered around electricity. Wireless as it was called then (radio later) was the main source of study – how to operate, repair, etc. dry and wet batteries, antennas, different modes of signaling from using wig wag to sun dials, learning the American code, send & receiving messages, (16 words a minute a minimum) but interpreting the German languages came up for volunteers. A few answered the call. A few days later I was called by the orderly to report to the commandant. After due formalities the officer asked me why I didn’t volunteer for the German interpreters. I told him I didn’t think I could qualify. He informed me my record showed I was fluent in the German language. Gave me a test and said, “Hell you’re the only man I got in this outfit that can read and write in the German script, the other men only know the English script and most of them are damn poor at it.” I was put in charge of 8 men and got my first and only promotion P.F.C. (3 bucks extra a month.) The pay of a P.F.C. was 33⁰⁰ per month less 7⁴⁰ per month for insurance or net 25⁶⁰. Took 2 trips while at Burlington – one a drive to the Canadian border. There is a chain of islands from Burlington to the border in Lake Champlain – The road was narrow and there were turn-outs at certain intervals and if you met a car or other vehicle you would have to go in these turn-outs and let whatever traffic there was pass by. Some of these islands were large and the unique thing was that the farm building were one building – the house, barn, chicken house, tool sheds all under one roof. The reason for this was the deep snow that falls in the Green Mountains. At the Canadian border we were not allowed to cross – Canadian & U.S. guards. But right on the border was a general store – one half on each side of the border under one roof. There were certain advantages to this as to cost of various items. For instance; cigarettes were cheaper on the U.S. side. On our return we took a ferry boat to St. Albans, Vt. and eat supper there. The other trip was a rough like mountain trip through Montpelier, the capital city, then to Barre and saw the huge granite quarries and then to Williamstown Gulch. This was a deep gorge, narrow and you looked almost straight up several thousands of feet of sheer rock to see the top. On our way back, after dark, going down a steep mountain road we almost ran over two men and a cow. They had no lights or lanterns and the driver of the Buick Touring car used both the manual and emergency brakes to avoid hitting the trio. Well the emergency brake “froze.” We spent about an hour working on the brake befor we got it to release.

It was the first of October I got a Special Delivery letter from Dr. Peter Berns stating that if I wanted to see my Grandmother Tendick alive I would have to come home at once. I took the letter to the Commandant and he informed me we were scheduled to leave soon but he did give me a 72 hour leave – If I made all connections on time I would have but 6 hours after arriving at Terre Haute until I had to catch a return train there. I decided to try it, caught a train at 11pm at Burlington and befor the train pulled out an orderly was calling my name out. The commandant decided to give me 24 hours longer leave. Spent most of my leave with my grandmother and Mom of course. The stay was short and Grandmother died befor I got back to camp."

Alfred's maternal grandmother, Katrina (Kukes) Tendick died on October 1, 1918. So Alfred traveled home at the end of September. The following photos were taken at that time.

Helen Bovenschen, Alfred Moehlmann, Matilda Tendick Moehlmann, Sophia Tendick Nolting
holding son Alburtus, Dietrich Tendick,, children in front - Alice & Kathrina Nolting - Sept 1918
from Moehlmann Family Collection