ELMER'S STORY
ELMER V. JESPERSON KIA IN FRANCE 1918
"Elmer Verdell Jesperson
Tucson will be given occasion to honor its first hero dead, killed while in action to France, Sunday, when the remains of Private Elmer V. Jesperson will be laid to rest. This will be the first funeral in Tucson of a soldier who met death while fighting in France. The body will arrive by train, be met by a guard of honor of Morgan McDermott Post, American Legion, and led by the colors of the Legion; the body will be taken to the home of the parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. P. Jesperson on the Ft. Lowell Road. Private Jesperson was killed in action at Chateau-Thierry on June 13, 1918. He was a member of the 53rd company, Fifth Marines. The body of Jesperson was one of the 5000 American heroes that were brought to this country for burial by the U.S. army transport Wheaton. A proclamation issued by John E. White, mayor of Tucson, requested the citizens of Tucson to express their appreciation of this soldier’s honorable services by showing proper respect and displaying our country’s colors at half mast for three days."
Elmer, the eighth of my great grandmother’s eleven children, was born in St. Johns, Arizona Territory 18 months before the family moved to Mexico. The two brothers just older than Elmer died as toddlers. Wilford Antone, died at 21 months and was buried on his mother’s birthday. Willard Arthur, who died two weeks before his third birthday, loved to play with marbles his older brother Jim would win playing games. As no flowers were in bloom to decorate Willard’s grave, his mother and sister Ida arranged marbles in bright designs on the little bare mound. Elmer, ten months old when Willard died, was much loved.
Moving with his family to Mexico in 1897, Elmer grew up in the Sierra Madre mountains with a Danish father and paternal grandparents and Norwegian maternal grandparents. The valley of Colonia Chuichupa in the top of the Sierra Madres, reminded his Jesperson grandparents of the home left behind in Hjorring, Denmark.
Mexico became engulfed in a Revolutionary War in 1911. Their guns and ammunition confiscated, in July 1912 the American colonists were told their safety could no longer be guaranteed and were given only about a day to prepare to leave their homes. Taking little more than a change of clothes, they turned their animals loose, closed the doors to their homes, and the women and children boarded a train to El Paso, Texas where emergency lodging had been arranged in a large lumber yard. Elmer, sixteen years old, traveled on the train with the women and children.
The Jespersons worked for a farmer in Thatcher the first year, then heard of a tenant-farmer opportunity near Tucson. Living in two tents they cleared land and planted, but a large flood washed away the land they’d been working and the new plow. Discouraged, James Peter took sons Elmer, Delbert and Billy to look for land in Utah. In Cedar City, a farmer with a broken arm offered half the yield of his farm for their help. Within three months they had sufficient money to send for Elmer’s mother, sisters and grandmother to come from Tucson.
When the United States became involved in the war with Germany in 1917, Elmer enlisted in the Marines. He confided to a sister before he left that he regretted that he had never been able to contribute much to the family finances, and now that he was assured of a monthly paycheck, he would send half of it home to his mother. “I’m sure that I’ll come back safely,” he told her, “but if I don’t, my insurance will help to care for Pa and Ma in their old age.”
After Elmer’s departure his brother Jim, who had remained in the Tucson area, invited his parents to come back to Arizona. They did, trading their team and wagon for nineteen acres on the Fort Lowell highway.
When word came of Elmer’s death, his mother was grief stricken and could not be consoled. Then one night she dreamed that he came and stood by her bed. “Oh, Elmer,” she cried, “tell me how it was when you were fighting in France.” “It was gruesome, just gruesome,” he answered. “Where were you shot? Did you have to suffer long? I’ve been so worried.” “I Know, Mother, that is why I was permitted to come. You must not grieve for me. I am fine and I was shot right here.” He placed his hand over his heart; then added, “I hardly knew what hit me.” Years later a soldier who had been in the same battle wrote to her and confirmed Elmer’s death as depicted in the dream.
