The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1920-08-11
LOCAL BOY NAMED
IN STORY OF WAR
Article on French Care
Of American Graves /.
Tells of McKenna

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Edward F. McKenna, whose father
lives west Of Thomas was among the
heroes Of the great world war who
will never come back from across the
sea, and whose name is mentioned
In the June Delineator.
There were $4,000 Of them. our
very own, who stepped off into eter-
nifty from France" writes Mabel Pot
ter Daggett in the June Delineator.
Her. special article "At the Inn Of
the Lion Of Gold" is the story of the
commune of Landres-et-Georg
(which has been adopted" for the
readers Of this magazine as the De-
lineator Town of the Golden Book.
It was there that the Thomas hero
died in defense Of liberty. He Is
buried in the nearby Argonne cem-
etery. Almost like personal let
ter to his folks this magazine article
reads as Mrs. Daggett goes on:
but eternity may not be so far
as we thought. I'm sure felt them
near. The mud of the Argonne was
dry on the diary picked up in Dead
Mans Land where Brooklyn boy
had dropped it, dated that Sunday
in hell Thank God, they were out
of 1t now; this damned war; as he
SO tersely chronicled it, was done.
The most savage scene of it here at
Landres-et-St. Georges lay in heap
up-wreckage of the ruin of the world
awaiting the searchlight of history
which may some day find the reason
why.
"For the present a shell-pink
evening such as hangs tremulous on
ly above a blue horizon in France,
softly enfolded our Delineator Town
of the Golden Book. 1t was the
Tranquility of the ages that had been
shot through and through here. Ma
ture would restore if she can, what
men have marred. Just as roseate
a glow preceded the coming Of the
twilight as before the hideous hor-
ror that happened here. AS if sunset
and sunrise would make life lovely
again. If that can be, with so many
on two continents away, who were
all the charm of it..
"And my thoughts turn to you in
our dear safe cities of the U. S. A. to
which they will never come back
Yes, oh yes, know. You in your
home, which was so all-American in
the prosperity of its electric lights
and it's steam heat and its hardwood
floors, were so little ready for the
blow that was going to daze you
most of ALL You had never even
seen soldier. Of course they had
them in Europe. Still that wasn't
your boy.
How secure you had been in his
careless youth. He with his tumbled
football hair and his scattered ten
mis- rackets and his college records
not always very good! How little
had you known that he would have
to be hero!
way of him tramping in with muddy
shoes right through the front hall.
The mutinous whistle and the CHEEKY
laugh of him! The rebellious young
eyes of him with their insistent
search for pleasure! He snatched at
every Joy of life as once at the
cooky jar Maybe after all that was
the way it was meant to be for him
for so suddenly he was gone.
"Now at your house since, it's all
orderly and STILL Only for the sound
of sobbing sometimes in the anguish
ed silence. OF course in public when
you're wearing your tailored suit
and the gold-starred service-pin on
your coat lapel, you know how to be
the mother of a hero. But alone,
when you're darning the stockings
as you sit and rock in the very chair
by the sitting-room window where
a little boy used to climb on your
knee! And there's no one to see!
Oh, know. I,know.
"But in the now fading light of
the shell-pink French evening, the
municipal council of Landres is COM
ing together. Listen, dear heart,
with me. For that will occur in the
assembled board of aldermen in this
far French village, that you in other
villages and cities far across the
Atlantic will wish to hear"
And what occurred in the muni-
cipal council Of the far French vii
lage you will find in detail in the
June Delineator. 1t will tell you
how the folks over there are going to
care for his grave in memory of
what he did for France. And it's a
very beautiful story very tenderly
told in the style that makes Mrs.
Daggett's writing dear to the Ameri-
can home.
BLACKFOOT BUSINESS MEN
SPEND WEEK AT PORTLAND