Childhood war stories explode into research project

CEDAR RAPIDS - Pat Shey heard the stories as a kid. His Great Uncle Gene had chased Pancho Villa in Mexico. He was a hero of World War I. He died before his time, the mustard gas used during the war contributing to his deteriorating health.

So, as a family reunion approached, Pat, now 53, decided to find out if those stories were true. He thought he'd visit the battlefields of France where Uncle Gene fought. He joined ancestory.com to research, then discovered the newspapers in Adams County where Uncle Gene had lived were searchable on the Internet.

Pat hit the jackpot.

"I grew up hearing all of these stories, especially from my parents who were coming of age in The Depression," Pat says. "One clue led to another."

Pat has copied hundreds of pages of materials, read letters home and written a manuscript about his father's uncle Gene Cruise that's approaching 150 pages. It's titled "Into the Summer Wheat: Eugene Cruise and the Boys of Company K," because many WW I battles were fought in wheat fields.

"I have no delusions that I'll get a book deal out of this," Pat laughs, "but big anniversaries of World War I are coming up."

Fueling Pat's interest in history was the fact he grew up in Algona which had a World War II prisoner of war camp. Pat left Algona after graduating high school in 1977 and by way of college, a career as a stockbroker and becoming an attorney, found himself in Cedar Rapids 15 years ago. He's now on the City Council and owns a spray foam insulating business.

His Great Uncle Gene was born in Adams County not far from Corning. In 1916 the papers had stories about the Mexican revolution and some troops under Pancho Villa killing American citizens in New Mexico. Uncle Gene enlisted in the National Guard and went to Texas in a division headed by Gen. John J. Pershing with the mission to chase Pancho Villa. Unfortunately, the troops didn't see action or capture the Mexican outlaw.

Uncle Gene, however, had been prepared for battle. When World War I started he became a member of Company K, the 168th Regiment of the 42nd Infantry, also known as the Rainbow Division.

The company fought for 100 days in the Luneville sector where it continuously fought off the effects of heavy artillery fire and the explosion of shells containing mustard gas and phosgene gas.

It moved on to some of the fiercest battles of the war including the Second Battle of the Marne and the Meuse-Argonne offensive where Uncle Gene, always good with animals, courageously drove mules and the food wagon closer to the front than any other supply train.

In November, 1918, during intense fighting at Sedan, Uncle Gene was awarded a battlefield commission to become a second lieutenant but he refused to stop fighting to receive it at that time.

After the war Uncle Gene returned home, to a small town called Massena. He then became a land appraiser for the Federal Land Bank in Omaha where he worked until his death in October, 1935, at the age of 50. He had never married and had no children.

"This was really the rise of America," Pat says. "When World War I broke out, the U.S. Army was only 17th in the world. Portugal had more soldiers."

But it didn't have Uncle Gene Cruise, a hero in the eyes of his fellow soldiers and in the eyes of boy growing up in Iowa.