Memoirs of a West Virginia Doughboy in France

My grandfather, Luther Charleworth Stine of Hardy County, West Virginia, was a private in the U.S. Army at the conclusion of World War I. He was stationed in Beaune, France, and worked as a cook for Hospital Train #40. Soon after his return from the war in July 1919, he was asked by local newspaper -- the Moorefield WV Examiner -- to provide a short write-up of his military experience. Although he only saw combat from a distance, his brief "memoir" provides an interesting and sometimes amusing glimpse of France and the life of an American serviceman through the eyes of a small-town West Virginia farmboy -- one who likely had never traveled much beyond 100 miles of his home before he was drafted. After the war, Luther lost his first wife, Ida Spain, to the Spanish Influenze epidemic sweeping the U.S., then married my grandmother, Ada Alice Bradfield, and he became a very successful teacher, cabinet-maker (working for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC), furniture-maker, and home-builder in Cumberland, Maryland. He also was a dedicated Bible scholar and Sunday School teacher. He died of a heart attack two months prior to my birth in 1995. Submitted by Martin Luther Heavner, Ijamsville, Maryland