Marine lives on in letters from WWI
‘Wandering boy’ wrote his mother frequently. His life ended in battle nine days before the armistice
Harold Reilly worried about his mother.
He sent her frequent letters. He tried to tip her off to his location. He even sent pressed violets from halfway around the world for Mother’s Day.
Now a century later, Reilly’s niece is worried about him.
She has those handwritten letters — and even the flowers — carefully stored in a 200-page testament to the life of Reilly, a Milwaukee man who joined the Marines, fought in World War I, and died fighting just nine days before the armistice. Sunday marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War.
Janet Bode’s worry is that the details and rhythms of Reilly’s everyday life, and the lives of other men of his generation, will be forgotten.
The letters have been handed down to different women in the family dating to Bode’s grandmother,
“Dear Mother, I suppose you have been wondering where is my wandering boy sleeping for the last two or three weeks, what kind of a dinner I ate for Christmas, etc. Although we all took a guess at it, none of us were certain until we hauled up somewhere in France.” Harold Reilly, in a Dec. 29, 1917 letter to his mother, telling her that he had been deployed
who was the original recipient of many of them. Bode, along with many other women in the family, have made it their goal to ensure the family preserves and passes down the letters to future generations.
One of Bode’s aunts took a book binding class and began to transcribe the letters, but did not get very far. Bode has digitally copied them to ensure Reilly’s words will be safe.
“I guarantee you future generations would know nothing about Harold unless they had something like this digital file,” Bode said. “I’m hoping 20 years from now there will be a 6th grader in the family tree who can do a report on a soldier and they can talk about their great-great uncle.”
A young Marine’s story
Reilly was a middle class Irish Catholic Milwaukee boy who graduated from Marquette Academy in 1913 (now Marquette University High School). He went on to study economics at Marquette University, then he volunteered for the Marines during World War I in the summer of 1917.
One of his first letters was sent to his mother on May 25, 1917, from Parris Island, South Carolina. He began the letter by saying “Mother, I suppose you are wondering where your wandering boy has been,” similar to how he started a handful of other letters. He told his mom he would be a full-fledged Marine in nine weeks.
Other letters during training told his mother that he was the No. 3 man on a machine gun unit.
“It is my duty to help put the gun into place, unload and return the empty magazines to the leader and receive the signals from our captain and transmit them to our gunner,” read a letter from Sept. 22, 1917.
The letters often reflect the mindset of someone in his early 20s, who partook in snowball fights and was initially nervous around pretty women.
“Major-General Barnett, Commander of the Marine Corps, extended an invitation to some of the companies at Quantico, inviting two men from each company to eat dinner at his home in Washington,” a letter reads. “About the time that we had gotten warmed up to the Major General, three very pretty girls made their appearance and were introduced as the daughters of the M.G. Of course, that put a damper on things, for most of the fellows were a bit shy, probably because they were a bit unused to this species of mankind … Apparently they had met bashful privates before and knew just how to handle them, for it was not long before we are all laughing and talking together like old friends.”
On Dec. 28, 1917, Reilly wrote to his mother to tell her that he had been deployed.
“Dear Mother, I suppose you have been wondering where is my wandering boy sleeping for the last two or three weeks, what kind of a dinner I ate for Christmas, etc. Although we all took a guess at it, none of us were certain until we hauled up somewhere in France,” his letter read.
He continued to write about his dayto-day activities, and even some of the small mischievous endeavors he would get into while at war.
“Dear mother, Just finished a swim and am feeling fit as a fiddle. One of our greatest blessings over here is to be located within walking distance of a canal deep enough to swim in,” a letter says. “The surrounding country is shocked to find all its hard fighting American friends in said river apparently enjoying life in great style. If a canal boat happens along, it is immediately utilized while en route for a diving platform and whether the Frenchie in charge likes it or not, he has some hundred or more brown-skinned Americans climbing up the sides of his barge and diving off.”
Reilly’s letters also mentioned family and friends back home, and he was sensitive to the concerns of his mother.
“There were some lovely letters home,” Bode said. “In one he sent a letter saying for Mother’s Day the year before they got her white carnations. He grabbed violets, pressed those and sent them home to his mother. They are just lovely things he did for her.
“I think everything he did was to make sure she knew he was doing just fine,” she said.
The young Marine is injured
In a letter dated Sept. 16, 1918, Reilly told his mother he had been injured in the leg, and removed from the line of duty.
“Old hiney [an American nickname for Germans] finally got me, mother, a wound in the calf on the left leg,” the letter read. “It is nothing serious, being just bad enough to take a man away from the rain, and mud, and excitement of the front line, and put him in between two clean white sheets and a fine big hospital back in the big sunny part of France, which the war has not touched.”
Reilly was given about a month to heal before he was sent back out to the front line.
“Dear Mother, My time is being most industriously toward leaving the hospital, and the few weeks of luxurious ease are far behind,” the letter from Oct. 27, 1918, said. “This is just a short note, mom, to fill out what might be too long an interval between letters, but you may look forward to a longer letter soon. From your boy, Harold.”
The war ends, and so does Reilly’s life
It is not known when Reilly’s mother received the last letter from her son, but presumably it was sometime around the end of the war on Nov. 11, 1918.
“I’m sure his family was just elated to know the war was over and believe that their son was coming home,” Bode said.
Instead, between the last letter and the end of the war, Reilly’s life ended in battle.
On Nov. 20, 1918, the family received a telegram notifying them that their son had died, with no details about the circumstances.
The family later learned that Reilly had died Nov. 2, 1918, when a shell exploded in the trenches behind him and his “bunkie.” They both died instantly.
“It was really just a sad fate,” Bode said. “My grandmother was very likely reading letters from Harold after he had passed, and maybe after the war was over.”
Memories continue
“Old hiney [an American nickname for Germans] finally got me, mother, a wound in the calf on the left leg. It is nothing serious, being just bad enough to take a man away from the rain, and mud, and excitement of the front line, and put him in between two clean white sheets and a fine big hospital back in the big sunny part of France, which the war has not touched.”
Harold Reilly, in a Sept. 16, 1918, letter to his mother, telling her that he had been injured in the leg, and removed from the line of duty
“My Dear Mrs. Reilly, I have felt compelled to write just a few lines in appreciation of your boy. To give you a picture of Paddy, as he was known to us, as we saw him. He died as he lived, cheerfully and thinking of others, doing his duty and trying to lighten the other fellow’s burdens. For the boys tell me as they prepared the rise in advance of that grey misty morning, Paddy was joking with one of the boys, cheering him up in that instant, before the plunge. And as the line rose and advanced he went with a smile, and a nod of encouragement as his last message.” Edward Bass, a Marine who wrote the Reilly family, sharing his condolences
A month later a fellow Marine named Edward Bass wrote the Reilly family, sharing his condolences.
“My Dear Mrs. Reilly, I have felt compelled to write just a few lines in appreciation of your boy. To give you a picture of Paddy, as he was known to us, as we saw him,” Bass wrote.
“He died as he lived, cheerfully and thinking of others, doing his duty and trying to lighten the other fellow’s burdens. For the boys tell me as they prepared the rise in advance of that grey misty morning, Paddy was joking with one of the boys, cheering him up in that instant, before the plunge. And as the line rose and advanced he went with a smile, and a nod of encouragement as his last message.”
Years later the Reilly parents traveled to France to visit their son’s grave site. Photos of the parents draping an American flag over his grave site are included in the archive, along with a pressed poppy flower, still in good condition.
“I think it’s important for people to know what young men went through 100 years ago,” Bode said.
“I’m thankful for my mother and her sisters for preserving this for generations to come.”