Joseph and I visited the Soldiers Memorial in downtown St. Louis this weekend. We looked at the cenotaph with the names of World War I dead, and I saw “John A. Becker”. I wondered if this was my great-great-great-uncle John A. Becker, who was beaten and robbed in November 1917 while he was on leave in Chicago from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. He died a few hours later in a nearby building.
Anyway, I wrote the Missouri History Museum, to see if they could give me more details about the name on the cenotaph, to determine if it was my John Becker, or a different one.
Today they sent me a copy of the “biography and service record” page for “John A. Becker” that had been compiled . Sure enough, it is my g-g-g-uncle! The name, birthdate, parents’ names, and address all match.
This form gave two choices for manner of death: “If killed or wounded, give date and battle” or “If died of disease, give date and place.”
Obviously, neither of those applied to my g-g-g-uncle. He was murdered.
But whoever provided the information for this paperwork fudged it. The “disease” blank was filled in with the these words: “Chicago Ill. Nov. 10th 1917 — Result of influenza. Trained Great Lakes.”
I guess it was the family’s way to make sure he was included in the memorial.
I did a little more research later, and found that on April 4, 1937, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat published a list of 1,056 names of “men and women from St. Louis and St. Louis County who died in the world war,” which were to be engraved on the granite cenotaph, including my g-g-g-uncle, John Andrew Becker.
The names will comprise the first complete verified list of war dead from the city and county ever assembled, it was said yesterday by Gen. Eugene J. Spencer, chairman of the Memorial Plaza Committee. The roll includes the names of all persons in every branch of military service who were killed and mortally wounded in action during the war or died of service disabilities, he said.
…
He related that in compiling the list of names the rolls of the war dead at City Hall and the Jefferson Memorial and the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign War records were inspect and checked with the Veterans’ Administration.
Several of the men whose names are on the City Hall roll were found to be alive, and these and other errors have been corrected for the Soldiers’ Memorial list.
Then, one year later, the Globe-Democrat ran a story headlined “Reverence rare at cenotaph.” It read in part:
Of 39 men who paused at or passed by the cenotaph yesterday … three removed their hats … Almost none of the visitors manifested any deep interest in the symbolism of the 22-foot long black granite tomb.
Great findings!!!