City group planning new World War I memorial
WOONSOCKET — When World War I finally came to a close on Nov. 11, 1918, the United States was among the Allied Powers nations contributing its soldiers and many losses to bringing about that day.
Now, 100 years later, a group in the city plans to mark the fact that Woonsocket was also a contributor to the peace and gave more than 70 of its residents to that cause over the course of the war.
Albert R. Beauparlant, executive director of the Woonsocket Pothier Foundation and board member of the R.I. Heritage Harbor Foundation, is working with a group of volunteers and Fairmount Post 85
of the American Legion to create a new monument honoring the city’s contributions to ending World War I.
Beauparlant explained this week that he became interested in seeing a new monument created while highlighting the city’s connection to Marshal Ferdinand Foch as part of his work planning a revival of the Feast of St. Jean de Baptiste on Main Street last June.
The feast highlighted the city’s connections to French Canadian and French culture and heritage around the turn of the century and included several noteworthy figures of local history, including Beauparlant’s portrayal of a uniformed Marshal Foch at fund-raisers for the event.
Foch, a key general of the French Army during the war, was ultimately named supreme commander of the Allied Powers while leading the final push to defeat the Germans in 1918.
Foch arrived in Woonsocket on Nov. 13, 1921, while on a tour of the United States at the invitation of the local Andrew F. Young Post of the American Legion and a committee headed by former Woonsocket mayor and R.I. Governor, Aram J. Pothier.
The train stop over in Woonsocket was arranged because of the number of local soldiers going off to fight the war. The city’s French Canadian, French and Belgian heritage had resulted in a number of its residents heading to Europe to defend France years before the U.S. officially entered the war in April of 1917.
“We had 30,000 French-Canadian and French residents out of the 45,000 living here at the time,” Beauparlant, a former member of the Rhode Island National Guard and historian for Post 85, explained.
By the war’s end, 71 of the city’s residents going off to the war never returned home and those losses were noted when Foch arrived in the city along side Pothier and then Woonsocket Mayor Adelard L. Soucy.
Foch had arrived at the Woonsocket Train Depot near City Hall on Main Street where Pothier described him as the “mighty captain who saved the liberties of the world and our civilization.”
Pothier added that “Woonsocket shared fully the sorrows of France during that terrible war,” while pointing to the city’s losses from the war’s battles.
The Marshal’s motorcade was lead by Fire Chief A.J. Cote’s automobile and Foch himself rode in a car provided by the French Worsted Mill.
City residents lined the route of Marshal’s ride on both sides of the street to catch a glimpse of the French war hero, according to Woonsocket Call reports from the time.
After a stop at the Woonsocket High School at Park Place, Foch was taken down to Place Jolicoeur, according to Beauparlant, a circle in the intersection of Hamlet Avenue, Cumberland Hill Road and Cumberland Street, and participated in a ceremony honoring the city soldiers killed during the war.
It was then on to St. Ann Church on Cumberland Street where a group of 1,000 children from St. Ann and 700 more from St. Louis Parish sang the French National Anthem to Foch in French, Beauparlant said.
Foch’s tour of the city continued down Cumberland Street to Social Corner and then back to Main Street where he re-boarded a train to depart the city after a stay of just over an hour.
Although making many other stops on his U.S. tour, Foch said Woonsocket was the smallest city he had visited but it had nonetheless “warmed his heart” because everywhere he went he heard his native tongue being spoken.
The new monument will bear a bronze plaque detailing Foch’s Nov. 13 visit and noting that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice ending the war in November of 1918.
The plaque also notes American Gen. John Pershing’s simple statement of “Lafayette we are here!” upon his expeditionary forces arrival in France in June of 1917, a remark remembering France’s assistance to the fledgling United States during the Revolutionary War.
The monument will be located on the grounds of Post 85 at 870 River St. and unveiled during a ceremony planned for Nov. 11, a Sunday, at 3 p.m.
A rendering of the monument by Woonsocket artist Daniel R. Guernon shows the plaque affixed to a monument stone and surrounded by nine flags, the flags of the United State and France, the American Legion Flag, and military flags for the U.S. Army, U.S. Marines, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Coast Guard.
After a speaking program including Brigadier General James D’Agostino of the Rhode Island National Guard, David Malone, commander of the American Legion, Department of Rhode Island, Robert Lafort, Woonsocket Fairmount Post 85 Commander, Dr. Patrick T. Conley, president of the Heritage Harbor Foundation, and Beauparlant, a meal will be served for the participants inside the Post.