History of Saint James' WWI

We commemorate November 11 as a Day of Remembrance – first with the ending of World War I in 1918, and those who served and died in it – and now with wars and conflicts that have occurred too often since then, and those who rallied to the cause.

Although Vestry Minutes shed no light on church activities during WWI, we get some notion of Saint James’ and the congregation at that time in the booklet Fauquier County in War Time  (c. 1925), by Isabel Van Meter Gaskins who undoubtedly was a Saint James’ parishioner.  A few extracts from her booklet follow.

Churches, as such, did not engage in war work; however, all had prayers regularly for the army, and especially for members of the congregation in military service.  Miss Gaskins wrote that the Rev. W. G. Pendleton, Rector of Saint James’, was an efficient war worker as leader of the Boy Scouts which solicited funds for Liberty Loans that supported the war effort.  Mr. Pendleton also served as a draft board committee member, and in other patriotic work.

For the purpose of conserving food, vestryman Harry C. Groome (of Airlie) was appointed Food Administrator.  At the outset, milling rules affecting wheat flour millers, including pricing, were immediately put into effect.   The rationing of sugar was seriously carried out; Mr. Groome kept books recording permits of sugar for canning throughout the county.  A wealthy woman, a temporary resident of the county, boasted in his presence that she had secured an extra supply of sugar from outside sources which she was expecting by express.  Mr. Groome promptly notified the express agent to seize the shipment and turn it over to the local merchants to supply their customers!

Parishioners, both men and women, served as Red Cross volunteers.  Chiefly the work of women, a number of men served as officers and heads of committees.  Articles produced in work rooms were socks, sweaters, surgical dressings, hospital garments, etc.  On the home front, Col. and Mrs. J. Donald Richards, parishioners, played a key role in health work and the local influenza epidemic.  (In 1915, Mrs. Richards gave a silver communion service to the church in memory of her son – still in use.)

Mr. Richard W. Hilleary, long-time vestryman, was secretary and treasurer of the YMCA fund and United War Work.  Miss Katherine Dorst, a formidable parishioner and member of the Woman’s Land Army of Virginia, was a strenuous war worker and took a full course of instruction at a woman’s training camp, including mechanics and truck driving, and was commissioned a major.  With the men off to war, she took an army of girls to Winchester to pick apples.  Under strict discipline, they lived in camp, working eight hours a day, until Thanksgiving Day.  (Miss Dorst gave Saint James’ the tract rack at the rear of the church and the long wooden bench and matching pair of chairs in the Parish Hall.  She left instructions that the bench and chairs should never be moved from the rear of the stage where she had placed them!)

Mrs. Katherine F. Bowman, parishioner, was active in many departments of war work, e.g., chairman of the French and Belgian relief committee that collected and shipped thousands of pounds of clothing for those suffering in the invaded countries.  She was also president of the Warrenton Woman’s Exchange that assisted in the sale of War Savings Stamps.

Mrs. Julian Keith furnished walnut timber to the government to make propellers for airplanes.  She personally found the trees, negotiated with owners, and supervised the cutting, hauling, and loading of timber onto flat cars.  Walnut shipped by Mrs. Keith was said to be superior to any other.

Mrs. Baldwin Day Spilman gave a traveling soup kitchen for the war front.  She also served as president of the Warrenton Library Association, and with Miss Kate Keith, kept the community supplied with informative war books, and supplied army camps with reading matter. The Library was a sub-station for the sale of Thrift Stamps and Liberty Bonds, for receiving Red Cross memberships, and for distributing patriotic literature of all kinds.

Source: Fauquier County in War Time, by Isabel Van Meter Gaskins

Note:  Several years after the war, Mrs. Spilman gave a bell for the Soldiers Memorial Church at Turnbull.  Dedicated on November 11, 1922, the church was built with funds from all over the county.  The bell was given “To the Glory of God and in memory of the twenty-seven boys from Fauquier who died in the service of the World War.”  At the dedication service, the sermon was preached by the Rev. Paul D. Bowden; special music was provided by the Warrenton Male Quartet.  (The building is now a private residence.)

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