shetuck
What do you need water for, Sunshine?
tOSU '18
most touching part is it says that, "He delivered newspapers as a youngster and would read the paper to immigrants, his daughter said. 'That was the beginning of him being a teacher,' she said."
Rest well...
Toledo Blade
most touching part is it says that, "He delivered newspapers as a youngster and would read the paper to immigrants, his daughter said. 'That was the beginning of him being a teacher,' she said."
Rest well...
Toledo Blade
Dec 21, 10:05 AM EST
Oldest U.S. WWI Vet Dies in Ohio at 109
By JOHN SEEWER
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/Madalyn Ruggiero
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- J. Russell Coffey, the oldest known surviving U.S. veteran of World War I, has died. The retired teacher, one of only three U.S. veterans from the "war to end all wars," was 109.
Coffey died Thursday at the Briar Hill Health Campus in North Baltimore, where he had lived for the past four or five years, said Gaye Boggs, nursing director at the nursing home. No cause of death has been determined, she said Friday. His health began failing in October.
More than 4.7 million Americans joined the military from 1917-1918. Coffey never saw combat because he was still in basic training when the war ended.
The two remaining U.S. veterans are Frank Buckles, 106, of Charles Town, W.Va.; and Harry Richard Landis, 108, of Sun City Center, Fla., according to the Veterans Affairs Department. In addition, John Babcock, 107, of Spokane, Wash., served in the Canadian army and is the last known Canadian veteran of the war.
Coffey once confided to his daughter, Betty Jo Larsen, that he wished people would remember his contributions rather than his old age. "He told me 'even a prune can get old,'" she said last spring. She died in September.
Coffey had enlisted in the Army while he was a student at Ohio State University in October 1918, a month before the Allied powers and Germany signed a cease-fire agreement. He was discharged a month after the war ended.
cont'd...
