Historic Moment: World War I remembered
By Beth Batlle
Town Historian
Former Skaneateles resident Charlotte Judd choose to go to France in May of 1918 despite the fierce war that was raging in Europe at the time. Settling down at the YMCA hut at St. Aignan, she soon became known as the jolly, energetic woman who operated the biggest pancake factory overseas.
A newspaper item at the time commented, “The average human is satisfied usually by three pancakes each morning, but not so the dough-boy. He is appeased only when furnished cakes popularly described as “stevedore-size” and then without a limit as to how many he may buy.” Charlotte was there to see that each and every soldier’s appetites was satisfied.
While the war continued in Europe, at home Americans were fighting another battle – influenza. An estimated 675,000 Americans died of the flu. Almost 200,000 of these people died in the month of October of 1918.
The Sherwood Inn, previously closed because of the lack of food, fuel, and the shortage of help, reopened in 1918 as a temporary hospital to treat those inflicted with the flu. Three local doctors were in attendance and any woman with any nursing knowledge was asked to step up and help with the sick.
Crowded conditions in military camps throughout the country resulted in these training sites also becoming prime targets of the disease. As a result, 43,000 servicemen died from the flu. Those that made it overseas to the front lines were often too ill to fight. Enemy soldiers on the other side faced the same predicament.
In November of 1918 an armistice was finally declared. From Skaneateles 232 men and 3 women had responded to the call to arms. By the time the guns had fallen silent on Armistice Day on November 11 at 11 A.M., six Skaneateles men had lost their lives – Charles W. Harden, Robert J. Hydon, Edward Manley, Valentine Meyer, J. Francis Pendergast, and Sidney Tucker.
Three years later on March 4, 1921 Congress, under President Warren G. Harding, approved the construction of a tomb in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia to honor those members of the military who had fought and died in this war but whose bodies could not be identified. Placed in that tomb was an unknown soldier, whose identity was known only to God. He rests in a casket that was lined with cloth manufactured at the Glenside Woolen Mill here in Skaneateles Falls,
A bronze plaque was mounted on a newly built stone wall in the new Shotwell Memorial Park, to honor the Skaneateles soldiers that had fought in what was hoped would be the war to end all wars. The plaque was dedicated in 1936.
Charlotte Judd continued her canteen work when World War II broke out. Later she moved from her home on East Lake Road, then moved to Florida. She is only remembered in the annals of our history.
