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Outagamie County (Wis.) State Centennial Committee / Land of the fox, saga of Outagamie County
([1949])

Dohr, Raymond P.
"To arms!",   pp. 232-249 PDF (7.9 MB)


Page 242


THE LAND OF THE FOX
country in various cantonments and in
universities and colleges to be trained in
special duties.
  Nearly 100 men of the county volun-
teered for service in the Navy. Three
Appleton sailors lost their lives at sea
during the war. They were Leo Mc-
Gahn, who died of disease, August Zule-
ger, killed in action and Charles Filz who
was lost when the collier, Cyclops, mysteri-
ously disappeared.
  Lawrence College was selected as one
of the training centers for the Student
Army Training Corps during the war and
on October 1, 1918, 403 men took the
oath of service. The ceremonies that
marked the occasion were in charge of
General Charles K. Boardman who had
served overseas with the 32nd Division.
  On Armistice Day, November 11, 1918,
pandemonium reigned throughout the
county. The joy of the people was ex-
pressed by their tears and laughter, by
the whistles of the mills and factories,
by the honking horns of the automobiles
and the ringing of church bells.
  Outagamie County was signally hon-
ored in 1921 when Sergeant John E.
Hantschel was chosen by President Warren
G. Harding to represent the state of
Wisconsin at the public burial of the
'Unknown Soldier" at Arlington Nation-
al Cemetery, Washington, D.C., on Ar-
mistice Day. Sergeant Hantschel had made
an enviable record in the war and had
been severely wounded in action in France
on July 27, 1918.
  On March 18, 1919, the first meeting
was held to organize a veterans' post in
Appleton and on April 17 the final organ-
ization became effective taking the name
of Oney Johnston, who was the highest
ranking man in the first group of Appleton
men killed in France. This post became
part of the American Legion and contrib-
uted two Department Commanders to the
state organization, L. Hugo Keller in
1924-1925 and Marshall C. Graff in 1930-
1931.
  Other Legion Posts were organized in
Kaukauna, Post No. 41; Little Chute,
No. 258, the Jacob Coppes Post; Seymour,
No. 106, the Krause-Kraft Post; Kim-
berly, No. 60, the William Verhagen
Post; Black Creek, No. 332, the Arnold
Duhm Post; Hortonville, Post No. 55;
the Shiocton Post and in 1923 the Outa-
gamie County Council of American Legion
Posts was organized to direct and co-
ordinate all the Legion activities of the
county.
  The Veterans of Foreign Wars organized
a post in the Town of Maine sometime
in the early 1920's. This was the Wolf
River Post No. 6769 and is the oldest
post in the county. Another group was
organized at the Armory in Appleton on
February 20, 1932. It took the name of
one of the soldiers killed in action over-
seas in the Battle of Champagne in 1918,
Harvey Pierre, by which name it is still
known. In 1935 the Electric City Post,
No. 3311, of Kaukauna was organized.
Bear Creek organized the Edward J.
Malliet Post No. 2663 and posts were
also organized in Freedom and Seymour.
  After the Armistice was signed the
Rainbow Division organized its own vet-
erans organization while still in France
and when the men returned home, a local
post was organized for the county veterans
in Appleton.
  The Military Order of the Purple Heart
was also organized consisting of soldiers
who had been wounded in action and a
strong flourishing chapter exists by the
name of Fox River Valley Chapter. The
Disabled Veterans also organized a post
in the county.
  All of the veterans' organizations be-
came a powver and force for good in the
county and it was through their combined
efforts that the County Board established
a Service Officer in the Court House in
1935 and named Edward E. Lutz as the
Service Officer. This office has proved of
incalculable benefit to the numerous serv-
ice men of the county, not only assisting
the veterans in filling out the numerous
forms required by the Veterans Adminis-
tration but in addition pressing to com-
pletion the individual rights of the vet-
242


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