We won't forget our Cousin KIA IN France

Private John Klopfenstein was our family member killed by German fire in France in WWI. Born April 15, 1896 in Indiana. He was employed at the Brass Foundry in Sturgis, Michigan where he entered the US Army on 9/19/1917. He was sent to Camp Custer, Michigan & was assigned to Company D, 328th Machine Gun Battalion & transferred to Camp Merritt New Jersey. He was subsequently sent overseas to Company C, 18th Infantry, 1st Division, "The Big Red One." John was killed while serving his country after being wounded on 09/13/1918, passing away 09/18/1918.

He was laid to rest at the The St. Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial, located at the west edge of Thiacourt (Muethe-et Moselle) along with 4,152 brothers in arms lost at the Battle of St. Mihiel, an offensive that resulted in the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient, a point where the German Army threatened Paris.

He was later moved back home to the family section in Huser Cemetery, near Berne, Indiana. It's been 103 years. But,we will never forget you & your sacrifice for us John.

Thank you for sharing your family history. My great-uncle, John Stanley Holmes served with the 38th Battalion (Eastern Ontario) Canadian Expeditionary Forces in WWI. He was wounded by German machine gun fire on September 2, 1918 at The 2nd Battle of Arras (France). He died of his wounds on September 9, 1918, and is buried in Terlincthun British Cemetery, in Pas de Calais, France. I also had two uncles who served in the U.S. Army overseas in WWII, and my brother was a U.S. Army Vietnam Veteran who served in the 25th Infantry Division (Tropic Lightning), in Cu Chi ‘66-’67.

Thanks for the story and God bless. My uncle, a crewman on a B-25, crashed in the English Channel after dropping a load of bombs on Nazi Germany. His body was never found. Grandma never gave up the idea that he was coming home. He turned 21 on the day he crashed.

I have my Grandfather’s mess plate from WWI.

He had gone through the Bolshevik Revolution and somehow his parents got him and his brother out of Ukraine to fight for the US Army

He etched things into it like soldier figures taking orders and also “Camp Chateau Baleonjre”. The war was over and he was waiting to be shipped to his new home.

Now I don’t know how good his English was back then but I can’t even find anything close

Thanks for your story. I’ve been educating the grandkids about family history, writing names on the back of old photos, & making sure the next generations know the family history & don’t forget what made them who they are.
They even had a great, great grandfather & his brother who walked to California in 1850 & came back with enough to last his & his whole extended family through the entire depression.

Yep...those stories are precious. I never got to know any of my grandparents. They had all passed before I was born in 1947. I always felt like I missed a lot, never having known them. So much family history lost. My mother never really knew her father, since he and her mother separated when she was very small. She knew nothing of her family's history, only that her uncle John had died in WWI. I do have a couple of pictures of him...one in uniform, and on a horse. When I asked where he was buried, she'd say "Flanders Field," not knowing the cemetery he was in.

Even my father, who came to the U.S. from Holland with his parents, and two brothers in 1912, knew nothing of his family history. He always told me his mother, who died in 1920 of TB, was buried in an apple orchard. It wasn't until years later, through a 1st cousin, that I found where she was buried.

After my mother died in 1990, I went to Canada where she had been born, and found vast amounts of info. I also hired a researcher in Holland, who was able to provide me with about 7 generations of my father's family. Everything else I've discovered, has been through Ancestry.com. I even found a photo of my great-grandfather (my Dad's grandfather) there. I'm the last one in my family, so the only one's I have left to share this info with, are my two sons, and my brother's widow, and my niece.

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