Update on the life and death of Arthur Alma Kerby

Uncle Art’s World War I draft card states the following: It is dated 5 Jun 1917 in Webb, Cochise County, Arizona.  Arthur Alma Kerby, age 23, born 16 Apr 1894 in Pima, Arizona – farmer for himself, single, medium build, tall, grey eyes and black hair.  I just found the above picture on FamilySearch in February 2024 and you can tell by this picture that his description on his draft card was pretty accurate.  He was a handsome young man.

The reason for this update is because I wrote a blog post about Uncle Art “Arthur Alma Kerby” and posted it on 26 Aug 2015.  I wrote about his young life and how it ended so tragically on a field somewhere in France during World War I.   Most of the records we had found stated Uncle Art had been killed in action.  At the time I wrote that post in 2015 I had no idea where he had died with any certainty, only that it was in France.  I knew his body had been brought home for burial almost 3 years after his death, but nothing about his actual death or where he had been interred.

Link to my previous blog post: Arthur Alma Kerby

We always knew that Uncle Art died on 30 Oct 1918 somewhere in France at the young age of 24 years.  As of 26 Jan 2024, we now know what happened and where it happened, thanks to Peter Wever of the Netherlands.

I received the following message on Ancestry.com on 26 Jan 2024 from Peter Wever.  “Hi Vickie, allow me to introduce myself.  I am Peter Wever from the Netherlands and I am researching American soldiers that were initially buried at the military cemetery of Bazoilles-sur-Meuse.  Among those was Arthur Alma Kerby of whom you listed a photo on Ancestry.  Would you be willing to share a higher resolution of this photo through email. Thanks in advance, Peter”

Peter stated the following in a subsequent email: “Bazoilles Hospital Center was situated in Bazoilles-sur-Meuse, a small village in the Vosges Department in North-East France.  Your Uncle Arther died there on October 30, 1918, from "broncho pneumonia following gunshot wounds of left shoulder and leg" at Base Hospital No. 18.  This hospital was one of the 7 hospitals that made up the hospital center.  He was buried at US Military Cemetery No. 6 on October 31 in Grave No. 348.  He was disinterred on February 8, 1921 for transportation to the US where he was reburied.  See the notes of Father Dinan, the chaplain of the hospital center, on the burial of your uncle.  It also mentions exact time of death.  700 Americans were buried there at US Military Cemetery No. 6.”  I received the following images from Peter.

Uncle Art died at 3:10 PM on Oct. 30, 1918

Cause of death listed as WRIA.  I asked Peter what that meant.  He stated the following: “WRIA or DWRIA means (died of) wounds received in action.  It indicates a soldier died after reaching a medical facility.”

This is where Uncle Art was buried until his body was disinterred to be sent home almost 3 years later.

Uncle Art’s body arrived in Douglas, Arizona on 10 Jun 1921 which was a Friday and his body was held there until Saturday when it was brought to Webb.  The next day, he was buried with full military honors by the Fred Hilborn Post of the American Legion on 12 Jun 1921 which was a Sunday, at the Whitewater Cemetery not far from Webb where he grew up.

Peter has written a book about the Bazoilles Hospital Center and on the front cover of his book is a picture from Base Hospital No. 18, the same hospital that Uncle Art was in when he passed away.  The following is the cover of that book.  After Peter contacted us, we ordered his book so we could read more about the hospital.  It is very interesting and very informative.

I asked Peter if he knew what battle Uncle Art was wounded in and he stated the following: “I noted you wrote you did not know in which battle he was killed - or wounded.  That was the Meuse-Argonne Offensive which lasted from September 26 to November 11, 1918 and is still the largest military activity in American history and also its deadliest military campaign.  See the PDF attachment.  The 3rd Infantry Division in which your uncle served was first in reserve but went into the lines around October 1.  If you look at the map in the PDF attachment, you go north from the grounds gained by the 37th and 79th Division.  Then you see the grounds gained by the 3rd Division (marked by a 3 in a circle) which curves to the east going north.  Your uncle must have been wounded somewhere on these grounds. From there he was probably transported to a Field Hospital of the 3rd Division, a non-divisional Evacuation Hospital and from there to Bazoilles Hospital Center.“

I made a cut of the PDF map to show it in larger detail and I have added blue arrows to show the different Divisions, that Peter mentioned in his email.  Uncle Art was in the 3rd Division.  For some reason I can not get my blue arrows to show up.  Right in the center in the pink you will see a 3 with a circle around it.  It borders the 37th & 79th Divisions which are to the south and then it kind of circles to the northeast still in pink with another 3 in a circle.  Uncle Art would have been wounded somewhere in that pink area.  The town of Cunel, France is about in the middle of that pink area.

Uncle Art would have been wounded possibly somewhere in the area around Cunel, then taken to a field hospital before being transported to the Hospital Center at Bazoilles-sur-Meuse where he died.  It is about 90 miles south of Cunel to Bazoilles-sur-Meuse.  The following is a modern-day Google map showing Cunel to Bazoilles-sur-Meuse.

As Paul Harvey use to say at the end of his broadcast, “Now you know…the rest of the story”.

Written by Vickie Beard Thompson for a blog post on 19 February 2024.

KCMO

Day 3 of our Kansas City trip and I am finally getting a chance to do a little post about the happenings so far in our little adventure.  Flying from Salt Lake City to Kansas City.

Driving over to our hotel from the airport.

We arrived in KCMO on Tuesday afternoon got checked into our hotel and then went to meet Roy's new found cousins over in Independence, for supper at the Pizza Ranch, an all you can eat pizza, salad and chicken place. The chicken was fantastic, as well as the salads, and I was good and did not eat any pizza, though I was quite tempted to do so.  We all started talking as soon as we got there so I forgot to take a picture of the restaurant and the food, but thankfully I remembered to take pictures of the people we were meeting.  😊

We set and visited with Wayne, his wife Viola, daughters Sharon and Susan and Susan's husband, David and son, Daniel, her daughter, Hannah was at work so we did not get to meet her.  We set and talked and visited like we had always known each other, even though we had just met for the first time that evening. We were there for over two hours talking and getting to know one another.

Wayne and Roy are just second cousins on their Mom's side of the family, Roy's Mom, Elnora and Wayne's Mom, Rachel were first cousins.  Elnora's mother was Mary Myrtle Kerby Mortenson, 1892-1969, and Rachel's father was Joseph Lee Kerby, 1890-1956.  Myrtle and Joe were siblings and two of the children of Francis Kerby III and Rachel Isabel Riggs.  Rachel had gotten married in 1938 and within a couple of years she and her husband and their baby son, Joe, left Arizona and lived in a number of places over the years while her husband was in the military and working as a miner. Wayne said he had only been to Elfrida twice I believe it was and that was for the funeral of his grandfather, Joe Kerby in 1956 and one other time.  My husband, Roy was born and raised there and so he was able to tell Wayne a lot about the area and about the Kerby family as well.

We are planning on getting together again next year when Roy comes in for his meetings.  If we have time on the return trip from Kentucky to KCMO we may stop and visit with them before we go to the airport, just depends on traffic and how quickly we can get up and packed on that day.

Well, Roy went to work the next morning and I got ready to meet a new cousin of mine from my Mom's side of the family.  This cousin is a lot more distant than Roy and Wayne.  Kellene and I are 10th cousins 2 generations removed from our common ancestors who were Richard Stout and Penelope Kent.  I come through Richard and Penelope's son, James B. Stout and his wife, Elizabeth Truax and Kellene comes through Richard and Penelope's son, David Stout and his wife, Rebecca Ashton.

Kellene stopped and picked me up at our hotel and took me to lunch at the Smokehouse BBQ in Gladstone, Missouri.  I love BBQ and their burnt end sandwich and baked beans were the bomb!!!!! Thanks again for a fantastic lunch Kellene.....  We set and talked for at least two hours there at the restaurant and then came back to my hotel and I showed Kellene how to go about doing some searches and some websites for family history research for another couple of hours, before she had to leave.  We are planning on getting together again when we come back next year.

When Roy got home from work last night we went for supper to Jazz, A Louisiana Kitchen.  We usually eat there every time we are in Kansas City, the food is dynamite and the entertainment is always really good as well.  I had the catfish po' boy with New Orleans coleslaw and hushpuppies and Roy always gets the shrimp fettuccine.  For dessert we shared a strawberry stuffed beignet. Again Roy ate most of my bread and I had a few bites of the beignet, after all I am trying to be good and keep my carb count down, but I only let him have a little bite of one of my hushpuppies, I had to eat all of them.  😉

Our waiter, Jack, was fantastic and johnny on the spot with drinks, food and just to make sure we were being taken care of.  The place is mainly a dive bar, but the food, well you need to go and check it out for yourself.  A very eclectic place to be, for sure.

Jazz has live entertainers there every night from 7 to 10 and we have not seen any we did not like and last night was no exception.  Just a little video clip of one of the songs this man did last night, I never did catch his name but he was good and man could he play the guitar.

Live at Jazz in KCMO May 24, 2017

After we left Jazz we drove over to the National World War I Memorial that is located here in Kansas City.  That is how Wayne found Roy, his mom, Rachel had always told him about her uncle, her dad's brother, Arthur Kerby, who was killed during World War I in France on the front lines at the Battle of the Marne.  My husband Roy had always heard about this uncle as well and so one of my stories for my blog I wrote about Uncle Art and when Wayne punched in his name on google, it took him to my blog and the story I had written and posted in August of 2015, and the rest as they say is now history. 

There are brick walkways with many names of men and women who either died or served in the many conflicts throughout our nation's history.  The memorial is just beautiful and the grounds around it and the surrounding areas are very nice. I even found a brick for a Henry Doss, which was my Mama Jessie's maiden name.  I need to figure out who he was and tie him to the family, he is bound to be related in some way.  They have walls of pictures of some of the battlefield areas that are really cool too.  Here are just some of the pictures I took from there last night.  

From the monument you can see the building where Roy was having his meetings this week and then the cityscape too.

Tonight we are going to McCoy's for supper, we found it last year, they have the best chicken and waffles and Roy wanted to have them again.  I will have the chicken, but that darn carb thing will make me skip the waffle, but I might just take a bite of Roy's anyway.  😋  I will add a couple of pictures later after I take them tonight.

Tomorrow we will drive across the middle of the great state of Missouri following the trail, Roy's 2nd great-grandfather followed in 1834, from Liberty, Missouri over to his property in Monroe County, Missouri.  More about this in my next post.

Floyd L Thompson

The ancestor this week is not going back to far either and is going to be my husband, Roy’s father, my father-in-law, Floyd L Thompson.  Floyd was born December 7, 1913 in Douglas, Cochise County, Arizona the son of Peder Engmar Thomsen/Peter Elmer Thompson, 1878-1951, and Annie Frances McNeil, 1890-1989.  Floyd was number four of the eight children that his parents had between 1908 and 1925.  Floyd’s father Peter was born in Spring City, Sanpete County, Utah and his mother Annie was born in Show Low, Navajo County, Arizona and both passed away in Cochise County, Arizona.  In Floyd’s life story he said the doctor that delivered him was named, Dr. A. M. Adamson.

Floyd’s siblings were the following and the first three boys and his oldest sister were all born in Douglas, Cochise County, Arizona and the other three were all born in Whitewater, Cochise County, Arizona.  Whitewater is about 30 miles north of Douglas and is now called Elfrida.  These siblings were the following: Gilbert Elmer Thompson, 1908-1992, married Corilla Martineau; Harry Wilbur Thompson, 1909-1961, never married; Jess Lee Thompson, 1911-2000, married 1^st Cecelia Georgia Griffin, then Anna Blanche Turnbow; Angus H Thompson, 1918-1986, married Lelia Mae Huish; Annie Lavine Thompson, 1921-2005, married Golden Leroy Fenn; Loman Zane Thompson, 1923-1924; and Nathala Thompson, 1925-still living, married 1^st Arthur Madsen Evans, then Francis Charles McDonald.  Aunt Nathala just celebrated her 90^th birthday in November.  The following are pictures of Floyd and all of his siblings except for Loman Zane, I don’t know that I have ever seen a picture of him before.  First picture is Harry Wilbur and Gilbert, then J Lee, Floyd, Angus, Lavine and Nathala.  Nathala was so tiny when she was born that she fit in a Mother’s Oat Box.

From Floyd’s life story we read about his earliest remembrances: “I was about 4 years old before I started to remember anything and the things I remember about mother was she was very strict and didn’t have any favorite child, each got their share of the cereal and took our turn in the house and outside chores.  I think I learned the hard way from Mother and Dad the virtues of being honest and truthful.  I cannot speak of Mother teaching me to be a hard worker without including Dad, both of them had about the same influence on my life.  Both were religious, mother was a little stricter in her convictions than Dad.  I can still recall the family prayers every morning gathered around the breakfast table kneeling in prayer, we all took turns, when it started I don’t know.”

Again from Floyd’s life story we read the following about his school years.  “I started school at Whitewater, a two-room school with a style out in front to enter the yard, as I recollect the teacher was a Mrs. Ball and a Mr. Downs was the principal.  The next year they moved into a little red one-room house and added another teacher.  I don’t remember her name but we walked 2 miles to school or rode donkeys or horses.  One morning mother told me go to school and I played around so I could ride with Gilbert on Nickle, a burro, and on the way to school she stumbled and Gilbert jumped off and I fell on my arm and broke it.   When I went to class the teacher looked at my tear stained face and asked what the matter was.  I told her I hurt my arm so she got the principal, he looked at it and said, “You had better go home with Gib.”  So we started home on the burro, and saw Arthur Davis coming to school late and he ask us to ask his mother to take us home, they lived about ½ mile from our home, and mother got Tom Kerby to take us to a hospital in Gleeson, a mining town, where the doctor set my arm.  The next year, I think it was, I got the scarlet fever which left me with a murmur in my heart and about the next 4 years I was plagued with a condition, and at intervals could not walk or feed myself.   The Doc told mother he could do nothing for me.   About that time a Doctor Call came to practice in Douglas, Mother took me to him.  A dollar a treatment for 24 days and if it helped he was to be paid if it was not helping, no pay.  After the treatment I haven’t had any more trouble of that kind.  In 1922 they built a new red brick 3-room school and done away with the old ones and I graduated from there in 1930.  I started to high school and I graduated in the spring of 1935.  I played baseball, basketball and track.  I held the record for the 220-yard dash for the school for several years.  After graduation I went to work in Cave Creek building a bridge, later in 1936 I worked on the highway for Martin Construction Company, putting the black tops on the road going through Elfrida for the first time.  In the spring of 1938, I went to Yucca to work in a mine, that fall I came back and went to work at the PD Smelter in Douglas, $4.40 a day, 5 days a week.  With the money I bought several good calves from a dairy, later they were used as the foundation for our dairy.”  The following pictures show Floyd during his school years.

After Floyd finished his schooling he worked at different jobs and then when he was 26 years old he was called to serve a two year mission for the LDS Church.  From his life story we read the following: “In June 1939, I was called to Denmark on a mission for the church.  That was a turning point in my life.  I had more experiences and learned more in those two years than any other two years and I shall always be grateful to those that made it possible for me to go.  I sailed on the SS Manhattan at noon the 28th of June and landed in Plymouth, England where I boarded a train for Harwich, England going through London, went from Harwich across the North Sea to Espire, (possibly Esprit) Denmark and then by train to Copenhagen, Denmark.  President Garff headed the Danish mission and I was put with Elder (this is blank so I wonder if he couldn’t remember his name at the time and forgot to write it in later), as a companion.  The Germans ended my stay there with the evacuation of all the missionaries from the European countries with the invasion of Poland.  I returned to America on a little freighter, Scan Penn. And was assigned to the Central States Mission (He served in Oklahoma), Brother and Sister Bowman were the mission president and his wife.  I contracted Malarial fever about the 15th June 1941 and was released to come home 5th July,  two other missionaries and I went by Mexico City in a Model A Ford before returning home and I arrived home first of August.”  Floyd also told the following about his return trip from Denmark.  “He said, that the voyage home was full of bad storms and rough seas and that a lot of the missionaries were very sick but that he did quite well.  They had lots of ice cream to eat, but that he was about the only one that wanted any though.  Floyd also said, that a couple of the missionaries fell during the rough seas and broke their arms or legs.  Floyd said, that most of the people on board were quite worried about the storms and also possible attack from the Germans.  The Captain seemed very calm and when ask why, he responded with the answer, that he had the best insurance in the world.  When ask what that insurance was, he said he had 75 Mormon Missionaries on board and so he was not worried at all about going down.”

The following are pictures of Floyd while on his mission and also pictures of the ships, SS Manhattan and the SS Scan Penn that I found online.  The one picture shows Floyd in the middle with two of the men he served with while on his mission, Walter Welti on the left and Alvin Soderborg on the right.

Floyd arrived home in August of 1941 and his sister, Lavine’s little friend Elnora Mortenson was no longer a little girl, but a grown woman.  Sparks soon flew and Floyd and Elnora became engaged and were married December 19, 1941 in the Mesa LDS Temple in Mesa, Maricopa County, Arizona.   They soon started a little dairy and again from Floyd’s life story we read: “We had about 200 laying hens, we raised alfalfa and oats to feed our cows and chickens, we had lots of fun and were doing real good until the government put a selling price on milk and eggs and wouldn’t let us sell our beef cattle.”  The following picture was taken on their wedding day.

Children soon followed and they became the parents of six children all born in Douglas, Cochise County, Arizona and they were the following:  Floyd Eldon Thompson 1942-2015, married Linda Bingham; Elaine Thompson, 1944-1948, she was accidentally electrocute; Marla Thompson, married Ron Nelson, Daniel Joseph Thompson, married Kathy Barney; Malene Thompson, married Russ Mendenhall; and my husband, Roy Edwin Thompson, married me, Vickie Beard.  They had sixteen grandchildren, and as of this date, December 9, 2015 there are 49 great-grandchildren if I counted correctly, but there are some grandchildren that are not quite finished having kids yet, so that number will probably increase in the next year or two.  There are also some great-grandchildren getting into the marriage age category, so soon there could even be great-great-grandchildren to add to their legacy.

Floyd worked a number of jobs through the years besides farming and the dairy and these were as a deputy sheriff for Cochise County and at the power plant up by Double Adobe.  The following pictures show Floyd and Elnora with Elaine and Eldon, then Floyd with his two oldest sons, Eldon and Dan, then Floyd with Roy when Floyd was a deputy, then the whole family, minus daughter Elaine who died when she was little.  My mother-in-law said that Elaine was Floyd’s little shadow and wanted to be everywhere he was at all times.

Floyd was never idle either, he and his wife came from that era that you worked and never set down and watch TV or just read a book, you worked from dawn till dusk.  They raised prized capons, cattle, and fine Jersey dairy cows and their children helped in every aspect.   The following shows their bull Privet Boy, Floyd with a prize capon and Floyd driving the tractor.

Floyd was always active in church, serving as ward clerk for many, many years, a High Councilman and also as Bishop of the Elfrida LDS Ward.  Four of his six children also served full time missions for the LDS Church, Eldon in the Eastern Atlantic States Mission, Dan in the Kentucky-Tennessee Mission, Malene in the Alberta-Saskatchewan Canada Mission and Roy in the California San Diego Spanish Speaking Mission.  There have also been five of Floyd’s grandchildren that have served missions to these countries, Japan, Korea, Ukraine, New Zealand and the Philippines, as well as one great-grandson serving right now in South America and I believe there are two other great-grandchildren with their mission calls that will be leaving within the next few months.  The church has always been important to this family and continues to be so.

My father-in-law was a wonderful man and everyone that met him saw what a great man he was.  He left an imprint on all he met.  While on his mission in Denmark when they were trying to get the missionaries out before Hitler could start causing any damage towards them, he met Joseph Fielding Smith who at the time was an Apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and would eventually become President of the Church.  In the 1960’s while Floyd was in Salt Lake City, he was walking down the street and heard someone calling his name, when he realized he was the Floyd they were calling for he turned around and it was Joseph Fielding Smith who he hadn’t seen in over 20 years but this very important man remembered my father-in-law.

We had been down to visit Roy’s folks in September of 1983 and at the time we thought we still had a while before we had to worry about losing a parent.  The following picture shows my in-laws, Floyd and Elnora, with my husband Roy and our daughters, Elaine and Erica.  We didn’t know at the time that this would be the last time that we would see Floyd.

Just a few months later we got the call that children always hope doesn’t come for a very long time.  Roy’s sisters said that Floyd was in the hospital and things did not look good.  I was a little over 7 months pregnant with our third daughter, and so my parents let us borrow their van so that I could lay down on the drive down to Arizona.  We drove straight through and Roy took the girls and me out to his parents’ house in Elfrida and then he drove into Douglas to the hospital to be with his Mom and his siblings.  His father lasted a few hours after our arrival and then breathed his last on Father’s Day, June 17, 1984 in Douglas, Cochise County, Arizona.  He was buried two days later at the Whitewater Cemetery in Elfrida, beside his daughter, Elaine.  The first photo shows his original tombstone made by his brother-in-law, Rich Porter and the second shows the new tombstone that was made after his wife, Elnora passed away.

Floyd is still missed to this day by each and every one of us, may we all live a life like he did, loving his family and helping his neighbors and those in need, being someone we can all look up to, a HERO in every sense of the word.