Before that date, however, the U.S. was involved in sending food to the allied countries. The war had been going on for three years already and many European farms were turned into battlefields, or lay fallow due to the lack of workers.

The U.S. had a strong farm economy and was able to supply food for the Allies while not directly involved in the war. Once the U.S. officially declared war, however, things changed.

Particular types of food were needed for soldiers. Civilians were encouraged to have wheatless Mondays and Wednesdays, meatless Tuesdays, and so on.

The Fort Dodge Messenger and the Fort Dodge Daily Chronicle merged in June 1917. The paper published the Daily Hoover Hint. This was named after Herbert Hoover, who headed the U.S. Food Administration. Hoover became known as the “food dictator.”

-National Archives and Records Administration
Food — don’t waste it. This message was repeated in various forms throughout the United States’ direct involvement in World War I.

These hints might tell how to prepare baked goods with other kinds of flour besides wheat. These included corn, rice, potato, sweet potato, rye and oatmeal.

Victory flour contained 20 percent substitute flour, but people were not supposed to use it on wheatless days.

Canning groups were organized in Fort Dodge and they met to instruct and work together.

•

Food was not the only area of governmental control in the war effort.

Grover M. Neese

Besides encouraging healthy young men to enlist, local authorities sought people to join the Red Cross. Authorities gathered donations for Liberty Bonds and war stamps to help pay for the war — and there was a quota. Every household was expected to contribute.

Speaking German was forbidden, as was speaking against the war. The Rev. Wilhelm Schumann, pastor of a church in Pomeroy, was charged with violation of the espionage act. He reportedly told his congregation not to buy Liberty Bonds because they “buy slavery.” One of the charges was dropped because there were no members of the military present when he made his remarks.

The Four Minute Men would speak — for four minutes — on select topics at the theaters before the shows started. These were listed in The Messenger & Chronicle.

People were encouraged to grow their own food in victory gardens and raise their own chickens for eggs and meat.

There were very few aspects of life not touched by the war.

John Collins

•

So when the news came that the Armistice had been signed, the celebration was epic.

In Fort Dodge, Messenger & Chronicle employees and some volunteers had been staying at the newspaper office nearly around the clock that weekend. Suddenly, FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! came across the wire from The Associated Press. The two men waiting for the news rushed to see.

“ARMISTICE IS SIGNED!”

The newspaper reported:

Verne Hale

“At once the telephone company was advised to be ready for the big noise that would soon be coming. The mayor was notified and according to program the fire whistle soon was yelling and locomotive whistles were booming.

“The bulletin: PEACE. GERMANY SURRENDERS. ARMISTICE IS SIGNED. WAR IS OVER. went into the front window and the lights were turned on. The fire gong on the front of the building was started and by that time the church bells were ringing. And from every direction people were streaming toward Central Avenue.”

That celebration brought people from around town. If any left, they came back with family members.

The newspaper said:

“With the realization from the bulletin in the Messenger window that the news was official, the pent-up emotions of the last few days broke and were resolved into joy and thanksgiving untold. There were parades and snake dances, torch light processions, band music, singing and shouting from 2 a.m. until, well, the end has not been called on this celebration.”

B.F. Thiede Jr.

The Fort Dodge Military Band and the Drum Corps formed up and began playing, marching up and down Central Avenue.

An effigy of the German kaiser was burned in an actual coffin donated by undertaker Marshal Young. It took about an hour and a half to burn down, leaving a scorch mark in the street in front of The Messenger & Chronicle building.

But what of the boys “over there”?

It was too soon to hear from Webster County’s finest. One year later, though, an article detailed where a few of them were and what they were doing when they heard the news of the Armistice.

•

Armistice Day found Grover M. Neese in Dayton, Ohio. When the news came, Mr. Neese says, all the men refused to work and

started in to celebrate. “Don’t believe it is necessary to go into particulars,” grinned Mr. Neese.

•

“Where was I Armistice Day?” repeated John Collins. “About sixty miles southeast of Paris. No, we weren’t in the trenches,

but we had just come out. If I was to tell how we celebrated no one would believe me. Did anyone want to know?”

•

“I was in Paris when the Armistice was signed and for a week afterward,” said Dr. C.H. Mulroney, who was with the medical reserve corps. “It was sure a wild day. I saw American soldiers climb up to second and third story windows and embrace girls. There were parades and all kinds of wild hilarity. The people and soldiers took charge of the artillery and shot off blank cartridges. Cafe owners opened their doors and distributed free eats and free drinks.”

•

“Down at Langres, France, in the base hospital where I was stationed Armistice Day, the wounded men were coming in thick and fast right on the day the Armistice was signed and afterwards,” said Dr. A.A. Schultz. “But everybody celebrated. Every kind of hilarity ever heard of was indulged in. Even colonels got drunk. The people just naturally went crazy.”

•

“What was I doing last Armistice Day? I was hurrying back to port at Richmond, Virginia,” said O.M. Oslund. “My furlough was over and I was all hung with crepe, the bluest mortal there was. We though the world had come to an end at 3 a.m. for all the tobacco factories in Richmond turned loose their whistles, and with all the steamboats sounding their sirens and with church bells intermingled, the result was something never to be forgotten. They said there it was the weirdest sound that ever rent the air in Richmond since the Civil War ended.”

•

Dr. Arentz Erickson, who served as a dentist, was at Lyons, France, when the good news came. Dr. Erickson refused to pull any teeth that day. He started on a furlough which he isn’t accounting for in detail.

•

Leo Yort, who was one of the last of the Fort Dodge boys to be released from service, having just received his discharge from Fort Des Moines a few weeks ago, was in a base hospital in Paris when the good news was received. “I was flat on my back with my arm in a sling drinking champagne and eating cookies,” said Mr. Yort. “Those who were able left the hospital and went down on the streets, but I had just been wounded a month before and was not able to get up.”

•

“We did not know the Armistice was signed until about 8 o’clock that night,” said Joe Barton, who was detailed in the woods in northwestern France. “They told us there would be no Taps nor Reveille and so we all went to town.”

•

Leon C. Carty, who works at the Welch Bros. shoe store, was about fifteen miles south of Amiens when the Armistice was signed. He had been in the trenches shortly before November 11 and his outfit was having a short rest preparatory to returning to the lines. Mr. Carty was stationed in a ruined French town and didn’t have much to celebrate with. He was with the One Hundred and Fifth engineers of the Thirtieth division.

•

J.S. Borg, of the United Oil company, had been in France just eighteen days when the armistice was signed. He was with the One Hundred and Ninth ammunition train at Bordeaux, and his outfit joined in the general celebration at that French city.

•

H.E. Welch was at Camp Jackson, S.C., when the glad news arrived. This large southern camp went wild in its celebration over the coming of peace.

•

Verne Hale was in Le Mains on the big day. His division had been in France only a month. “Things did not really get to going good until November 12,” said Mr. Hale. “I don’t know any reason for that except that it took them about that long to get

properly liquidated.”

•

B.F. Thiede Jr. had little to recount about his experiences a year ago. “What I did I won’t tell,” confessed Mr. Thiede.

“How about the other fellows?” he was asked.

“I’m not squealing on any one else, either,” he answered.

•

Of the dozens of Webster County men who died in the war, about one-third were killed in action or as a result of wounds from fighting. Nearly two-thirds died of disease — mostly influenza or pneumonia.

The first Fort Dodge man to die in World War I was Walter J. Porsch. He died in action on March 5, 1918, in France. The VFW Post in Fort Dodge is named after him.

-From Messenger archives
This article from April 11, 1918 shows that Webster County residents went above and beyond in purchasing Liberty Bonds to help pay for the war. Not all towns had reported in at this point, but the county was at 150 percent of the quota. One reason people were so willing to contribute was that Sgt. Walter Porsch, of Fort Dodge, had been killed in action in France the previous month, and this brought home the impact of the war.

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