WWI AEF Document Group - Family Member killed in France

[The CoPilot]

This post has literally been years in the making. For more than 20 years now I have been working off and on to research a family member who died in France during the First World War. His name was Frank Lewis Simkin, and he was from Salem, Iowa. Frank was the younger brother of my great grandfather. The further I got into the research the more interested I became. That lead me to this forum where I learned a great deal about WWI KIA documents and what to look for. For many years I searched online hoping (by some miracle) to find his Columbia Accolade. Year after year passed without success. Then my mother's cousin sent me photocopies of some of Frank's war letters that she had acquired when her Dad passed away (her father would have been the nephew of the soldier). I sent her a picture of a someone else's Columbia Accolade and asked her if she'd ever seen anything like this in her Dad's stuff. To my great surprise and overwhelming relieve, she wrote back that she had four tightly-rolled documents related to Frank and one of them was the accolade. Several more years passed before she was willing to pass the documents on to me and I just received them a couple of weeks ago. The certificates had been rolled up for nearly 100 years. Controlled archival humidification and flattening necessary to get the paper to relax and lay flat again. But the process is complete now and I wanted to share the documents with the community here. Images of the documents will follow this post.

 

Frank Lewis Simkin was born February 16, 1896, in Salem, Henry County, Iowa. He enlisted in the U.S. Army, on February 2, 1918, at Mount Pleasant, Iowa. After training at several locations, including Camp Dodge (Iowa) and Camp Upton (Long Island, NY), he shipped out for France. He served with Company "M", 325th Infantry Regiment, 82nd Division. Frank was wounded on October 11th by German artillery fire near Fleville and St. Juvin, France, during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. After spending several weeks in a field hospital, he died from sepsis as a result of his wounds on October 31, 1918. He was buried in the Surenses American Cemetery on the outskirts of Paris. In 1930, my great-great grandmother Helen Simkin made a Gold Star Mother's pilgrimage to France to visit Frank's resting place.

[The CoPilot]

Private Frank Lewis Simkin

(Salem, Iowa)

Company "M"

325th Infantry Regiment

82nd Division

United States Army

AEF

[The CoPilot]

Frank's Columbia Accolade undergoing archival humidification

[The CoPilot]

Frank L. Simkin's Columbia Accolade after humidification and flattening.

[The CoPilot]

French Accolade

[The CoPilot]

AEF death certificate

[The CoPilot]

U.S. Army death certificate and card (pasted down on heavy paper)

[The CoPilot]

Frank Lewis Simkin's grave at the Suresnes American Cemetery near Paris

[The CoPilot]

Posting the images on this thread proved to be cumbersome and took longer than expected. I tried to reserve some posts for posting photos but didn't get back to them before the time limit for editing ran out. Hopefully a moderator can help delete the "reserved for photo" blank posts for me along with post #11 of the Columbia Accolade that was posted without the caption.

[The CoPilot]

The pic of the French accolade came out poorly during the resizing for the post. Am trying another version to see if this is any better. It really is a beautiful document.

[bobgee]

Nice grouping of family documents. I cleaned up the post as requested. Bobgee

[The CoPilot]

Nice grouping of family documents. I cleaned up the post as requested. Bobgee

 

Thanks! You can also remove what is now "Post #4" since it is redundant and doesn't have the photo caption in the post.

[gomorgan]

Thanks for posting this, Salem is just up the road from me, quite a few of the guys from northern Lee County and Henry County ended up in the 325th. I've got uniform and helmet to guy from north of Houghton which is about 16 miles or less from Salem.

[TheMariner]

Very nice family set of documents, glad you finally recovered them and that you can cherish and enjoy them!

[12A54]

Very nice family documents. I agree - those from WWI are especially beautiful. I, too, had to exercise extreme patience with family before finally securing and preserving similar documents and artifacts. I recommend you persevere - there may be more of his things where these came from or elsewhere in your family.

[The CoPilot]

To many here, today is just another October 31st; a day that comes and goes every year. To my family, today, 10/31/2018, marks the 100th anniversary of the passing of the man who is the subject of this thread: my great great-uncle Private Frank L. Simkin. Today I mark this anniversary solemnly as I remember the sacrifice.

 

I pray that our Heavenly Father May assuage your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom - A. Lincoln, letter to Mrs. Bixby, 1864.

[tdogchristy90]

This is the fIrst I'm seeing of this thread. One of the best posts and stories I've seen on here in a while. Great job!

[The CoPilot]

I got my Great Great Uncles Columbia Accolade back from the frame shop yesterday. I had it placed in a black-finished metal frame with UV blocking glass. I elected not to put a mat on it but just let the document be what it is: a special piece of family history. Im just so thankful that it survived and finally turned up after many, many years of searching.

[bobgee]

Rest in Peace, Pvt Simkin. Great family tribute. Keeping his memory alive, 100 years after his death. Great work! Bobgee

[The CoPilot]

I got a copy of Franks Burial File from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. Found documents in there that government contacted the family in the very early 1920s to see if the family would like to have his body returned to the United States. Franks father declined, electing to let him rest and remain in France where he served and fell.

[The CoPilot]

The forum is not allowing me to use apostrophes today for some reason so please overlook what appear to be misspellings in my post above.

[USARV72]

Fantastic group of your family documents. Very fortunate to have them, wonderful preservation.