My Son

Of old Scotch-Covenanter blood he came.

Into the Presbyterian Church he was born, and at her altar dedicated to the service of his God.

Taken back, when four years of age, to the old home in the Pennsylvania hills, he was present at the Centennial Celebration of the church where his ancestors have worshiped for five generations.

Called on to say his little speech—I can see him yet—he marched bravely down the long aisle of the crowded auditorium, climbed up the pulpit steps, too high for his short legs and, facing the great audience, the childish treble rang out true and clear, as he volunteered for his first service under the banner of the Cross:

Twenty years passed. His country called. Among the first to answer, he volunteered in the American Ambulance Field Service that he might secure immediate passage to France and go at once into active service. Arriving there on the fourth of July, 1917, on the sixth he volunteered and was accepted the same day, in the Lafayette Flying Corps.

Taking his aviation training for a fighting pilot in the French schools and leaving the last school in January, with the reputation of wonderful skill as a flyer and aerial gunner, he volunteered at once for service with a French escadrille, serving and fighting with it from January to April in the Toul Sector near Verdun, when his escadrille was ordered to Montdidier, then the center of the great German drive.

On reaching Paris, he was notified to report at American Army headquarters to receive his commission in the United States Army. Having received it, at his own request, he was assigned as a detached volunteer American officer to go into battle at once with his old French escadrille.

On the following day, in closing his last letter to his parents, he wrote, in a single short sentence, his creed as an American Soldier, and, all unknowingly his own epitaph, now carved in stone upon his grave in the cemetery at Versailles, the heart of France:

Flying in his Spad to Montdidier, Death met him near Villacoublay.

In his poem, To Whom the Wreath, an appeal for the fatherless children of France, he wrote:

Death is done, my Soldier Son, and you know, aye, you know, that France is safe and children’s homes.

And the little mother (ah! well we ken, Laddie, you and I, how much she gave herself to you) sends you this message:

and saying it, her face glowed with the pride of the mother whose first-born son, flying in the heavens, was transfigured before her eyes as he soared upwards into the presence of his God.

We’ll nae’ forget you, Laddie, and we’ll be greeting you soon, but while we tarry here, sitting often alone by the fireside in the old home you loved, we won’t grieve for you, Laddie, and if we are a wee bit lonely at times, we will open the treasure box of “pleasant memories” you left us and let the joy of them fill our hearts.

Winnetka, Ill., March 1, 1919.