Edward Howard Fay

Private, Btry A, 82nd Field Artillery, 15th Cavalry Division.

Died of influenza and pneumonia at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas, October 9, 1918. Age 20.

Town:  Batavia/Byron (also Chautauqua County; see text)

Burial: Evergreen Cemetery, Portland, Chautauqua County, New York

 

Edward Howard Fay was born on March 8, 1898, in Portland (Chautauqua County), New York. Based on mentions in various newspaper articles and his listings in censuses, Fay appears to have gone mostly by his middle name, Howard, or E Howard. The 1910 US Census lists him still in Portland at age 12 with his parents (father Maxwell, mother Harriet nee Devereaux Fay) and three younger siblings (sisters Marjorie and Florence, brother Vincent). The October 10, 1918 Batavia Daily News article announcing his death states that the family moved to Batavia “about nine years ago,” which doesn’t agree with the 1910 census but suggests that the Fays likely came to Batavia shortly after 1910. The same article states that Fay attended Batavia High School (see also April 24, 1918 Batavia Daily News) “but completed his high school course at Oakfield.” In the 1915 NY Census, the family (including an additional daughter, Ruth) is shown living on Petherbridge Road in Byron; 1917’s Farm Journal Illustrated Directory of Genesee County also lists the Fays in Byron.

On May 6, 1917, exactly one month after the United States declared war on Germany, Fay enlisted in the 24th Cavalry regiment in Wooster, Ohio. He was stationed at Fort Russell, Wyoming, for a period before being transferred in November 1917 to the 82nd Field Artillery regiment, an element of the 15th Cavalry Division. The 15th was based initially at Camp Logan and then moved to Fort Bliss, both in Texas. The unit was specially trained and equipped for border-patrol activities.

Private Fay contracted Spanish influenza at the beginning of October, 1918, at the peak of the nation’s influenza pandemic, and died about a week later, on October 9. According to statistics from the army’s Office of the Surgeon General, there were 171 deaths at the hospital at Fort Bliss in October, 1918; it’s safe to presume that most or all of them were from flu or resulting pneumonia. The October 10, 1918 El Paso Herald listed Private Howard Fay of Batavia among 18 Fort Bliss soldiers who’d died of influenza over the past 24 hours.

Fay’s body was returned to Portland, New York, under military escort and was buried in Portland’s Evergreen Cemetery. It should be noted that his tombstone transcription from the cited RootsWeb online source gives his death date as “10-14-1918.” This is an error; all other sources, including all documents in his Burial Case File, give the date as October 9. An article reporting on his funeral, appearing in the Batavia Daily News of Wednesday, October 16, 1918, says that his remains “arrived at Portland, Chautauqua County, from Fort Bliss, Tex., early Monday morning”—which would’ve been October 14, making it impossible for that to be his death date.

In a letter to Fay’s parents quoted in the November 4, 1918 Batavia Daily News, Lieutenant J.L. Henshaw of Fort Bliss wrote, “It is with heartfelt sadness that I try to write you these few lines. . . . I am the officer in charge of the driving instruction and your son was a driver and therefore was under me for about eight months. I wish to say that no matter what happened he was always bright and cheery and always did his work. . . . At one time we got a bunch of new horses to train. The captain told me to pick twenty of the best men to help do the training. I picked from the 196 men in the battery and your son was in the twenty. . . . I feel that we have lost a mighty good soldier and man, and that in Howard Fay’s death the government has lost a very efficient soldier, one of the kind of men who are now winning the war in Europe.”

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October 10, 1918 Batavia Daily News p1 c5

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October 10, 1918 El Paso Herald p14 c3

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November 14, 1918 Batavia Daily News p8 c3

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Source: Burial Case Files, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92, National Archives — St Louis, Missouri

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Edward Howard Fay headstone, Evergreen Cemetery, Portland, Chautauqua County, New York

GPS Coordinates: Lat 42° 21’ 56.309” N, Long 79° 28’ 50.32” W (DD: 42.365641, -79.480644)

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Edward Howard Fay Sources:

– County Lists 1, 4; also BHR

– May 9, 1917 BD p6 c5

– May 15, 1917 BD p6 c4

– Dec 10, 1917 BD p2 c5

– Apr 24, 1918 BD p7 c2

– Oct 10, 1918 BD p1 c5*

– Oct 16, 1918 BD p6 c4

– Nov 4, 1918 BD p8 c3

– “United States Census, 1910.” Online index and images, HeritageQuest.com. Entries for Max Fay (head) and E Howard Fay (son, age 12), citing Census Records, Portland, Chautauqua, New York; sheet number 4, line numbers 44 and 46, microfilm series T624, Roll 930, page 152.

– “New York State Census, 1915.” Online index and images, Ancestry.com. Entry for Howard E Fay, age 17, citing Census Records, Byron, A.D. 01, E.D. 01, Genesee, New York; page number 12, line 26.

Farm Journal Illustrated Directory of Genesee County (1917), p 193

Order of Battle of the United States Land Forces in the World War. Volume 3, Part 3, p 1245

– “History of the 82nd Field Artillery Regiment,” website (http://www.first-team.us/assigned/subunits/82nd_fa/)

– “Influenza at a Stand Here,” October 10, 1918 El Paso Herald, accessed online from Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88084272/1918-10-10/ed-1/seq-14/)

– The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, Volume V, Military Hospitals in the United States, Chapter XXIX, p 625, Fort Bliss statistical chart, accessed online, U.S. Army Medical Department, Office of Medical History (http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwi/MilitaryHospitalsintheUS/chapter29page625.pdf)

– BCF

– Evergreen Cemetery (Portland, New York) tombstone transcriptions, online, http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nychauta/CEMETERY/Portland/Evergreen-F.htm

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