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Submitted: 5/1/09 • Approved: 5/1/09 • Last Updated: 8/14/15 • R8334-G0-S3
Birth: Oct. 19, 1890
Death: Oct. 2, 1918, France
Edson Roy Shreve
Edson Roy Shreve was born October 19, 1890, at Alexandria, Nebr. He came with his people to South Dakota in 1894 and attended the public schools. He went to British Columbia in 1911, where he remained four years. After a surgical operation he came home to spend a season …… which he went to Washington.
He entered the army in September 1917, and was sent to Camp Lewis in the state of Washington, where he received his military training.
About the middle of June he was sent to Camp Merritt, N.J. and early in July was sent overseas, the transport arriving about July 20, 1918. His company, company C, 361st infantry, with the 91st division was sent to the Department of the Haute Marne in eastern France to an area some twenty miles southeast of Chaumont. On September 6, they began moving north, knowing the ………………. The Herse forest before dawn of the 21st of September, there putting up their pup tents and under cover of the nights following hundreds of big guns were moved up into position and on the evening of September 25, the men were ordered to strip their packs, this knowing they were about to go into battle. It was about this time the Edson with thousands of others wrote home his farewell letter, but by necessity containing no word of farewell. After moving through the Hesse Forest, they with other American division began a wonderful artillery preparation along a forty-mile front from east of Verdun to west of Argonne Wood and it was in this fearful drive that Edson received the wound on October 2nd which caused his death the following day.
On his service medal are recorded the following battles: St Mihiel, Muese – Argonne, Defensive Sector.
The letters from his offers to his bereaved family say that they may well be proud of his conduct in action for his example was an inspiring one.
He leaves to mourn him, his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. J.T. Shreve of Dell Rapids, his three sisters Edna and Mrs. J.W. Stull of Dell Rapids and Mrs. Geo. Barrick of Winfred, and one brother Herbert of Seattle, Wash. One brother Frank, receded him in death.
Dell Rapids Tribune, Dell Rapids, Minnehaha County, South Dakota, Thursday, September 15, 1921.
Mr. Shreve was one of the first men in Dell Rapids to die in World War I. Two others were mourned on the day of re-burial, David R. Ferguson, George Fitzgerald. The funeral was attend by hundreds
Contributed on 5/1/09 by dellsfig68
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Record #: 8334