One hundred years after the end of the war that the world once hoped would be the last, American Legion Post 280 Commander Michael Lamoureux invoked the name of the young woman – the only young woman from Mattapoisett to volunteer to serve in World War I, the namesake of the Mattapoisett American Legion post, Florence Eastman.
Eastman, the daughter of the last keeper of the Ned’s Point Lighthouse, was nurse with a post-graduate education at Massachusetts General Hospital. She wanted to go to France “to help the soldiers,“ Lamoureux told those assembled on Monday, November 12, at Old Hammondtown School for Mattapoisett’s Veterans Day observance. But when she grew impatient awaiting the issuance of a passport, Lamoureux said, she went off to Long Island where she assumed the duties of the head Army nurse at the Isolation Hospital.
“Virtually everybody who was there as a patient was dying of influenza,” said Lamoureux.
The Spanish Flu claimed the lives of more U.S. soldiers than war combat as it spread across the Atlantic in 1918 at the height of the pandemic. As Eastman cared for those soldiers suffering from influenza and pneumonia seemingly around the clock, they called her “the angel of the wards,” not knowing how she was able to perform her duties as she never appeared to rest, sleep, or even eat, Lamoureux said.
“All she wanted to do was take care of her boys,” said Lamoureux.
Eastman died at the age of 24, succumbing to influenza.
Lamoureux said that during these past 35 or so years as post commander, he had mistakenly believed that only 29 from Mattapoisett volunteered to serve in World War. There were indeed 68, he said correcting himself.
“Only one of them didn’t come home,” Lamoureux said, and that one was Florence Eastman.
Eastman died at the young age of 24 on October 14, 1918, less than one month before the Armistice. She was buried with full military honors at the Pine Island Cemetery, and in February 1925 Post 280 was dedicated in her name.
“Thank you, Florence,” said Lamoureux before handing the microphone to Chaplain Richard Langhoff, who led a prayer calling for an end to global strife and the beginning of an enduring peace in a world, he said, “where nations resolve their differences with peaceful means.”
Keynote speaker U.S. Army Col. Michael Mendenhall from the U.S. Naval War College lauded the services of the American Legion posts, calling them places where military servicemen and women could share their experiences with someone “who had gone through similar experiences.”
“It’s extremely important that we continue this amazing facet of service with these posts,” said Mendenhall.
Mendenhall, who said that while he was in France he visited the grave of a relative who died in World War I, called the war “a whole new world of warfare.” With the emergence new technologies, soldiers were now fighting under the fire of machine guns, chemical weaponry, and, for the first time ever, airplanes dropped bombs, changing the rules of combat forever.
“World War I was supposed to be the war to end all wars,” said Mendenhall. “It was supposed to solve all the problems of the day, and it didn’t.”
Reviewing some of the history, Mendenhall pointed out to an unaware audience that Massachusetts was the only one of the contiguous U.S. states where WWI combat reached dry land during what is known as the July 21, 1918 Attack on Orleans. According to Mendenhall, a German U-boat surfaced three miles off the coast of Cape Cod and four shots were fired at a tugboat pulling four barges causing damage to the tugboat and sinking the four barges, and several shells were fired at the town, striking the beach.
Lamoureux called Mendenhall “a soldier’s soldier,” and hailed him as a forever hero.
The Old Hammondtown Band and Chorus provided musical entertainment with patriotic songs, joined by Jillian Zucco who sang the National Anthem, and the Showstoppers who performed two of their own songs. Selectman Tyler Macallister also addressed the audience, while Representative William Straus’ absence surprised Lamoureux, who said this was likely only the second time in about 25 years that Straus was unable to attend.
By Jean Perry