Colonel Cushman A. Rice - A Mythic Legend and his WWI Eisenstadt observer wing

[mtnman]

I usually add a little bit of commentary regarding wings for which I have a name and an account of their service or aspects of their lives. I will just let this man's story speak for itself. Thanks for the Gatsby info Patrick.

 

Yes.... this was an actual man..... and this is truly his wing.......

 

COL. CUSHMAN ALBERT RICE

BIRTH: 15 Mar 1878
Willmar, Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, USA
DEATH: 4 Sep 1932 (aged 54)
Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, USA

BURIAL
Fairview Cemetery
Willmar, Kandiyohi County, Minnesota, USA
PLOT Rice Mausoleum
MEMORIAL ID 98223927

 

A Quintessential Soldier of Fortune, globe-trotter and big game hunter. Before Rice was 18 he had become a brigadier general in the Honduras revolutionary army. In the ensuing years, he served with Garcia as an officer in the Cuban revolution, later rising from private to captain in the American forces in the Spanish-American War. He fought in the Philippines and in the Boxer uprising in China. He enlisted as a private in World War I and in four months had risen to the rank of major in the air corps. He was the first American to command an aviation squadron-American pilots with the British Expeditionary Forces, flying American planes in France. After the Armistice, Colonel Rice was with the army of occupation and later went to Russia, Warsaw, and Odessa. He supervised 250,000 Russians in Constantinople. There he met Count Anatole Patapoff, a counter-revolutionist, and enabled him to come to Willmar, where he worked for several months in the Bank of Willmar, of which his father A. E. Rice was president. He was the inspiration for the adventuresome character of "Captain Macklin" in a novel by Richard Harding Davis, who reportedly stated that in writing the book he "stepped on the soft pedal, because if I told the truth (about his life) the world wouldn't believe it in a novel." When he was not traveling, Colonel Rice divided his time between Cuba, in his Havana apartment or on his cattle ranch, and New York, at the Army and Navy Club.He built himself a summer estate on the northwest shore of Green Lake, where he spent more and more of his time. Colonel Rice never completely recovered from his war injuries and the gassing in World War I that permanently damaged his lungs. His faithful Chinese servant of thirty years, Lin Foy, accompanied him on his travels and was responsible for all the duties of the Green Lake summer home. Here it was on September 4, 1932, that Col. Rice died at the age of 54.

 

The Fitzgerald / Gatsby / Rice Mystery

 

It also seems that Rice may have been the inspiration for the Great Gatsby: The Gatsby trail went cold until the summer of 2007, when an American lawyer, Dan Hardy, presented a paper at the ninth international F. Scott Fitzgerald conference in London. Hardy claimed he had evidence tracing Gatsby back to swashbuckling adventurer Cushman Albert Rice, who was born in 1878 in a farm community in Minnesota and died in 1932. His basis for the link was a letter Fitzgerald had written to a fan, John Jamieson, in 1934, telling him he had created Gatsby, "perhaps, on the image of some forgotten farm type of Minnesota that I have known and forgotten, and associated at the same moment with some sense of romance".

Although Rice served in a number of wars, it was his role as a big-game hunter, globetrotter and thrower of epic parties that brought him fame and notoriety.

"From 1908, when 11-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald and his family returned from New York state to his home town of St Paul, until the early 1920s, when he began working on The Great Gatsby, there was no Minnesotan, rural or urban, who cut a more romantic, dashing and heroic figure than Cushman Rice," Hardy said. "Amazing similarities to Rice's exploits are found in the autobiographical bait dropped by Gatsby in chapter four." Hardy drew parallels between Gatsby's boasts about his war record - his claim to have led machinegunners as a major in the first world war; his military decoration from Montenegro - and Rice's career. "Rice's Serbian order likely dated from 1912, when he served on the Serbian general staff during the first Balkan war," said Hardy, who was working on a biography of Rice at the time of his death in 2008. "Gatsby kept his decoration in his pocket; Rice's was attached to his cigarette case. Gatsby's life in New York, his well-publicised parties and his fancy car share obvious similarities. Rice's past, like Gatsby's, was a mystery to many who knew him."

Blazek believes the case for Rice as a source for Gatsby is strong. What he finds perhaps even more curious is the existence of a link between Rice and von Gerlach: "He is listed as Gerlach's reference on his US Army file." It seems entirely appropriate that the inspiration for Gatsby remains as elusive and ambiguous as the character himself.

 

Now to the wing....

This is one of the most beautiful and finely crafted implements of World War 1 era silver observer insignia I have ever laid my eyes upon. Embracing fully the privilege of holding and perusing with magnification, I peered through the window to the micro paradigm where the Eisenstadt silversmith artisans left behind a magnificent detailed reflection of those feathered aviators of old who took flight at creation's dawn. This is one of the most delicate and lovely examples of World War 1 era mastery insignia making I have beheld, with the true fingerprint of a virtuoso silversmith. A fitting decoration for a man such as this.....

[pfrost]

Nice!

[mtnman]

There's no such thing as a bad angle to view this wing

[mtnman]

Symmetrical Glory

[mtnman]

Excellence

[Wharfmaster]

O-my !

 

 

 

Wharf

[Nack]

Good gravy. Wow all around.

[aznation]

Gorgeous wing. Stunning! Thanks for sharing that along with the story.

[tarbridge]

A piece of Art.

[mtnman]

Thanks for your interest and your replies gentleman! You're what makes it all worthwhile. It is a blessing to share it with you when something special is granted me by grace to steward over; NOT that all of these tiny and precious monuments to the the history and the men who were decreed to make it, are not ALL very special, each and every one, but some are just so uncommon that the visual experience needs most certainly be shared along with the information and account that gives it value; that being the men and the times they pass through. I thought I had shared this for sure but I didn't, as I look back through what I wrote. So, to rescind my error.... Thanks so much to Cliff Presley for helping me confirm Cushman Rice's service in U.S. Mililitary Aviation overseas during World War I, through all the myriad information Cliff has so diligently and with such fine order and consistent attention to detail, amassed over the years!! Thanks My Friend!!

[Dirk]

The craftsmanship of wing is simply amazing, and a fantastic backstory to go with this wing! Having a number of China Marine silver items in my collection I can really appreciate how the silversmith did the details on each feather....stunning.

[JDK]

Excellent wing. Even greater with the story of the original owner. Thanks for sharing it here. It was a great read. I know Green Lake well. It is a very high dollar real estate area to this day.

 

JD

[Tesla]

Very beautiful wing!

[cwnorma]

Mel,

 

A truly great badge!

 

Chris

[aerocollector2014]

A stunning badge my friend.

[blind pew]

Beautiful wing!

 

A couple questions (I am a little ignorant)

 

1. these appear to be gold/gold plated. Is that the case, or just the camera?

 

2. Whos is the maker of the wings? Did you say Eisenstadt earlier?

 

3. What is evidence for the attribution to Cushman Rice?

 

Thanks for the background reference as being the basis for "The Great Gatsby". I had never heard that before and thought "Gatsby" was a compilation of characters.

Thanks for your interest and your replies gentleman! You're what makes it all worthwhile. It is a blessing to share it with you when something special is granted me by grace to steward over; NOT that all of these tiny and precious monuments to the the history and the men who were decreed to make it, are not ALL very special, each and every one, but some are just so uncommon that the visual experience needs most certainly be shared along with the information and account that gives it value; that being the men and the times they pass through. I thought I had shared this for sure but I didn't, as I look back through what I wrote. So, to rescind my error.... Thanks so much to Cliff Presley for helping me confirm Cushman Rice's service in U.S. Mililitary Aviation overseas during World War I, through all the myriad information Cliff has so diligently and with such fine order and consistent attention to detail, amassed over the years!! Thanks My Friend!!

[mtnman]

High BP, I was new at one point as well so don't concern yourself with the questions, that's fine. Ignorance is the birthplace of knowledge.

 

1. The wings, most likely die stamped and subsequently hand chased by the artisans of Eisenstadt's shop, are in sterling silver, regulations dictated from early on that U.S. wings be forged in silver, be it bullion or solid silver. The only adornment in gold, and a fine accentuating piece it was, is the US set in the center of the escutcheon in the early Wings both bouillon and silver in its solid form such as this observer wing.

 

2. There was a well-known individual in Willmar Minnesota who was well-known, in fact still is, if he has not passed as of today, for having purchased either the entire or large portions of the finer estates of the upper economic status individuals of the Willmar Minnesota area. He undertook this apparently as a primary life pursuit deriving funds for such an endeavor of lifelong accumulation and preservation from a source unknown to me. Anyway, he has lost his battle with time and age and has been sequestered to a nursing home now in the last days of his time here. The individual who sold me these Wings had access to his estate material being sold off subtly and was able to procure a few items from the Cushman collection from his estate of years long past. The gentleman I purchased this from was also able to procure a camera of rare early photographic importance and design which sold recently on one of the international auction sites called Cowan's.

 

I was simply blessed to get the opportunity to purchase this Wing directly from him, which of course is one of the finest of my collection now, and crowned with a grand tale of one of the most interesting lives of adventure, battles, hunting from open cockpit biplane, leadership, military discipline, proper bearing of true authority as well as proper submission thereto. An artifact from a man who lived absolutely, deliberately and without question, in a time when men were unencumbered and free from slavery to politically generated delusions of this day such as political correctness and a taught hatred of our own gender and the adventurous, disciplined strengths it bears, delusions telling us we need to be more like women. Oh and women have not escaped at all, for if you are honest with yourself and with this Society you live in, the highest and most glorious achievement a woman can reach in this feminism drenched day and age, is to do everything a man was created to do, in fact, to be a man. Cushman Rice was beholden to no such self-destructive and self-enslaving strategies used for millennia by would-be tyrants so as to keep us in our weaknesses attempting to be who we are not, for to be easily tyrannized. But these facts are part of collecting militaria, for these are the stories, the truths of Times Gone by as well as the present; concepts and principles and machinations of men and armies and political fiends, rising in the time they are discovered for what they are, and outrage ignites the stream of a people's indignation upon the subterfuges' discovery, rising indeed to the great conflagrations of War we remember and preserve with these tiny monuments to the times and the men who made them under God.

[blind pew]

Thanks again for the information- very interesting stuff.

 

 

High BP, I was new at one point as well so don't concern yourself with the questions, that's fine. Ignorance is the birthplace of knowledge.

1. The wings, most likely die stamped and subsequently hand chased by the artisans of Eisenstadt's shop, are in sterling silver, regulations dictated from early on that U.S. wings be forged in silver, be it bullion or solid silver. The only adornment in gold, and a fine accentuating piece it was, is the US set in the center of the escutcheon in the early Wings both bouillon and silver in its solid form such as this observer wing.

2. There was a well-known individual in Willmar Minnesota who was well-known, in fact still is, if he has not passed as of today, for having purchased either the entire or large portions of the finer estates of the upper economic status individuals of the Willmar Minnesota area. He undertook this apparently as a primary life pursuit deriving funds for such an endeavor of lifelong accumulation and preservation from a source unknown to me. Anyway, he has lost his battle with time and age and has been sequestered to a nursing home now in the last days of his time here. The individual who sold me these Wings had access to his estate material being sold off subtly and was able to procure a few items from the Cushman collection from his estate of years long past. The gentleman I purchased this from was also able to procure a camera of rare early photographic importance and design which sold recently on one of the international auction sites called Cowan's.

I was simply blessed to get the opportunity to purchase this Wing directly from him, which of course is one of the finest of my collection now, and crowned with a grand tale of one of the most interesting lives of adventure, battles, hunting from open cockpit biplane, leadership, military discipline, proper bearing of true authority as well as proper submission thereto. An artifact from a man who lived absolutely, deliberately and without question, in a time when men were unencumbered and free from slavery to politically generated delusions of this day such as political correctness and a taught hatred of our own gender and the adventurous, disciplined strengths it bears, delusions telling us we need to be more like women. Oh and women have not escaped at all, for if you are honest with yourself and with this Society you live in, the highest and most glorious achievement a woman can reach in this feminism drenched day and age, is to do everything a man was created to do, in fact, to be a man. Cushman Rice was beholden to no such self-destructive and self-enslaving strategies used for millennia by would-be tyrants so as to keep us in our weaknesses attempting to be who we are not, for to be easily tyrannized. But these facts are part of collecting militaria, for these are the stories, the truths of Times Gone by as well as the present; concepts and principles and machinations of men and armies and political fiends, rising in the time they are discovered for what they are, and outrage ignites the stream of a people's indignation upon the subterfuges' discovery, rising indeed to the great conflagrations of War we remember and preserve with these tiny monuments to the times and the men who made them under God.

 

[BBG]

Here's a great 1918 portrait of Colonel Rice from the Minnesota Historical Society web site.

 

Mel, a high res reproduction photo is available for purchase from them:

http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display?irn=10707703&return=displaymode%3Dgrid%26q%3DCushman%2520Rice%26type%5B%5D%3DPhotographs