13 is our company's lucky number.

For it was on a Friday the 13th that we entered the danger zone.

We crossed the ocean in 13 days and it was the ship's 13th trip.

Numbers and numbers of the black cat were aboard the ship.

Our company hopes not to be cheated out of a good scrap with the Hun.

We are all in fine spirits.

And do not worry about me.

For I am in the place I want to be.

Evansville, Indiana September 27, 1918.

My dear boy Chester, I think by now you will have seen some of the country over there.

Wish you could keep a diary of all you get to see.

As listening is good and I'm a good listener.

I will now give you a lesson in French.

These words are pronounced as I have them written.

If you want to say I love you, you say Je vous aime.

You are beautiful.

Vous a treble with a bushel of love To our boy from mother and dad.

Project got started because, I mean, it was a story I'd known all my life, but looking through a box about a couple of boxes that were in my dad's closet and got him down and realized that all these letters were there.

You know, I'm just opening them, reading them.

Of course, they weren't in any order.

It was just a box of letters.

And I thought, well, this is pretty interesting.

And I decided that, you know, I would transcribe the letters and get them typed up.

So I made this kind of.

Looking back on it now, it's a pretty rinky dink little book, but, you know, just bound with those little binders and printed them off and sent them out to all my family.

The relationship between a mother and her son in the army creeped into Nancy Hastings life and in some ways became an obsession.

This native of southwestern Indiana began researching deeper into what happened, both on the home front with her great grandmother, Gertrude Schultz, and the various stages of prepping for war that her great Uncle Chester was confronting.

And in the midst of the discoveries she was making, Nancy started to piece together clues of a century old family mystery about what happened to Chester in the last days of World War One.

And all she had to go on was what she found in that box, that the logistics of it all.

We're going to take some digging around.

He can't really tell his family a lot of the experiences he's having because of the the censors.

And you don't want to, you know, loose lips sink ships kind of thing where you don't want to tell where your locations are.

And so, you know, he says a few things, but he says, I can't wait to get home and tell you, you know, all that I've seen, all the sights that I've seen.

Steve Berger of NPR affiliate WNIN picked up on Nancy's story back in 2008.

He aired a few stories over the years, and with the approaching of the 100th anniversary of the end of the war, he and Nancy organized a trip to France to trace Chester steps.

So, armed with a newer version of her book published in 2018, Nancy, her sister, Anne Stevenson, along with radio and video production personnel, boarded a plane bound for Paris.

A pleasant Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Delta Airlines would like to be the first to welcome you to Paris France for the local time is 8:12 a.m. Something else was tucked away with a brass plaque bearing Chester's name to possibly be included on a monument near Sudan in northeastern France, based on a discovery on a trip there in 2014, where Nancy discovered that his name was missing from a First Division monument.

Plus, a last minute discovery diverted the party to Macedon in the southwestern part of the country.

A contact with a local historian who knew something of Worchester terrain before heading to the front lines.

That contact was with Ludovic Shashania, a museum director in Macedon, and it piqued Nancy's interest.

We met Shashania with local translator Christiane Teldeman.

At the train station in Macedon, where Chester is said to have arrived.

Somewhere in France, September 27th, 1918.

Dear Mother and Dad, we are billeted in the stable of an old Frenchman who has three daughters in the Red Cross and two sons in the service.

He is a fine old man and treats Shentroupe and I just fine.

I only wish we could talk to him.

We try to make each other understand, but don't get very far.

They live on grapes, black bread, wine and mushrooms.

There is one thing I don't understand.

They have blackberries here so thick you can't make an impression on them.

And they are drying on the bushes.

Yet they think they are poison.

Believe me, we boys sure make use of them.

We have BlackBerry stewed and in cobblers three times a day.

Some of them all go towards reasonable pay attention in Uncle Paul, but we also go as possible to see a second meal.

And Jessica Jones said she knew the possibility of a final knock on the door and said, you know, we have only three farms and we have a three names.

So we are sure that at least two American soldiers at in these barns.

Yes.

The Duke of Congo inventing doom.

So around 20 people.

Yes.

On all ever cell he saw with the seal on the sword, we removed the ones who are more or less or more.

Yes.

And so there were only like 30 streets on which he could sit down, as you're most likely to send.

You were told that it was an old man.

Yes.

It don't only on you to on by example see on the further so we do that's how it was say yeah we do.

We do don't we don't It's not.

Oh yes.

No, no, no.

Not every man was not there.

Yes.

Well no live live of it.

Don't you fool on now, as is single, then we get only see.

So those are the possibilities.

Was there was a little girl here about eight years old.

That works all day.

She herds geese and turkeys, drives the oxen, carries buckets of water as big as she is, and a thousand other things that makes your heart ache for her.

I certainly wish she could just be with the children in the States for a while.

She would think she was in heaven.

Of course, I can't write anything of a military nature, but nevertheless we are drilling and preparing for our part.

Don't worry about me, Mother, dear.

It's just about the time you are worrying.

I'll be picking Blackberries with bushels of love to all, Chester.

It's just.

It's a really cool city.

A town.

I mean, it's a much more.

It's bigger than I thought it would be.

It's much more vibrant, I guess.

And alive.

Just kind of interesting to think, you know, I'm sure Chester didn’t get to come to town too much, but it was probably walk the streets and seen some of the the houses that we're looking at now.

And of course, we were by headquarters.

So it's possible since he was a sergeant of a company, that he was at headquarters, to report in at times.

So it's it's pretty cool to think back to all that.

for you, dear Mother and Dad, I haven't done any drilling to amount to much today.

Just kind of starting in easy.

It's hard as the very devil.

I'm sitting here in my BVD’s trying to keep cool.

No one knows anything definite about our leaving.

From all indications, we will leave soon, but hardly before the last of the month.

I'm feeling just fine and I hope I continue to.

Lots of love to all.

Chester Chester SCHULTZE of Evansville, Indiana, was a 24 year old accountant at the Hercules Buggy Company when he was drafted on August 22nd.

1917 was about four months after the United States entered the war.

He was the youngest of four children, three boys and a girl.

His father, Albert, was a salesman for the Indiana Stove Company.

His mother, Gertrude, tended to home life, was active in her church and had many other civic interests.

And as Chester headed off to war, he left behind a fiancee, Lorena Stocking.

He called her Socks.

Chester was just a name to me before the letters, and by reading the letters became more of a real person and then reading the letters of his his mother back to him.

It just, you know, it all just became much more.

And I laughingly say, Chester's as real to me, you know, as you are.

It's kind of like it's almost like I know him and he and he died 100 years ago, so, you know, it is.

Yeah, but it became very personal to me and very much a just a knowledge of kind of some of their inner thoughts because of these letters and their feelings back and forth.

We'd know more about Lorena or Socks as he called, or if we had his letters to her, you know, because you can get a sense of that.

Just the couple of little snippets when they wrote that one group letter and she writes to Chester, you know, we do have that little, little part of their relationship, but that's about it.

Hi Dutchmen can't afford to leave my John Henry out of this, but I'll write my usual tonight and have a quite enough news for both.

Say I can have the next dance.

Your own Socks, Dear Chester.

In the morning yesterday, the officials of war mothers had a meeting at Mrs. Weiss's to lay plans for our convention in 1917.

Mrs. A.J.

Schultz.

She went to see her son at Camp Taylor.

And when she came back from seeing him over at Kentucky, she had this idea to start this organization there of mothers, sisters, wives there of servicemen.

And she talked to different people.

And the idea kind of caught on.

So the following year, in 1918, you had the first national meeting of the war Mothers, and it was held here in Evansville.

Dear Chester.

Well, I hope another letter will reach you.

But, you know, we hear all kinds that you were to be kept there for reserves.

Well, if it's so, I'll.

Okay.

If it isn't, we take what comes.

Dad and I will run to Lillian's tomorrow and stay over Sunday as during the week.

I have so much to do for convention.

The war Mother's convention in Evansville in 1918 would have been something that would have been on all the national news networks if it happened today.

It was just that big of an event.

The entire week would have been on the news.

It must have been a pretty much of a go getter kind of a woman, because to have to have done the thing with the war mothers, to have been the national acting national president, to have organized that she had to be kind of a go getter.

And in some of her papers, there were some information about I think Evansville was looking toward hiring a city manager, and she had some paperwork where she had done some inquiries to other states for that.

So, you know, I think she was probably a pretty strong woman.

Ladies, with great pleasure.

I greet you and welcome you here.

You, the mothers, wives, sisters.

And may I add, the sweethearts and friends of our grandest army that has ever fought in a war have gathered from far and near to organize another army that shall stand shoulder to shoulder with that army over there.

By our united effort, we can do great things, and our boys shall realize that we can fight as well as they, using our own weapons for our God, our country, humanity and our boys.

We may do anything that may become a woman.

We have, I think, 20 something states.

People show up here in Evansville.

And I mean and it shows how, you know, in less than a year this local woman with her her idea there, how far this had already gone.

Mrs. Schultz saw this need there for the servicemen families things you know, later on that either the military did Red Cross other people there at the time that that wasn't set up like it is to this point.

So now we're a big army over here in standing behind the Grand Army over there.

We'll do everything we can to help win this war and back our boys at noon hour.

We all marched in a parade.

We all carrying flags.

Schools were all let out for it.

Everybody cheered us.

And your mother marched like a soldier.

Mrs. Gertrude Schultz, Evansville, president of War Mothers of America, September 22nd.

A splendid example of patience and bravery which American mothers have set for their sons as a tremendous inspiration to the American expeditionary Forces in the name of these troops.

I thank you for a message which assures us of the courageous spirit Pershing The 84th Division was pretty much all southern Indiana and, you know, southern Illinois.

The counties, they tried to kind of keep them together.

So it was a lot of people he knew probably before he even joined up.

And then he'd been with these same guys all through the the training at that camp.

Zachary Taylor.

So, yeah, they were yeah, it would have been almost like a fraternity.

Dear Chester, by the letter Dick S. sent to his mother from His Majesty.

I see on the outside AEF France, I expect by this time you were there.

Hurrah for our boys over there.

They sure are giving it to the Hun with a bushel of love.

To our boy from mother and dad.

He's not gotten any letters he got.

I think.

Finally he got one letter on his birthday, which is October the sixth.

But all of these letters that we have that his mom mostly had written to him, and I'm sure his his fiancee had written ones as well.

We're just not catching up with him because, of course, you know, again, it's that instant communication we're used to.

But then it was a slow boat to China, kind of sort of thing where the the mail just took forever to get there.

Dear Chester, I know it's impossible to send you a birthday gift as it would not reach you in time.

But remember, I'll think of you on that day and sorry that I couldn't reach you in time to send to my baby boy, but a manly man that I'm very proud of.

And of course, his letters state, You know, he's excited.

He's hoping to get to fight and be in the battles and and be that.

So it was exciting to him.

But also it began to get you know, the letters would change a little bit while there's planes going over at night, you know, and we hear bombs dropping.

And then, of course, that last push was just a couple of days of just continual marching going to the battle.

So, you know, I'm sure that was a hard part of the the trek.

We know that on the last week or so of his life, where he was pretty much day by day from the history books and the maps that we have.

And we can pretty much follow pretty much day by day and somewhat hour by hour exactly where he was along this path from Stan up to, Shavus.

We're hoping to kind of just recreate that in a sense, not so much the wartime part of it, but at least see the sights that that he saw as he walked that path.

Dear mother and dad, I am now located with a new outfit.

Our company was split to pieces to replace a part of the first Division.

Green Saunders Schaffner and I are still together.

The first Division was the first to arrive in France and have gone through some of the hardest fighting they have made a name for themselves that will go down in history.

We are hoping to get a chance to help them maintain the name and also make a little more history of the kind they have made.

When he got transferred into the first Division, there were a couple of different divisions that he was supposed to go to.

Well, he didn't.

He got into the first division, but the paperwork showed another place, so the mail would have gone to that other place.

So, you know, there was one reason none of the mail caught up with him because of just the the little paperwork errors.

We are now billeted behind the lines in a little French town.

We are getting better eats with this company than we did with our old one.

Taking everything into consideration.

I am well pleased with the transfer.

I hope everyone at home is feeling as well as I.

If you do, you are all in fine spirits.

Bushels of love to all Chester.

And then they move out, you know, they start, they load them in trucks and take them up and they're kind of doing a slow they're doing it like every day.

They're like marching a little farther forward and camp and in woods and and it's yeah they're on foot Yes started this last night but was interrupted by a Boche plane who decided to pay us a visit.

We had to put our lights out until he was chased away.

It was our first experience in an air raid.

He didn't do any damage or make a direct hit.

However, he made it interesting around here and expecting to see some real service soon.

The company is about reorganized now.

I have the first platoon to take over.

We have only two officers in the company, so you see it's up to the noncombat to take the boys over.

Am still anxious to get some mail.

I know there's bushels on the way.

I'm anxious to get some.

So, you know, I was a little more real, I think at that point dangerous.

Nancy Hastings arrived in France in 2018, full of military accounts, maps, photographs and passion.

She made contact with two local experts and calls them into duty to trace the steps of Chester Schultz.

Richard Tucker runs a service called Tucker Tours, giving military history excursions around the area of Sudan.

Christopher Sims retired after more than 40 years with the American Battlefield Monuments Commission, the organization, which maintains American cemeteries and monuments in Europe from both world wars in the back yard of a bed and breakfast in Sudan.

Richard Christopher and Nancy lay out their plans and discuss strategy to find Chester's footsteps.

Well, on the last day, there was a big push to to take Sudan because there's a huge rail yard here, a railroad.

And if they can get that, they've got control of the whole area.

And so that's why the Germans were holding it so, so strongly.

So the first division has got five different groups had and just kind of like a shotgun approach that so that they can kind of get them from all sides and they spread out.

But they went over into the area that should have been the 42nd division because if you look here, see this pink is all 42nd and the first kind of is here and they're here and they're here.

They kind of went out of their boundaries, which they were given orders that they weren't supposed to pay any attention to boundaries.

And there's a lot of confusion even among the Americans, because they're normally the their divisions have boundaries that they keep within.

And they were they had an order that said no boundaries, just go for it.

But but it was kind of a miscommunication and all of that.

So so the first division kind of gets mixed up with the 42nd Division.

And there, you know, there's confusion as they're as they're heading toward the battle.

But it was a really hard push.

But they kind of, I think, went a little over and above board and kind of went too far that way because they were getting into the French, because the French were over here and they had to leave the evening of the seventh because the French said they were going to start firing on them if they weren't out of their area, kind of.

So, you know, it's kind of a infighting between the the different divisions because everybody wanted to get Sedan.

Everybody wanted to be the one that got the glory of capturing Sedan.

I don't know that there was much time to think about what you were doing and probably just like this is it, you know, this is what we've trained for, for a year and come over here and and we're going to we're going to do this.

We had reckoned with that a German rearguard action.

And no doubt they had heard us telling our men to get ready.

They were soldiers who had trained four years at the front.

They had left their lines, checkerboard with machine guns, had left their men in the rear to fight to the death.

And it slowly moved out the heavy masses of troops.

Most of us who were young American officers knew little of actual warfare.

We had daring, but not the training of the old officer of the front.

The Germans simply waited and then laid a barrage of steel and fire and the machine gunners poured it on us, our company numbered two-hundred men And within a few minutes, about half of them were either dead or wounded.

This is coming from machinery.

This is the first intersection that takes you down into chevauchee over there.

And this was up to Sedan.

So that was.

But I don't think that would be even though the tree looks fairly similar.

Yeah.

I mean, yes.

Branch on this side does.

I'm not seeing the double branch here.

And you know, they just wanted to 90 years 100 years later, I'm not trying to do that.

The cemetery had to be about where that circle is.

But for me the question is when there's eight or nine people who would have been four or five that are in the line together and in others dotted around.

Yes, my assumption is they've grouped those with others somewhere else.

And this must be a road coming in.

It must be one of these if it's the same or it's just somewhere else.

But if it's this road coming in and this one right here, the sign would say Sedan that way.

Cheveuges that way, which would which would make sense.

But that would mean that this cemetery is on the other side of the road.

Yeah, yeah.

On this side of the road it must be because if it's turn right to say we're coming like this.

So those graves must be on the east side of this of the D, nine, seven, seven, whatever it is.

So it can't be that they went around the town and then went around the cemetery which kind of sits to the east of the town.

And as they came around, I guess there's a there's a hill north of there.

And the Germans had a machine gun nest up in the hills.

And so they were firing on them.

And of course, the Americans were trying to take that hill.

And at some point in there Chester was hit by by the gunfire.

And of course, there wasn't a whole lot of reports from his buddies, you know, because they're moving on as well.

Everybody's kind of like on the move.

And you can't, like, stop and take care of anybody who's been hit.

I've never been under fire.

I hope I'm never under fire, but I'm sure you probably don't have much thought other than surviving.

Maybe, you know, or, you know, making it through this or trying to shoot before you get shot.

I don't know.

You know, I think probably once he was shot, it was probably a oh, my I hope I hope I can get home.

You know, I hope it's not bad enough to to kill me.

But I think it I think he died fairly quickly because of where he's buried.

He didn't survive long enough to be taken back to to a hospital.

But when just Chester Schultz was killed on the 7th of November, near Cheveuges, there was a burial party that would initially have hastily buried the remains and carried on, moved forward with with the troops towards Sudan towards the end of the war.

Of course, they were advancing pretty quick.

So they also had to advance pretty quick to bury the dead.

And in some cases, well, there are cases that these guys were also killed in action while tending to do that between seven, seven November and and the armistice with all the rain that was coming down, some of the remains may have been uncovered by by the rain.

According to Christopher Sims, they pretty much buried him where they fell.

And you can kind of tell that because there's eight graves and five of them are grouped together and there's one over here and another one there and one that a little farther away.

So, you know, we would think, oh, they bring them all together and just make a robe.

And they didn't they just they were buried in kind of an unusual pattern.

So that pretty much leads you to believe that's where they fell.

Finally, after months of emailing back and forth, finally meeting in person in that backyard in Sudan, driving around the countryside, holding up pictures to see if they matched the landscapes and a whole lot of soul searching.

Richard, Christopher and Nancy settle on a site that they think is very close to where Chester took his final steps, just a few hundred meters outside the now idyllic village of Cheveuges.

Yes, because it bends to the left then It bends around to the left a little bit.

But I mean, if they got here and they went around here bullets are still going to be missing them aren’t they it's also more likely they'd be near the road because they might be.

I think they can dash to where the track is and there might be some a ditch next to it or something if they once they get to here, you know, they they know what to run away.

They'll go to ground it just keep shooting at and then to leave.

They've shot enough of them.

You know, they can't run that way.

It's too far and they're exposed to get to the road.

So, you know.

Well, I'm going to say this is where My great grandmother would have loved to have seen this spot.

Been here.

I think we're pretty pretty close.

I mean, I'm sure it's not an exact spot, but it's got to be fairly close.

So you know how close?

All I think I know it's in probably our vision, you know, within our, you know, maybe 20 steps each way.

If we made a circle around here, probably would be in that that area kind of a group consensus.

And especially with their knowledge of where this is probably the the spot of the way the battle would have would have played out is a beautiful spot right now.

It's it's a beautiful resting place.

I mean, it's you can't pick a prettier spot if you're picking a spot for a cemetery.

Even back home, they look for a place with a nice view.

He had a good place and there was a newspaper clipping that shows where each where Evansville boys or when the you know, when the armistice was signed.

Well, you know, that wasn't real accurate.

And of course, at that point, they didn't know what division he you know, that he had changed divisions.

Even so, they didn't know where he was.

November 11, 1918 5 a.m. Dear Chester, While the whistles are shrieking and blowing in the bells of peace on earth or ringing the air out as crisp skies clear, while the message is spreading throughout the world that God rains, humanity, bows in humble prayer of Thanksgiving and rejoices that the world is made better, though the cost is great.

At 3:30 this AM Mr. Stocking roused us from our slumbers.

As he was returning from the courier office, he shouted aloud, The war is over, an Armistice is signed.

Dad went downstairs and woke Ray to tell him the good news.

Then he called up Lillian all before 4:00.

But they could afford to lose some sleep with such joyful news.

Now, dear, Chuck.

Let us hear from you at once so we know that you are safe.

Then our cup of joy will be filled with loads and loads of love.

A happy Thanksgiving and a joyful Xmas from mother and Dad.

And the letters continue to be positive.

Can't wait to hear from you.

Can't wait to hear.

And then they kind of change as the months go on and it's much more poignant and much more tear jerking really.

And then more and more reports would come back of somebody might say, Well, I heard he was wounded, but nothing more than that.

And so they're starting to write letters to everybody asking questions to the to the Red Cross, to the to the the government, to the congressman, George Denton, you know, trying to any avenue they can think of.

They're trying to to see if there can be some information.

Will you?

Upon receiving this cable, the following information, if he is still living and improving cable, living, improving, if he has died of his wounds, cable died wounds follow with the letter giving us some details Well, you know, in their heart they have to be really worried.

But they're getting all these reports that, yeah, he's wounded.

And so they're thinking, well, you know, he could could be, you know, a head wound where you can't communicate or you can't get a letter home.

Maybe it's just something that way.

And there's still that hope in their heart.

And and to me, again, the probably the most poignant letter is that my dear boy letter, because in her heart she knows he's probably gone.

But she still, if he's there, that small chance that he can be alive, that he'll get that letter.

That'll make him feel good because he's got news from home.

I'm sorry.

That's pretty sad.

Hundred years later, Dear Chester, my dear boy, three months since this terrible war is over and as yet, I haven't heard one word as to your whereabouts or your health.

Not a word written by you since October 23rd.

And to Lorena 27th of October.

I know God is caring for you and answer not only to my prayers, but many, many more.

But oh, how I yearn to get one line written by you.

Many of the boys are home and still coming, but none know a word about you.

I've written to every corner of France, but no information.

Whatever.

So if this message should chance to reach you, try to send us a cable.

I've asked everyone I've written to, but none so far.

If General Pershing can help you out, appeal to him.

I know he's a friend to all you boys, but hope someone, wherever you are located, will let us know.

Dad and I are holding the old fort.

Or at least I am with Nellie as my guard as Dad has been on the road again since the first of the year.

I wouldn't leave the old fort as I'm daily expecting to hear something of you.

Now, my dear boy, I hope you're getting along okay and that God will bless you and keep you until you reach the shores of home.

Let us hear with all the love that can come from a mother and father's heart.

Sad.

I mean, it's still just so poignant to me 100 years later.

You know, it's been four months and you got to know at some point something's desperately wrong.

But hoping that that you're wrong and, you know, and there's a miracle going to happen that he'll still be there.

Cave in Rock, Illinois, May 18th, 1919.

Dear Mrs. Schultz, I knew Sergeant Schultz while in France.

I knew him for a jolly good friend as well as a soldier.

And I'm sorry to have to tell you of his death.

I saw him fall on the battlefield while we were forced to push ahead.

I believe he died there.

Of course I hadn't time to get down and examine his body, but I'm sure he was dead.

And our corporal said his last words were.

I'm wounded.

Such is life.

And we can do nothing more noble than give our lives for our country.

Truly yours.

Luther Riley, my dear Mr. and Mrs. Schultz.

Well, I have seen almost all of France and last night stayed in Verdun and this morning visited your son's grave.

I'm sending you a flower growing near his resting place.

I stood alone today, July eight, at 11 a.m., with bared head a foot of Chester's grave and thought of my feelings.

But what are they compared to the parents of the boy?

Goodbye, friends.

Hope to see you soon.

WW Dick Captain.

It was recorded and he had dog tags.

And so the grave was marked with his name.

But he had inadvertently been left off of the list from the First Division in the company K When you look at the roster, his friends were listed in that list, but Chester's name was dropped and so when they're checking the list, you know, whenever the battles over in the company rejoins itself and they're checking, okay, you're here, you're here, you're here.

There was no name for Chester and you know, he wasn't missed, you know, And you can imagine the job it was to do all that by hand and keep all of these records and keep track of these thousands and thousands of of men, you know, from all different parts of the country that are in all different parts of France.

My dear Mrs. Schultz, we are sending you a photograph with negative from which more prints may be made, if desired, of the grave of Chester E Schultz.

The case of Chester Schultz, it was American Legion that sent sent the photograph of his temporary gravesite.

A clip from it was the general idea that they would bury all the dead.

But General Pershing had this idea, and he persisted that the units where they were serving and if they were killed in action, that there was a burial party from that unit that would bury the remains.

And that is why it was hastily done.

And then after the war, they would disinter and and properly embalm and and bury the dead.

We deeply grieve over the loss of our dear son.

The War Department has promised to send the remains home to those who so wished.

I'm looking forward to the time when his remains will be sent to us, where we have a beautiful cemetery.

And my only comfort through all the suspense and sorrow will be to have him placed in our family lot where we, his family can place flowers on his grave.

I feel sure my country will carry out all its promises and return our dear one to us as soon as it possibly can be done.

That was about five 3 to 5 months later.

I'm not sure of the exact date that they dug him up and put him in a larger cemetery where they kind of grouped all of the small cemeteries around there.

And then in 1921, when they were finally there's just like, what, three years later, they're finally going to either ship them back home or put them in the Meuse Argonne Cemetery.

They had several extremely large cemeteries, so they would either be put there or if the family requested, they were sent back home.

And his family, of course, wanted him to come home so they could put flowers on his grave and honor him that way.

So in 1921, he was dug up the second time and shipped then back to the States.

And they had a were able to have a funeral and then actually bury him.

And he's buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.

His dad died in November of 20.

So and he his body didn't arrive home until March of 21.

So his mom was left alone to do the burial and, you know, really get Chester home.

So that had to be extra sad for her as well.

In 1921, his remains were classified as being returned to the states.

If they would have left the station here at Stony to the morgue of the Port of Calais, waiting for their last trip back to the U.S. Nancy and her party found their way to the town of Stoney, where many American soldiers bodies, including Chester's, were put on a train and taken on their first leg of the long voyage home.

So that's pretty accurate.

Philip Boazar now lives in what used to be the main building of the station.

He graciously gave access to the grounds.

This is called the military platform and they probably would have left from here, from the military gate.

A ceremony was held by the French Schlosser, AP, where the barracks were close by.

They actually saluted and during the ceremony, the farewell [French], as it is called, of all the troops that were disinterred from the town.

Just this line, this was a civilian line here.

Okay.

And here you have the two military lines and the what was used.

It used to be the barracks.

So it would have just been a short walk to the platform to come to salute and they would have left on this.

As he says, this is the military platform.

So that would take them up, down and join the main line.

So procurement of commercial said, no, no.

In fact, he says before I told him he knew nothing about what had happened, [French] [French] Yeah, he says He's pleased to be able to honor what happened here and also thanking the American troops, what they did to to liberate their country You walk in the tracks, they're thinking Chester's coffin went down his tracks as is made his way back home.

So it's kind of cool.

After figuring out a century old family mystery and placing flowers where Nancy and her confidantes agree Chester was killed, the trip could easily be deemed a success.

But she had one more thing to do.

They sent the plaque over last and October of 17, so it was over there first part of the winter and they were supposed to get it put on.

And we had emails saying, Oh, they're going to do it, you know, in March, Oh, they're going to do it in April.

So they've got to wait till it warms up a little bit.

It'll be in May.

And so we just kept thinking it was going to be put there and going to be put there.

And Steve was trying to find a videographer to be there to actually, you know, tape and videotape it while they did it.

And so we were we were just kind of saddened that it didn't get in place.

We have 11 monuments, six from WW1, and five from WW2 to the purpose of the board is to, first of all, oversee the maintenance of the monuments.

We want those monuments to continue and in order to do that, you have to, you know, make sure that even the very compelling Monuments Commission is doing its job, which, by the way, is extremely rare.

No one else has asked us to add a name.

So it was a very rare event.

And they actually they had made a second plaque to send to me when they made the plaque for the monument.

So when we were ready to go to France, the plaque was not there.

And on the monument, and we didn't know what really we would do because that was one of the things we really wanted to see.

So I carried that bronze plaque in my suitcase all the way over there, thinking we could could, you know, just fake it and kind of put it there.

[French] and it turns out it was supposed to be two pieces.

No, not nothing.

So the second plaque is exactly like this.

[French] It's hard to believe that it's really happening.

But then the day that it it just all, all the pieces fell into place, it was just amazing.

And and we knew then that the reason they didn't get it put on ahead of time, because it was just so much more special to have all of us there and and get to participate in that.

Don’t break it Should I be rolling on this.

I'm afraid I'm going to round it out.

It's tough.

That looks good.

Merci Chester finally gets this recognition.

Yeah.

[French] [French] He’s responsible of this monument from the beginning.

And this monument has evaluated year after year.

[French] And he’s here since 1978.

Oh, wow.

Wow.

[French] He wanted to give a special thanks to you because that is a signal of a big thanks for the people who came and gave their life for saving friends and the rest of Europe.

Merci Know.

Yeah.

This.

This is more than extremely rare.

Yeah, I was just, you know, so many little pieces just fell into place to make that happen.

One of the things we found out in trying to locate and figure out why Sergeant Schulz's name wasn't there is that was he killed on the battlefield That they find his body in the battlefield or did he die in the hospital?

Anyone who lost his life or her life in the defense of this country or to advance freedom should be recognized even if it's 100 years ago to be opened only in the event I do not return.

Chester, September 18th, 1917.

Dear Mother and Dad, I write this to you knowing that you will follow my wishes.

I have done my bit for the country, but leave the ones behind that were all the world to me.

But don't be sad as I feel it and honor and want you to feel the same way.

I have two Insurance policies one for $2,500 and one for $1000.

I want you to have the $2,500 policy, but I want you to give to Lorena the $1,000 policy as I took this out.

Since we were engaged, I do this not because I don't want you to have it all, but because I know Lorena's disposition and think that she can probably forget by going away a while or anything she sees fit.

May God's blessing be with you all.

Your son, Chester.