Clarence S Heale - The County and the Kaiser

Private, Co E, 102nd Ammunition Train, 27th Division.

Died of intestinal obstruction in a hospital at Camp de Souge, France, July 18, 1918. Age 19.

Town: Batavia

Burial: Grand View Cemetery, Grace section, Batavia, Genesee County, New York

Clarence Samuel Heale was born in Batavia (Genesee County), New York, on December 29, 1898. He was the only son of Samuel T Heale and German immigrant Anna nee Thee Heale, both of whom were living in Batavia when they were married on August 12, 1897. The 1900 US Census shows one-year-old Clarence and his parents in Batavia. In the 1905 NY Census, Clarence’s father is listed as a painter, and the family, with the addition of a daughter, four-year-old Ethel, is shown living at 9 Hall Street in Batavia. Five years later, in the 1910 US Census, the Heales are listed in the city at 9 Raymond Avenue, with Samuel employed as a yard conductor for the railroad. (Note that in all three censuses, and also in several other sources, “Heale” is misspelled as “Hale.”) The 1917 Farm Journal Illustrated Directory of Genesee County lists the family at 38 Jefferson Avenue in Batavia, the same address shown on Clarence’s NYSS, 74th Infantry enlistment card, 1917’s Genesee County “Militia Enrollment List,” and most other sources from the period between 1917 and 1919. According to the August 3, 1918 Batavia Daily News article announcing his death, Heale had attended Batavia public schools and “had started to learn the machinist trade before enlisting.” The article observed that “he was a young man of fine moral habits and character, a member of the Emmanual [sic] Baptist church and was held in high regard by many acquaintances and friends.”

Clarence Heale was only 18 years old, giving his occupation as machinist, when he enlisted in the New York National Guard’s 74th Regiment in Buffalo on July 23, 1917. Just eight days earlier, on July 15, 1917, all National Guard units had been called into federal service as a consequence of the nation’s declaration of war. At the end of September, the 74th Regiment was sent to Camp Wadsworth, South Carolina, where it became part of the 27th Division’s 108th Infantry. Heale was originally in the 108th (a photo of him as a member of Company A appears on page 45 of Short History and Illustrated Roster of the 108th Infantry) but he was later transferred to Company E of the 27th Division’s 102nd Ammunition Train. The 102nd, as part of the 27th Division’s 52nd Field Artillery Brigade, left the United States from Newport News, Virginia, in mid-June, 1918, and landed in France on June 27.

When Private Heale died on July 18, 1918, less than a month after arriving overseas, the 102nd Ammunition Train was in training with the 52nd Field Artillery Brigade at Camp de Souge, near Bordeaux, France. “Intestinal obstruction” is consistently given as the cause of death in all newspaper reports, on his NYSS, and in all but one of Private Heale’s Burial Case File documents; in the one exception, the cause is listed as “Toxaeima [sic], Intestine.” The August 3, 1918 Batavia Daily News reported that Heale “had suffered from mild attacks of appendicitis and it is the opinion of his family that appendicitis was the cause of death.” In a letter to his parents written on June 28 (received after his death and reported in the August 6, 1918 Batavia Daily News), Heale mentioned that he had been “ill for a short time but quickly recovered.”

A searcher’s report on Heale’s death in his Burial Case File quotes a statement taken on February 20, 1919, from Captain Carl N Sanchez, 102nd Ammunition Train: “Died at Camp hospital #20, Camp de Souge, France on July 18th, 1918. Buried at Cemetary [sic] #25, Grave #66, Row #2, Talence near Bordeaux, France. No statement or remarks heard by any member of this company.”

On Friday, November 12, 1920, Private Clarence S Heale’s body was returned to Batavia under military escort. That evening, a mayoral proclamation regarding Heale’s funeral and burial planned for the following day, Saturday, was published in the Batavia Daily News: “By virtue of the power in me vested, I, Louis A. Prentice, Mayor of the City of Batavia, do hereby earnestly request all citizens of the said City of Batavia to participate in honoring the memory of Clarence S. Heale, who gave his life for his country in the late war with Germany and whose funeral will be held . . . at 3 p.m., and I further request that all stores, shops and other places of business within the corporate limits of the city be closed from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 13th, in honor and commemoration of the said Clarence S. Heale and our soldier dead and that flags in the city be displayed at half mast from sunrise until 4:30 p.m. on that day.”

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August 3, 1918 Batavia Daily News p6 c5

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August 6, 1918 Batavia Daily News p8 c2

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August 10, 1918 Batavia Times p2 c2

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Source: New York Service Summary from Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919, NY State Archives, Albany, New York