Posted: 11/5/03

On Veteransí Day, a FL man reflects

Cliff Buchan
News Editor

In his 79 years, Bob Elmstrom has seen a full life of military connections. Heís the son of a World War I veteran, served in the military during World War II and the father of a son who spent 21 years in the Army.

Itís not surprising that the Forest Lake man and his wife of 59 years, Eleanor, will be at the American Legion Tuesday, Nov. 11 for the communityís annual Veteransí Day salute.

This yearís joint Legion-VFW program pays honor to the 50th anniversary of the end the Korean War and the 85th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I in 1918.

Veterans of the Korean War ó a number that will exceed 100 ó will be given special recognition during next Tuesdayís 7:30 p.m. program. The Korean War vets and their families will be honored guests next week.

Elmstrom, for one, will be among the first to applaud the service that area men and women have given their nation in Korea and all other wars.

Roy Elmstrom story

Bob Elmstrom was born in 1924, six years after the end of the great war in Europe. His father, Roy Evert Elmstrom, grew up in the Copas area of Scandia and served in the Navy during the war.

He was a sailor on the USS. Georgia, a battleship. ìHe made 13 crossings of the Atlantic,î Elmstrom said of his fatherís Naval service.

World War I was a family matter in Bob Elmstromís life, not only from his fatherís role. Two uncles also served.

Harry Ekstrom, a brother of Bobís mother, Myrna, served stateside during the war.

Another Ekstrom, Army Sgt. Fred Ekstrom, was not as lucky. He arrived for duty in Europe on July 1, 1917. He was subjected to a poison gas attack in February of 1918 and died from the effects of the gas a year later in a military hospital in New York.

Both were the sons of Esias Ekstrom of Forest Lake.

Growing up in Forest Lake, Bob Elmstrom learned to grow up fast. His parents separated when he was young. He was a senior in high school in 1941 when his mother died at age 41.

The young high school lad and a sister Gladys Johnson, now 81, were left to fend on their own in the Elmstrom home on W. Broadway.

Work was not uncommon for both. Bob took care of a morning and evening paper route for the St. Paul Pioneer Press/Dispatch and later became a butter maker while employed at the Forest Lake Creamery. With special permission from Superintendent Ben Kueffler, Elmstrom started his school day at 11 a.m.

ìI was able to pay the fuel bill and the house payment,î he said. The note on the home was held by an aunt and the monthly payment was $10.

ìI was one of the kids whose dad never came to my football and basketball games, but my mom did,î he said. He continued to find time for football, basketball and baseball after the death of his mother.

He saw little of his father in the early years of the separation. He had moved to the Montevideo area. The two men reunited in the late 1940s. Roy Elmstrom died in 1951.

World War II duty

With the United States at war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Elmstrom wasted little time in joining the military.

He graduated Forest Lake High School in the spring of 1942 and in September joined the Coast Guard.

He was a weatherman serving on the USS Bayfield, a 492-foot long troop transport. The Bayfield was off Utah Beach during the Normandy Invasion of France in 1944. Elmstromís vessel carried 14 beach landing ships and 2500 Army troops who went ashore on the first day of D-Day.

Even today Elmstrom is intensely proud of his service but not shy about hating the horrors he saw that day. ìI wouldnít go through (again) what I went through for love or money,î Elmstrom said.

In the hours following the D-Day landing, much of his time was spent handling the wounded and dead coming back from Utah Beach. ìI carried many casualties,î he said. ìIt was a bloody day.î

In the aftermath of the war, Elmstrom returned home, settled down with his wife, Eleanor and raised a daughter, Karen Shuldt of Scandia and a son, Bill of Ortonville

Bill Elmstrom, a 1965 graduate of Forest Lake High School, spent 21 years in Army intelligence before retiring from the military.

World War I era

As he looks back on a life punctuated with military service, Elmstrom sees irony in the war his father went off to fight.

ìThat was the war to end all wars and then there was the second world war,î Elmstrom said, listing Korea, Vietnam and todayís military effort in Iraq.

Roy Elmstrom wasnít alone from this area when World War I called area men to defend their nation.

Fred Ekstrom was of one four from this area who died serving in World War I.

John B. Nygren, 23, the son of Victor Nygren, Forest Lake, died from pneumonia following an attack of influenza at Fort Oglethorne, GA, on Nov. 5, 1918, just 11 days after entering the Army.

Benjamin F. Olson, 24, the son of Herman Olson, Forest Lake, also died from pneumonia following an attack of influenza. He died at Camp Grant, IL on Oct. 8, 1918 where he had been assigned for training with an Army medical unit in September.

Cpl. Walter R. Berglund, the son of Joseph Berglund of Scandia, died from wounds while fighting in Argonne Forest on Oct. 27, 1918, just 16 days before the armistice was signed.

He was in Company G of the 354th Infantry. Cpl. Berglund had entered the Army on June 26, 1918, trained at Camp Grant and was sent overseas in September of 1918 and was sent to the front lines where he received his fatal wounds.

They were among the many from this area who served.

The military recruitment process was bolstered by the start of the Washington County Induction Board that formed on May 12, 1917. In its first action on June 5, 1917, a total of 1821 men between the ages of 21-31 were registered for selection for military service.

By Sept. 21, 1917, Washington Countyís first group of men left for duty under the selective service plan. The group included 32 men with Albert Thomas Hudson, Stillwater, designated as the first man chosen for service.

A year later, with the age liability for military service extended to 18 to 45, another 3000 Washington County men were registered for the draft.

Few saw service, however, as the armistice on Nov. 11, 1918 closed the need for men during World War I.

But the names of the World War I veterans from the Forest Lake area reads like a Whoís Who of local history.

According to a Washington County book, ìIn the World War 1917, 1918, 1919,î here are some of the names of local men who went off to war:

Herman Wahlquist, George E. Anderson, brothers Robert and G.S. Engquist, brothers Earl, Leon and Bert Simmons, brothers Dewey and Milton Spickler, Milton Peterson, Arvid Erickson, David Sivigeny, brothers Matt and John Osterbauer, Arthur Gustafson, Hubald J. Marier, Samuel S. Peterson, John M. Anderson, Oscar Emerson, Axel Jacobson.

Cody Hoekstra, Ernest W. Johnson, Frank Arndt, Ludwin McLane, Arthur Hayes, Carl Lundgren, brothers Elmer Gugst and Godfred Bring, brothers J. Frank and Robert Hazzard, brothers Stanley E. and Lester O. Struble, brothers James and Edwin Vail, brothers Ervin and Clarence Trueblood, John Sederstrom, Harold B. Swanson, Werner E. Olson, and brothers Victor and Arthur T. Palmer.

By the time it was over on Nov. 11, 1918, 29 men from Washington County died in service of their country.

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