Back at it in Alabama - 10/7/1917

Camp Sheridan, Ala

Oct. 7, 1917

My Dear Mother. - 

I rec. Dad's telegram this A.M. Will probably telegraph this evening. Was very sorry to hear of GrandPa's death. Sorry I was absent, and send my sympathies.

Everything in camp is going along just fine and last evening I went to Montgomery. The city is not one half as large as Lima, and is absolutely dead. I sure was disappointed in it.

I am just getting ready to go up to the city this evening for supper so will close. Love to all.

Howard.

P.S. I have plenty of money & expect to get paid about the last of this week.

The above postcard from Troy University's Archives wasn't Howard's, but it is dated from October 1917. We can assume it would be a similar scene to the "dead" Montgomery that he described.

Howard's estimate that Montgomery wasn't half as large as Lima (Ohio) likely wasn't right. They were actually likely around the same size, population-wise. However, Lima probably did seem to be much more alive than Montgomery at the turn of the century. Because of Standard Oil, there was a lot of money running through the Lima at the turn of the century, which afforded a richness of its arts and culture. By 1907, Lima had both an opera house and a movie theater - quite the accomplishment for a town of not even 30,000 people. Lima was also a railroad crossroads. This included the Broadway Limited, which was the high-speed, first-class passenger train between New York and Chicago. (Wikipedia).

I'll admit I was a taken aback by the shortness of Howard's response to his grandfather's death. At first, I wondered if he just wasn't that close to his grandfather, George Washington James. Born in Pennsylvania, George had lived in Lima going back at least 45 years according to census records. He  was a "proprietor of marble works" or "monumental dealer" by trade. George's mother Effie was one of his seven children, one of two daughters. I can only make guesses, but my research tells me that George was likely close to Effie. Effie was one six of George's living children in 1917, yet she was the one who signed his death certificate.

Although the 1910 census shows George living with his other daughter Mable Rohn and her family in Lima, he was in Toledo when he died in 1917. Perhaps he was living with Effie and John at the time? Also, considering that Harold seemed to know the town of Lima pretty well, my guess is that he was pretty close with his mother's family and visited often. I'll give Harold a break and just chalk his shortness of words up to decorum of the time.