A Tribute to Harold Petersen on Memorial Day 2020 

My great uncle Harold Petersen was born in Staubo, Norway on February 23, 1892 and immigrated to the United States sometime in the early 1900s. I was unable to determine the date he immigrated to the US because there are 100s of Harold Petersens listed in the Ellis Island records for the early 1900s period. I will work on the Ellis Island records, as now I do know Harold’s birthdate. 

Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against the German Empire on April 2, 1917. On April 6, the declaration of war resolution passed the Senate on a vote of 82 to 6. In the House, the declaration passed 373 to 50. Wilson at first wished to use only volunteer troops and asked the Army to increase its force to one million men, however, by May only 73,000 had volunteered. The Selective Service Act of 1917 was enacted on May 18, 1917. The first of three draft registrations took place on June 5, 1917 for all men between the ages of 21 and 30. 9.5 million men across the United States were registered that day. 

Harold Petersen registered on June 5, 1917 in Precinct 42 in Duluth, Minnesota. He was 25 years old. It was not difficult to locate Harold’s registration card via the National Archives. With this card, I learned Harold was an electrician for the Duluth, Missabe and Northern Railway; his mother and father were partly dependent on him for support; he was neither tall nor short, neither slender nor stout, but rather was listed as “medium” for both questions. Harold’s eyes were blue, his hair color light, he was not bald. His draft lottery number is written in the upper right-hand corner, number 209.

There were 10,500 different draft lottery numbers. On July 20, 1917, a blindfolded Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, drew the first number “258” from the thousands of tiny grayish-black capsules sitting in a large glass bowl. Messenger boys bearing slips of paper ran to the telegraph wires set up in the corridor.  The news, flashed in a moment from Maine to California and from Oregon to Florida, was that all men with cards numbered 258 would be first called to serve. Baker and others drew numbers over the course of sixteen and one-half hours. The conscription was for 687,000 men. Estimating half would qualify for exemption by their local boards, a total of 1,374,000 names were drawn that day.

Harold’s draft lottery number, 209, was drawn sometime in those sixteen and one-half hours. Since Harold’s only possible exemption was partial support of his parents, he was not considered as exempt by the local Duluth draft board. Harold was one of 79,000 Minnesotans eventually called to service. 

In 1973, a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Mo. destroyed approximately 80% of Army personnel service records from 1912 through 1960. The St. Louis record center is now closed due to COVID-19, but I will mail the form requesting Harold’s service record in case his service record survived the fire. 

November 11, 1918, Armistice Day, ended the war and Harold Petersen had made it through the battles, the use of poison gases, the power of artillery more deadly than anything ever known before, and the brutality of trench warfare. Now he would wait in France for a transport ship to take him home. For Harold, the third wave of the influenza pandemic was to hit the bases in France where soldiers waited for those ships to arrive. The United States lost more soldiers to disease (63,114) than to combat (53,402), largely due to the influenza epidemic of 1918-19. It is estimated that 12,000 deaths from disease happened after Armistice Day. 

Harold Petersen was one of those post Armistice Day casualties. He died on March 2, 1919 from influenza. He had turned 27 the previous week. My father, Bill, was only five years old at the time but he never forgot his mother, Harold’s sister, Bertha, wandering around their house in West Duluth calling out, “Oh, Harold, Oh my Harold” for weeks and weeks and weeks. Until yesterday, that was all I knew of Harold’s story. 

My great uncle Harold now rests at the World War I St. Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial, located at the west edge of Thiaucourt, France. The 40.5-acre cemetery contains the graves of 4,153 American military dead from World War I. Harold’s record at St. Mihiel reads as follows: PETERSEN, Harold, Corporal, 394th Field Signal Battalion, 79th Division, U.S. Army, State of Entry: Minnesota. Death: 2-March-1919, Plot B, Row 9, Grave 22, World War I.

Memorial Park in West Duluth was dedicated on May 30, 1928. The park had 22 markers under 22 Linden trees honoring the 21 West Duluth men and 1 Unknown Soldier who lost their lives in WWI. Over the years, the park was neglected, trees were cut down, most markers were vandalized, deteriorated, or went missing. Finally, after some renovations, on August 3, 2019 a new granite marker was dedicated commemorating the West Duluth men who lost their lives as well as their Gold Star family members. Harold’s marker at Memorial Park in his adopted home of Duluth, Minnesota is one of seven that have remained intact throughout the years. 

Now, 101 years later, in the midst of another global pandemic, I spent many hours learning about Harold. 

Great uncle, Harold Peterson, thank you for your service. 

With my love, Kristi 
May 24, 2020