The Selective Service Act of 1917 authorized the United States federal government to raise a national army for service in World War I through conscription, otherwise known as the draft. Carl Albert (his family called him Albert) was 25 years old, when he signed his draft card on June 5, 1917 listing his occupation as Farmer. He would pen a remarkable 225 letters home, most of which came in the first year of his enlistment. He told both the gutwrenching story of war, and the heartwrenching story of a young man who just wanted to return home to Beulah.
The second oldest son of John and Christina Simonson, Albert called both the 55,000-acre 3R Ranch (leased in 1894), and then the nearby Simonson Ranch (the family moved there in 1898) home; he had grown up there with six other siblings–three brothers and three sisters.
The scene Albert was greeted with when he arrived at Camp Funston—now Fort Riley near Manhattan Kansas—could not have been more different from his Beulah origins. A newly constructed complex of 1,400 buildings covered 2,000 acres, nearly 50,000 young men were trained at the camp, headed by Major General Frederick Smith Strong. Private Simonson sent photos, postcards and letters sharing his experience of becoming a Private in the Army, and his desire to come home.
Albert had hopes of passing through Pueblo on his way from Camp Funston to Camp Kearny in San Diego, to facilitate a short visit with family; however, the troop train traversed Colorado on the northern route through Denver. The grueling five-day winter train ride turned up an unexpected surprise when the train stopped in Helper, Utah. He had a chance meeting with a young woman, was immediately smitten, and began corresponding with her.
While stationed on the coast of California, Albert adapted to living in a tent, more training, and finding fun with his Army pals. Notably, Albert served in the same infantry with friend, and Goodpasture neighbor Frank Coleman. (One day, Frank would marry Albert’s sister Agnes, and become Albert’s brother-in-law, although Albert would never know.)
The downside of enlisting isolated farm boys meant diseases like mumps, measles, typhoid fever, flu, malaria, TB, dysentery, and tetanus brought casualties before the soldiers even stepped onto the enemy battlefield. In March 1918, some of the first recorded American cases of what came to be the worldwide influenza pandemic, also known as "Spanish flu", were reported at Camp Funston. While in San Diego, Albert contracted measles, his temperature soared to 106 degrees for several days, and he almost died. His letters home were delerious, requesting his family ’send his discharge papers’.
Albert received visits from the Weitbrec family, who owned the 3R Ranch at the time, and lived in nearby LaJolla, CA. They would bring Albert cakes and sweets; he even visited their home during a brief leave.
Albert received orders to ship out to France just ahead of new plans to visit home. He traveled by train to New York City where on June 18, 1918 was listed as passenger number 169 on the Lapland. After a year of training and drills, he was finally sailing to the war in France.
Letters home began to lag once the young Private landed in France, and just four months later on Sept. 6, 1918 (two months prior to the armistice), Albert was killed in battle. His Infantry Division took part in heavy fighting around the area of the Chateau de Thierry battlefield, during the Second Battle of the Marne.
At the time, the Simonsons did not have the resources to have their son’s body shipped back to Beulah, so Albert is buried in the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in Fere-en-Tardenois, France along with 6,020 of his fellow soliders, half of the 12,000 US soldiers who died in the encounter.
In 1929, Christina Simonson’s name appears on a Mother’s Pilgrimage list that includes mothers and widows of American Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines who were entitled to make a pilgrimage to war cemeteries. The trip was rejected with the word ‘No’ written beside her name. Travel at that time would have been formidable; a farm wife, and mother of six would not have had the luxury to consider such a journey of the heart. However, her great grandson Jerry Wahl did make the journey in 1990, paying his respects to Albert and all the young boys who never arrived home like they planned.
