They broke ranks on Solomon's Island Rd, at the corner of Owensville Rd, and prepared to pitch tents in Mrs Cheston’s pasture.
They were headed for the battlefields of France.
Sam Chew, Owensville’s storekeeper, described the scene for The Baltimore Sun:
“Automobiles, carriages, wagons, and buggies, loaded with laughing girls bearing fruit, cake, confectionary, & food of every description, deposited their gifts beneath the shade of the elms and left to return again and again with the offerings of the neighborhood.
Officers were importuned to allow the boys to be entertained in the adjacent homes.”
In one home over the hill from the camp lived a young woman, Lillian Shepherd, a school teacher. Among the soldier boys who went to the Shepherd home that evening was Hal Nye from Montana. A romance was kindled. Hal and Lillian agreed to exchange letters while he was "over there".
“At dawn the next morning the sound of the bugle wafted over the West River country, and residents near the camp came down to the highway to watch the soldiers march away toward Annapolis. After a few weeks, army transports carried the company across the Atlantic.”
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| Lillian and Hal Nye c1930 |
Seven years later Hal Nye came back to Lillian.
On Dec 4 1924 they were married in Owensville’s Christ Church.
The following week they boarded a train west to take up married life on Hal’s ranch.
Sam Chew wrote afterwards: “Are there still some who say that romance is dead?”
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| 1917 Gazette news article |
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| Nye gravestones at Christ Church, Owensville Md |
Remarkable that he survived and returned 7 years later. So their gravestones are at Christ Church. Do we know when (and why) they came back from Montana?
ReplyDeleteA few years after marrying, Hal & Lillian traveled by train to MD where Lillian was to have her baby. But the baby miscarried en route. Another few yrs later, Hal gave up his ranch which was doing poorly, and they moved to MD permanently. At first they rented the "Tea House", mentioned in the news clipping above. Later they lived in a small bungalow north on Rt 2. They had no children. Lillian was Ann Bonner's aunt.
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