Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1917-09-19
(By Idah McGIone Gibson.)
Staff Correspondent the Daily Herald.

w Nv DC41 LIZA WILL
Rockville Center. L. l., Sept. 49,
This was the stage setting Of the
drama Of the first real American war
baby-a universal drama of the Amer
lean home which will inspire every
father and mother with the spirit of
America in the great war.
A messenger boy passed quickly up
the walk between the squares Of lawn
of a quiet home in Rockville Center,
a typical Long Island town Of 1000,
New orkifed and yet countrified.
1t the door, as the boy waited for
his book to be signed, they read his
cablegram: Arrived safely in France
Captain Albert Whitney Waldron."
Suddenly upstairs, behind a closed
door which opened only as the doctor
and nurse passed In and out, arose a
new sound above the subdued moan
first wall from a tiny throat
for which anxious fathers have listen
ed, since life began, more eagerly than
for the sweetest music.
The messenger boy was starting
back. When he returned to the tele-
graph office he carried with him this
cablegram:
Capt. Albert Whitney waldron
Jr.. has arrived safely in the
United. States. Mother and child
both we'll" =
That is the story Of the arrival in
the same hour at the home of Mr..
and Mrs. Frances G.. Hooley, Mrs.
Waldron's parents, of the first Ameri-
can war baby and also of the news
that the baby's father, at the time
when most men are pacing back and
forth within call meeting their SUI.
preme nervous test, had just set foot
on a distant land staged for death in
stead Of birth.
The cablegram announcing her hus-
bands safety in France was the first
news to be taken to the girl mother
as she lay a short while later in her
ed, with the very image of the alb
sent captain asleep on her arm, n
I'll bet Capt. Albert Whitney Wal
dron of the American expeditionary
forces somewhere in France would
give his boots to be in my place-for
I've just seen this first American war
baby in his b%assinet.
Captain junior q can imagine that
is what he will be called) wrinkled up
This little button of a nose, opened his
dark eyes wide for a moment. then
closed them slowly. He didn't care
about history-or that he was history
In the making, a symbol Of the Ameri-
can mothers fortitude in war time.
Perhaps some day he may be proud
or being the first war son born to an
American captain in France, but now
all the little codger thinks about is
eating and sleeping.
Mrs. Waldron, self-possessed, gives
no sign Of having gone alone through
the valley of the shadow" while the
husband who would have given all he
had in he world to hold her hand at
that moment entered himself another
valley Of death thousands of miles
away. She looked like a young college
girl, in her yellow sports shirt, her
white MILDLY and tennis shoes.
We have been married only two
years in November" Mrs. Waldron
told me. ut was a West Point ro-
nance. AS soon as my husband was
graduated from the Point and receiv-
ed his command we were married,
Capt. Waldron was in Mexico at
frst-
From time to time as she talked to
me Mrs. Waldron turned and looked
at h little baby face, half hidden in
lace. At those times I felt I was not
in the picture. And / wondered wheth-
er she really saw there a baby face,
or a bronzed cheek beneath "a cap
tain's cap.
The bride who faces motherhood
wants to gaze upon her, husbands
countenance, and print his features
on a sensitive plate she alone knows
about. How many hours had Mrs. Wal
dron sat, visualizing the beloved and
dashing young army captain in her
minds eye?
A first in Mexico" she continued.
and then he was detailed in the first
expeditionary force to France.
why yes, of course. OF course 1t
was hard to let him co.
h spoke quietly, and no mere-man
interviewer would have known there
was the ghost Of q choke in her throat.
But it may well be harder for the
wives OF h new army to say goodby.
We girls who marry army men i've
with the sword Of Damocles hanging
over us.
W. know our men have yowad IN
put country before wife or child, This
child" and she turned and picked IN,
the new baby, itarrived the very honr
on h 18th Of August when we 3
ceiyedD and she told me the story
of the cablegram. -
And from the way b told ii I
knew how glad she was. / could read
between her words what q boon her
baby was TO her, ana how she now
cherished the certainty that. even If
III shouid betfdes the captain in France.
she would have his image always with
her In actual human form, ana aot
only in d day-dreani.
The almost scornfnl way in yyhinh
70 my first question, what are vnf,
going to name him ~ she had rauiied
He Is already nanedEfor his fatbsy
Aipart Whitney Eaaaran, Eepnnth