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Uniform Grouping of Waldo Peirce


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Waldo posing with a German shell at a display of captured German artifacts that were on view at the Les Invalides in Paris 1915.

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A page out of one of Waldo's albums. These photos were taken in 1915 at the American Hospital at 63 Boulevard Victor Hugo, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, France. Waldo first worked at this hospital before going out into the "field" with Section 3.

 

The American Hospital established a volunteer ambulance service staffed by American doctors, surgeons and nurses. The ambulance service helped over 10,000 allied soldiers. A nearby school, the Lycée Pasteur of Neuilly-sur-Seine, was transformed into a temporary hospital and serves as a base for the ambulance service.

 

http://www.american-hospital.org/en/americ...story.html#c527

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A war-time portrait of Waldo's lover Gabrielle. She was a french artist's model and his companion during his time as an ambulance driver. She sadly died of the flu epedemic in 1919. The black and white photo of the painting is from one of Waldo's albums.

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A war-time portrait of Waldo's lover Gabrielle. She was a french artist's model and his companion during his time as an ambulance driver. She sadly died of the flu epedemic in 1919. The black and white photo of the painting is from one of Waldo's albums.

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I was just thinking to myself, gee, it's getting a little boring around here, time for Croix de Guerre to whip out a few new tidbits from the never-ending Waldo Peirce collection. Amazing as always!

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I was just thinking to myself, gee, it's getting a little boring around here, time for Croix de Guerre to whip out a few new tidbits from the never-ending Waldo Peirce collection. Amazing as always!

 

LOL! :lol: Thanks Gary! Yeah, it's been kinda slow here in my collecting world so I thought I'd just beat this old horse again. Sorry if I'm boring ya'll with this stuff. Find me another tasty AFS group and I'll leave poor old Waldo alone for a while! ;)

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Boring is the last word I'd use for this great grouping, hell, I hope this footlocker is bottomless! It's practicly a whole museum on the history of the AFS, and being a Hemingway fan, the connection with him and Peirce's friendship is a big hook as well. Thanks so much for sharing this great trove with all of us and I eagerly await the next installment.

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If this post has interested you or if you simply have an interest in World War One, I humbly ask you to please click on the link below. This man, Pierre Grand Guerre has made it his life's passion to document the battlefields and monuments of the Great War. The link below will take you to Pierre's travels around the very same Alsace battlefields referenced in my posting on Waldo Peirce. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

 

 

http://pierreswesternfront.punt.nl/?id=415...amp;tbl_archief

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If this post has interested you or if you simply have an interest in World War One, I humbly ask you to please click on the link below. This man, Pierre Grand Guerre has made it his life's passion to document the battlefields and monuments of the Great War. The link below will take you to Pierre's travels around the very same Alsace battlefields referenced in my posting on Waldo Peirce. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

 

 

http://pierreswesternfront.punt.nl/?id=415...amp;tbl_archief

 

 

Fantastic website Tom! My family and I toured the Western Front extensively in the early 90s and many of the photos bring back great memories of that trip. I'll remember the sights, smells and feelings from those trips for the rest of my life and recommend that anyone who has a chance to visit the European battlefields should do it. Thanks Tom.

 

Mark

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While researching Waldo I came across this passage written about him in a book titled; "Our Part in the Great War", by Arthur Gleason. Gleason toured the Western Front in 1916 and published this book in 1917. He spent some time with some of the American Field Service sections then serving at Verdun. The following is an excerpt about his encounter with Waldo Peirce.

 

"This section needed no initiation. They had long served at Hartmannsweilerkopf in the Alsace fighting, and of their number Hall was killed. This experience at Verdun is a continuation of the dangerous, brilliant work they have carried on for sixteen months. These men are veterans in service, though youngsters in years. By their shredded cars and the blood they have spilled they have earned the right to be ranked next to soldiers of the line.

They gave me the impression of having been through one of the great experiences of life. There was a tired but victorious sense they carried, of men that had done honest service.

As we sat on the grass and looked out on a sky full of observation balloons and aeroplanes, a very good-looking young man walked up. Only one thing about his make-up was marred, and that was his nose—a streak of red ran across the bridge.

 

"Shrapnel," he said, as he saw me looking. "And it seems a pity, too. I spent $600 on that nose, just before I came over here. They burned it, cauterized it, wired it, knifed it, and pronounced it a thorough job. And as soon as it was cleaned up, it came over here into powder and dust and got messed up by shrapnel. Now the big $600 job will have to be done over again."

 

This young man is Waldo Pierce, the artist. It was he who once started on a trip to Europe with a friend, but didn't like the first meal, so jumped overboard and swam back. He sailed by the next boat, and arrived on the other side to find his friend in trouble for his disappearance.

 

Through the side of Pierce's coat, just at the pocket, I saw a bullet hole.

"Pretty stagey, isn't it?" he explained. "If it had been a ragged, irregular hole, somewhere else, say at the elbow, it would have been all right. But this neat little hole just at the vital spot is conventional stuff. It looks like the barn door, and five yards away.

 

"And this is worse yet," he added, as he took out from the inner breast pocket a brown leather wallet. Through one flap the same shrapnel bullet had penetrated. Together, coat and wallet had saved this young man's life.

"That's the sort of thing that wouldn't go anywhere," Pierce went on. He is a Maine man, and has a pleasant drawl."

 

Here is a photo of that very shrapnel hole in that very same coat.

 

 

 

I ran into Waldo Peirce in the chateau, with Foster, who is going to Serbia with the Rockefeller "Foundation." Peirce had a close call at Nouvelle Fleury. A piece of shrapnel got him in the chest, but was deflected by his heavy leather pocket-book which was filled with papers and money. Peirce says he's never going to be without money hereafter; he does n't care whose ! He's shaved his beard and lost about twenty pounds. I hardly recognized him. Cartier tells me that when Waldo's wife wrote asking him when he was coming back, he did n't answer; then she cabled requesting a reply; so he wired back--- "Après la guerre" (Flivver, p 141)

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Fantastic website Tom! My family and I toured the Western Front extensively in the early 90s and many of the photos bring back great memories of that trip. I'll remember the sights, smells and feelings from those trips for the rest of my life and recommend that anyone who has a chance to visit the European battlefields should do it. Thanks Tom.

 

Mark

 

Thanks Mark, talk your neighbour into comin' off some of those volunteer groups will ya'? :lol:

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And now for another installment of the Waldo Peirce story,,,,,,,

 

Mrs. Waldo Peirce aka Miss Dorothy Rice

 

 

Dorothy Rice was Waldo's wife during his time as a volunteer with the American Ambulance Field Service. The daughter of industrial tycoon Issac L. Rice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Rice); Dorothy was anything but the conventional Edwardian ideal of a lady. Outspoken, attractive, incredibly wealthy and adventurous, Dorothy made head lines for racing her motorcycle down Fifth Avenue in New York City and for being one of the first women to earn her pilot's license.

 

She and Waldo met while both were studying painting in Spain. Waldo was smitten with the wild child Dorothy who "dressed like a gypsy, wore hoop earrings and shoe polish on her eyes". They entered into a whirl-wind romance and were soon married. However Waldo was soon to be disillusioned with his new bride and the extent in which her mother held influence over her daughter and interfered in their marriage. Mrs. Rice was apparently very conscience of her status in society which led Waldo to quip;

 

"When Dorothy Rice fell out of her womb, forty reporters were in the room"

 

Leaving Dorothy back in New York, Waldo headed to Paris were he soon volunteered for service with the American Ambulance. Dorothy wired Waldo at one point asking him when he was to return,,his reply was "Apre le Guerre", or When the War is Over.

 

Dorothy sued Waldo for divorce soon after.

 

 

Years later Waldo penned a poem about his former mother-in-law which aptly illustrates his feelings on the matter,

 

Breasts and bosoms have I known,

Of various shapes and sizes,

From poignant disillusionments

To Jubilant surprises,

But none incited me to sweat,

Recoil, shrink, cringe, nay shudder,

As the sight of Mrs Isaac Rice's

Prehistoric utter.

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And now for another installment of the Waldo Peirce story,,,,,,,

 

Mrs. Waldo Peirce aka Miss Dorothy Rice

Dorothy Rice was Waldo's wife during his time as a volunteer with the American Ambulance Field Service. The daughter of industrial tycoon Issac L. Rice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Rice); Dorothy was anything but the conventional Edwardian ideal of a lady. Outspoken, attractive, incredibly wealthy and adventurous, Dorothy made head lines for racing her motorcycle down Fifth Avenue in New York City and for being one of the first women to earn her pilot's license.

 

She and Waldo met while both were studying painting in Spain. Waldo was smitten with the wild child Dorothy who "dressed like a gypsy, wore hoop earrings and shoe polish on her eyes". They entered into a whirl-wind romance and were soon married. However Waldo was soon to be disillusioned with his new bride and the extent in which her mother held influence over her daughter and interfered in their marriage. Mrs. Rice was apparently very conscience of her status in society which led Waldo to quip;

 

"When Dorothy Rice fell out of her womb, forty reporters were in the room"

 

Leaving Dorothy back in New York, Waldo headed to Paris were he soon volunteered for service with the American Ambulance. Dorothy wired Waldo at one point asking him when he was to return,,his reply was "Apre le Guerre", or When the War is Over.

 

Dorothy sued Waldo for divorce soon after.

Years later Waldo penned a poem about his former mother-in-law which aptly illustrates his feelings on the matter,

 

Breasts and bosoms have I known,

Of various shapes and sizes,

From poignant disillusionments

To Jubilant surprises,

But none incited me to sweat,

Recoil, shrink, cringe, nay shudder,

As the sight of Mrs Isaac Rice's

Prehistoric utter.

 

Now that is a grouping !!!

 

Excellent poem and very pretty girl. Nothing like getting into the head of Mr Peirce.

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From William Gallaher's article in the Harvard Magazine, Waldo Peirce Brief life of a vibrant artist: 1884-1970 : "Living and painting in Paris off and on in the 1920s, Peirce became friends with many of the notables who defined this period in the arts: Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, Sylvia Beach, Bernice Abbott, Archibald MacLeish, LL.B. ’19, John Dos Passos ’16—and Ernest Hemingway, another wartime ambulance driver. He and Hemingway stayed friends for life, a relationship not sustained by many other Hemingway associates from the Paris days; their letters to each other were filled with news, gossip, and witty passages, often interlaced with Spanish and French asides. Both men were voracious readers. Both were remarkable presences in a room, regaling others with ribald tales, great stories, and vivid word pictures. Their six-foot frames and beards were as impressive as their artistic talents. (Peirce was occasionally referred to as the “Hemingway of American painting,” but said once that made as much sense as “calling Hemingway ‘the Peirce of American literature.’”) Both men shared a formidable gusto for life and adventure—each married four times—and possessed an unending, consuming curiosity about the world around them. Fishing was their passion, and several times Peirce joined Hemingway in the Dry Tortugas and the Marquesas Keys. Never without a sketchbook, he captured these expeditions in oils and watercolors. When Hemingway’s face graced the cover of Time in 1937—he had just published To Have and Have Not—the magazine used a Peirce portrait of his friend holding a fishing pole, eyes focused on the line. The two can also be found together in other Peirce paintings—fighting bulls in Pamplona, drinking in Sloppy Joe’s in Key West, catching tarpon in the Gulf Stream."

 

Ernest Hemingway once asked his young son Jack, “Who is the greatest man you know?”—expecting to hear “Papa.” Jack quickly responded, “It’s Waldo.”

 

William Gallagher, M.D. ’60, a Hemingway Society member living in Bangor, Maine, is writing a study of the intertwining lives of Peirce and Hemingway.

 

http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/01/waldo-peirce.html

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The "playing card" Chris speaks of is a small drawing that is pasted on the inside cover of a scrapbook put together by Waldo. When I first saw it I thought to myself that it was cool, was obviously a self portrait and that was about it. However when doing some research on S.S.U. 3 (Waldo's AFS section) I came across the following on page 298 Volume I from the diary of Tracy J. Putnam of S.S.U. 3 ;

 

"Thursday, November 25, 1915 - Light snow. Arthur Carey and Waldo Peirce are making a pack of caricature playing cards. I sat for the queen of hearts. Our Thanksgiving dinner was a great event. Our new French officer was our guest. We had a delicious turkey, two geese, cranberries, chestnuts, apple pie, plum pudding - a wonderful gorge. Late to bed."

 

I have no proof to back in up conclusively, but it is my opinion that this card is from the deck of cards made on Thanksgiving Eve 1915, 95 years ago.

 

Thinking of Waldo and all the men of SSU 3 this Thanksgiving, God Bless

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I just ran across this bit of info; it might shed some light on Waldo's first wife Dorothy Rice.

 

Born in 1889, she was the daughter of Julia & Isaac L. Rice; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Rice , the founder of the Electric Boat company – the builders of the first American naval submarine. She was a noted poet, sculptor, artist, and bridge player. In 1912, while studying in Spain, she met and married Waldo Peirce. The couple moved to New York City afterwards and, when war erupted in Europe in 1915, Waldo joined the joined the American Field Service, an ambulance corps that served on the battlefields of France.

 

But while her husband was away, the adventurous Dorothy learned to fly, and earned pilot's license #561 from the Aero Club of America on August 23rd, 1916, becoming the tenth woman in the United States to be licensed to fly.

 

On November 21th, 1916, Dorothy and her instructor Lawrence Sperry were flying Peirce's personally-owned Curtiss hydroplane from Babylon to Lindenhurst with Mrs. Peirce as a passenger. While flying at an altitude of about 600 feet, the gyro-stablizer on Sperry's plane was knocked off, and the plane descended into the waters a half mile off of the shores of Long Island's Great South Bay.

 

"Nothing to that at all," Sperry said. "Why, Mrs Pierce and I didn't have what you might dignify by calling a real accident. It was only a trivial mishap. We decided to land on the water and came down perfectly from a height of 600 feet and would have made a perfect landing had not the hull of our machine struck one of the stakes that dot the water, which staved a hole in it."

 

The plane became entangled in fishing nets, and having something punctured a large hole in the bow of the seaplane, caused it to rapidly submerge. Both Sperry and Peirce managed to climb out of, and cling to, the wreckage of the hydroplane.

 

When a pair of duck hunters that witnessed the plane's plummet to earth rowed out to the crash site to help the now water-logged aviators – they noticed that both Sperry and Peirce were naked! :w00t: Sperry quickly stated that the force of the crash “divested” both he and Peirce of their clothing. :rolleyes:

 

The couple was brought to Southside Hospital, with Sperry walking, and Peirce being carried via stretcher, as she fractured her pelvis in the crash. A week later, she was recuperating in her apartment at the Ansonia hotel, and she directed her plane be repaired and made ready for further use as soon as is was able to leave her bed.

 

Sperry later confessed to a friend that the duo were involved in the physical act of love , and that he must have accidentally bumped the gyro-stabilizer platform while manuevering. And although their flight occurred well below 5,280 feet, the pair of lovers are generally recognized as the first members of the “Mile High Club”. :bravo:

 

In the autumn of 1917, Dorothy Peirce filed for divorce – citing non-support and cruel treatment.

 

http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/MileH...erry-Peirce.htm

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I just ran across this bit of info; it might shed some light on Waldo's first wife Dorothy Rice.

 

Born in 1889, she was the daughter of Julia & Isaac L. Rice; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Rice , the founder of the Electric Boat company – the builders of the first American naval submarine. She was a noted poet, sculptor, artist, and bridge player. In 1912, while studying in Spain, she met and married Waldo Peirce. The couple moved to New York City afterwards and, when war erupted in Europe in 1915, Waldo joined the joined the American Field Service, an ambulance corps that served on the battlefields of France.

 

But while her husband was away, the adventurous Dorothy learned to fly, and earned pilot's license #561 from the Aero Club of America on August 23rd, 1916, becoming the tenth woman in the United States to be licensed to fly.

 

On November 21th, 1916, Dorothy and her instructor Lawrence Sperry were flying Peirce's personally-owned Curtiss hydroplane from Babylon to Lindenhurst with Mrs. Peirce as a passenger. While flying at an altitude of about 600 feet, the gyro-stablizer on Sperry's plane was knocked off, and the plane descended into the waters a half mile off of the shores of Long Island's Great South Bay.

 

"Nothing to that at all," Sperry said. "Why, Mrs Pierce and I didn't have what you might dignify by calling a real accident. It was only a trivial mishap. We decided to land on the water and came down perfectly from a height of 600 feet and would have made a perfect landing had not the hull of our machine struck one of the stakes that dot the water, which staved a hole in it."

 

The plane became entangled in fishing nets, and having something punctured a large hole in the bow of the seaplane, caused it to rapidly submerge. Both Sperry and Peirce managed to climb out of, and cling to, the wreckage of the hydroplane.

 

When a pair of duck hunters that witnessed the plane's plummet to earth rowed out to the crash site to help the now water-logged aviators – they noticed that both Sperry and Peirce were naked! :w00t: Sperry quickly stated that the force of the crash “divested” both he and Peirce of their clothing. :rolleyes:

 

The couple was brought to Southside Hospital, with Sperry walking, and Peirce being carried via stretcher, as she fractured her pelvis in the crash. A week later, she was recuperating in her apartment at the Ansonia hotel, and she directed her plane be repaired and made ready for further use as soon as is was able to leave her bed.

 

Sperry later confessed to a friend that the duo were involved in the physical act of love , and that he must have accidentally bumped the gyro-stabilizer platform while manuevering. And although their flight occurred well below 5,280 feet, the pair of lovers are generally recognized as the first members of the “Mile High Club”. :bravo:

 

In the autumn of 1917, Dorothy Peirce filed for divorce – citing non-support and cruel treatment.

 

http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/MileH...erry-Peirce.htm

 

 

Dorothy Rice Peirce Sims, who learned to fly at the Wright School, Mineola, New York, in 1916, passed away of a heart attack, March 24th, 1960 while in Cairo, Egypt. She is credited with being the first woman to ride a motorcycle as well as one of the first to navigate a plane. She was a painter, sculptress and writer as well as a flyer, and she was one of the country's best known bridge players. Her book, "Curioser and Curioser," which was published in 1940, presents much of her life and experiences in a most entertaining manner.

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