Week 24: Dear Diary #52Ancestors — Making Sense of it All

I am super lucky (or devious) to have convinced my grandmother to give me the 68-page World War I diary written by my grandfather Charles P. Maier. I’ve had it since the 1970’s and have briefly looked at it a few times over the years. With this week’s challenge, I have spent a lot of time with it, investigating his experiences and verifying his service. It has been such a delight to get to know this man who died three years before I was born.

Charles was born in July 1893 in Newark, New Jersey (you many remember last week’s blog talking about his older brother who died as a baby). When he registered for the draft in June of 1917, Charles was described as tall and slender with gray eyes and dark brown hair.[1] At that time, he was living with his mother and brother.[2] It appears that his parents had separated some years earlier, although they were only a 25-minute walk from each other in Newark.[3]

Charles was 24 when he he was called up to serve and was assigned to Company “C,” 4th Section of the 5th Field Battalion Signal Corps, 3rd Division. He was sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (about 50 miles from where I presently live), for his training before he was shipped off to France on July 20, 1919. Beginning with his time in France and until he was discharged, he wrote in his diary nearly every day. Usually just 2-3 lines and mostly about the food and the weather. However, during the months from July to November of 1919, he described many periods of the Germans “visiting” them again and again.

Very early on, he wrote about visiting Château-Thierry, the site of one of the first battles fought by the American Expeditionary Forces in 1918.[4] Unsurprisingly, he described the place as “pretty well shot up.” Because he’d gone there without a pass, he was severely reprimanded the next day. His comment in his diary was, I “will think twice before I do it again.” True to his word, he didn’t report getting in any more trouble the rest of his time in the Army.

Charles used some funny expressions in the diary. As an example, “My Lady” referred to his bunk-mate. He didn’t make that clear until later in the diary, so I was a little confused to begin with. He also wrote about having “beaucoup” this and “beaucoup” that: wine, champagne, bread and jam, etc. Although he did mention, numerous times, that Army food was uniformly terrible. This was especially so on Thanksgiving as I think he was hoping for turkey but got “nothing by good old army hard tack, soup as bad as ever.” The notable exception was Christmas Day when he wrote that he had a “damn fine dinner.”

In December of 1920, his battalion was sent to Germany and, because he spoke German,[5] he got to work the day shift on the “board” with some German and Dutch girls. He was obviously happy to “parley” with the girls and wrote that a Dutch gal “says she is going home with me. Oh! No.” Because of his familiarity with German, the spelling of the names of the towns and cities he passed through are accurate and he handwriting was impeccable – lucky for me.

During the last months of his deployment, Charles spent his time at the Battalion Headquarters in Andernach, Germany. When he arrived there on January 6, 1920, he reported that he after he ate and got deloused (again), he had a fine bath: “Imagine 2 of us 6 footers in a bath tub. Had a scrubrush (sic) which we applied to one another from head to feet. Best bath I’ve had so far over here.” Between drilling, signal and telephone practice, lectures, and the like, Charles had a lot of time to play basketball and football (keeping meticulous score of all of the matches). He even had time to take a boat trip on the Rhine River to Bonn.

Charles arrived home to New Jersey on August 29, 1920. His diary detailed his movements precisely and it seems as if he was constantly on the move from the moment of arrival to months after Armistice. All of which calls out for me to map out these locations, especially since his parents may have come from regions near where he was deployed.

Charles died at 60-years old on February 28, 1954 in Montreal.[6] He was living with his mother who had remarried following his father’s death. The family story is that he was suffering from tuberculosis and was in Canada for treatment because the healthcare system there was much better than what he could get in America (sound familiar?). His death record shows he did die of TB. Since he was unable to attend my parents wedding in December of 1953, they visited him while on their honeymoon. He is buried in the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal.[7]

[1]"United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZJR-GLQ : 13 March 2018), Charles Maier, 5 June 1917; citing Newark City, district no. 9, New Jersey, United States, NARA microfilm publication M1509 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,754,027.

[2]1915 New Jersey state census, Essex County, population schedule, City of Newark, 9thWard, 5thDistrict, p. 2A, dwelling 26, family 33, Carolina C. Maier; image, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 12 June 2019).

[3]Ibid. Newark, New Jersey, City Directory, 1917, p. 1035, Charles P. Maier; “U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995,” Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 June 2019).

[4]Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org), “Battle of Château-Thierry (1918), rev. 11:56, 4 June 2019.

[5]His parents were both German-born.

[6]Vice-Counsel of the U.S.A, American Foreign Service, “Report of the Death of an American,” Charles P. Maier, 8 March 1954; image, “Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1835-1974,” Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 June 2019); citing National Archives, General Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59, Publication A1 205, box no. 966 “1950-1954 Canada Ma-Ry.”

[7]Find A Grave, database with images (http://www.findagrave.som : accessed 12 June 2019) memorial 85113384, Charles Peter Maier (1893-1954), Cimetière Notre Dame des Neiges, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Charles P. Maier with his younger siblings, Herbert V. Maier and Grace C. Maier