Joseph Rutherford Cawthron Returns on the Wheaton

 ©  Kathy Duncan, 2023

Recently, a news report reminded me that a former president of the U.S. canceled a trip to the Aisne-Marne American cemetery near Paris in 2018. At the time, he blamed it on the rain. Later it was revealed that was just a convenient excuse, "Why should I go to that cemetery? It's filled with losers." Later in the same trip, he referred to the 1,800 marines who died at Belleau Wood as "suckers" for being killed in battle. The importance of that presidential trip was that it was intended to honor the sacrifice of American soldiers, and it was also intended to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. 

As stunningly callous and disrespectful as those comments were, they set me thinking about my grandfather's first cousin who died in France during WWI and who was buried there for a short time. Then in 1921, his body was shipped to Sacramento, California, and reinterred there. I started wondering about the circumstances of that reinterment. 

Joseph Rutherford Cawthorn, born in 1893, was the son of Willie Porter Cawthon and his wife Maggie Skelton. Joseph and his four siblings were orphaned in 1904. The siblings seem to have been farmed out to different maternal family members, perhaps neighbors, and at least one orphanage. All of them used the Cawthorn spelling rather than the family's spelling of Cawthon. I'm not sure why that happened except perhaps the name was pronounced with an "r" sound, and the Skeltons thought that was how it should be spelled. 

Joseph's World War I registration card listed his sister Lillian Inez Cawthorn as the person to be notified in the event of his death. Lillie, at age fourteen, was a minor living in Hunt County, Texas.

Joseph, a mail clerk, died of pneumonia on 14 October 1918 and was interred in France.

Almost three years later, his body was shipped to Sacramento, California to be reinterred in East Lawn Cemetery. For several years, I've had a copy of his burial notice that appeared in the Sacramento Bee on 17 June 1921.

Mrs. S. Mancuso, listed as Joseph's "only close surviving relative," was his little sister, Lillian Inez Cawthorn. 

The former president's words sent me delving back into the circumstances of Joseph's reinterment in Sacramento. I was certain that Lillian did not have the funds to have his body exhumed in France and shipped to Sacramento.

I began by revisiting Joseph's Findagrave memorial. There still was not a photograph of his tombstone. The notation on his memorial said that the exact location of his plot was unknown. I did not make a photo request at that time because the cemetery is too large for any photo volunteer to search it randomly. My next step was to find out if I could determine the location of his grave. For that, I googled the cemetery and located a database for the cemetery's burials. A search for Joseph Cawthorn gave me the section number, row number, and plot number for his grave. I returned to Findagrave and entered that information as a suggested edit. Within a short period of time, Joseph's memorial was updated. Then I made my photo request, which, to my surprise, was fulfilled in just a couple of days. Joseph's grave is unmarked, as I feared, but the Findagrave volunteer kindly laid a bouquet on his grave and photographed that.

My next step was to try to figure out where in France Joseph had been originally buried. I performed a very basic Google search for something like - France cemetery WWI US soldiers. That turned up various items that were published for and following the 100-year anniversary of the end of WWI. One especially informative article written by Michael E. Ruane for the Washington Post was about the process by which bodies were returned to relatives in the U.S. Beginning in 1919, the U.S. government sent out 74,000 questionnaire postcards that asked relatives where they wanted their soldier's final resting place to be - in France or in the U.S. By January 1920, the U.S. had received 63,000 responses. Between 1919 and 1922, about 44,000 U.S. soldiers were returned to the U.S. for burial. Families could choose between a military cemetery or a civilian cemetery. 

So far, I have not been able to locate the postcard that Lillian filled out and returned, but after continuing to Google for information, I found the National Archives database with records for the 44,000 soldiers whose bodies were turned. Among them, I found Joseph's information.

The ship, the Wheaton, immediately caught my attention. I was sure I'd seen it mentioned in several articles that I had skimmed. Well, duh.

Joseph R. Cawthorn's body had traveled on the Wheaton in the largest shipment of U.S. soldiers' remains to be repatriated to the U.S. The Wheaton landed in Hoboken, New Jersey, on 18 May 1921 with 5,000 deceased soldiers. Five separate funeral services were held at the pier as the caskets were unloaded. President Warren Harding presided over one of the services on May 23, where he laid a wreath and gave a brief speech honoring the men who had given their lives for their country. 

According to the information on Joseph's card, his body had been sent to Antwerp before being loaded onto the Wheaton. The National Archives has a photograph of the group of soldiers' caskets that were loaded at Antwerp; each casket draped with a U.S. flag.

The U.S. WWII Research and Writing Center has an article by Jennifer Holik on "WWI Army Transport Ships," which relates the return of the repatriated remains of soldiers. Her own great-granduncle returned on the Wheaton along with Joseph R. Cawthorn. All of the deceased on the transport ships were listed as passengers - not as cargo. In death, they were afforded a full measure of respect.

My next step was to search newspaper databases to find more information about the Wheaton. I found a wealth of information in an article published by the Galveston Tribune in the Portal to Texas database. On 7 February 1921, the Tribune reprinted an article that originally appeared in the San Antonio Express. It consisted of an interview conducted with Capt. Robert E. Shannon of the U.S. Army who was assigned to the Graves Registration Service and who had been visiting his sister in San Antonio. 

Shannon related that once a soldier's remains were identified by a metal disk that he was wearing at the time of death and removed from the military cemetery in Europe, they were placed in a hermetically sealed metal container. The metal container was then enclosed in a burial casket, which was then placed in a wooden shipping case. The recommendation was for the metal container to remain unopened before the funeral, which was usually arranged by the American Legion. Each casket was draped in an American flag. All of the expenses involved in shipping the remains to its final destination were paid by the U.S. government. Funeral expenses of up to $100 were also paid for by the government. Most of the bodies were transported on the Wheaton. The ship would leave Hoboken carrying emptying caskets to Europe. When it returned to Hoboken with the deceased soldiers, two piers were dedicated to the Wheaton's mission. While in Hoboken, the caskets were guarded until the day they were shipped to one of several distribution centers. Lists were made of the soldiers and their destinations. Then twenty to twenty-five were loaded onto special express cars or baggage cars and were escorted by enlisted Army personnel to a local central distribution point. From there, the deceased soldiers traveled with an individual escort who remained with them until they were delivered to their families. 

Looking back at Joseph's card, there are several pieces of information to unpack. He was buried in grave 430 in the American Cemetery at Toul M-et-M, which turned out to be a temporary cemetery at Toul, Meurthe-et-Moselle. He was in group 91. It's difficult to pinpoint that exactly since there were groups 91A, 91B, and 91C. His sister Lillian's name appears as Lillian Inez Rouse. At the time she was the foster daughter of a Rouse family. Her guardian was a Mrs. Young. I don't know who she was. By the time Joseph was transported to Sacramento, Lillian had married Samuel Mancuso and was living at 4748 Ninth Ave. in Sacramento.