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Mary Chase had a shoebox full of letters from her son Leon. When Mary
died in 1949, her youngest son Lawrence found and kept the box. In 1993
Lawrence·s wife, Florence, ´discoveredµ the collection and passed it along to
Leon·s daughter, Pat Chase Olson. This book is that collection of letters³
letters that document the year-long career of a World War I soldier, from the
time he signed up to the time he mustered out. But first, let·s set the stage:
Aurora, Illinois, astraddle the Fox River, was the western
terminus of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad·s
commuter line to Chicago, and the home of its railcar
construction and repair shops. In this blue-collar town, Fulton Street was a
few blocks east from the roundhouses and a couple blocks from the Moose
Lodge. It was there at number 494 Fulton Street that carpenter and
millwright Charles Dewitt Chase, 56, and Mary, his 49-year-old wife of 25
years, had set up housekeeping several years earlier. When our story begins,
the home was also occupied by their six children: Aaron (23), Leon (22),
Clarence (21), Rose (17), and the ´little ones,µ Lawrence (8), and Mary (4).
When, in 1917, the United States decided to join the War in Europe, the
three Chase sons, Aaron, Leon, and Clarence, volunteered to join the fight
against the Kaiser. One at a time in early 1918, they left home and joined the
United States Army.

Before 21-year-old Clarence enlisted, he had been working with Mr. E. P.

Taylor in the Pass Bureau of the Burlington Railroad. By the beginning of
April, he was already a Private in the
Quartermaster Corps, stationed at
Fort Sheridan, north of Chicago.
Since the Declaration of War a year

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earlier, Fort Sheridan³ with its distinctive 288-foot tower flanked by 1,000
feet of barracks³had been converted to an active duty induction and
training center from its previous reserve training mission. The roads on the
fort were still unpaved, and in the early Spring, travel could be difficult.

At 22, Leon was half a head taller than either of his brothers. Though he
had not graduated from high school, he ›
have found employment at the
Western Wheeled Scraper Works. He also took a business course in night
school, and as a result, he had been employed for some time as a bookkeeper
in the Auditing Department for the C.B.&Q. at their offices across the street
from the Union Station in downtown Chicago . His daily commute from
Aurora was 37 miles each way«by train, of course. Although he was single,
he wasn·t serious about remaining so. He had made several acquaintances
that he would maintain, to one degree or another, for the next several
months. These included Miss Ruth Ravenkamp of Chicago, a fellow
employee at the C.B.&Q.; Miss Marie Bollinger, a schoolteacher in the
hamlet of Hanover, in Jo Daviess County, near the Mississippi River in the
northwestern corner of the state; and Miss Donna Loomis of Grand Rapids,
Michigan. Leon had tried to enlist several times, but his poor eyesight³
reportedly just 10% [20/200?]³in one eye gave the Army a reason not to
take him until they were desperate, as they were in April.

Aaron, the oldest of the brothers at 23, had been a stenographer for the
Loyal Order of Moose at the still-young Mooseheart village, north of Aurora,
working with Rodney Brandon, the first
Superintendent of the ´Child City.µ He then went
to work in the General Freight Department at the
Burlington Railroad. Aaron married Miss Edna
Blank on March 30, and wouldn·t ´join the frayµ
until July. Coincidentally, Aaron had gone out
with Marie Bollinger a few times before she was
introduced to Leon.

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 Back at the house on Fulton Street, 17-year-old Rose helped her mother
to care for grade-schooler Lawrence and 4-year-old Mary.

This is Leon·s story, mostly in his own words. There is no attempt to

clean up his letters, either to correct spelling or punctuation or to attenuate
his cultural, racial, or religious views.

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