1921 Armistice Day Commemoration

"Thousands of people standing in the heart of The City in London on Armistice Day, 1921.  This was the most impressive scene in England.  The vast crowd is in front of the Royal Exchange.  To the left is the Bank of England.  Most of the men in the crowd are bankers and insurance men."  A few women are scattered throughout the crowd.  This is a "general view of the bare-headed crowd during the two minutes of silence."

Treasure Chest Thursday: Jean La Forêt Has a Laundry List of Ailments

This is a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of paper.  Like last week's list of military service dates from Jean, the paper is a grayish/off-white, although the scan shows it as white.  This sheet has a watermark:  LAKES BOND / MADE IN U S A.  It was folded in thirds and then in half across the middle.  The folds do not match those from last week's paper.  Everything is typed and legible.

Perhaps intended to accompany the military service compilation, this list enumerates the ailments from which Jean La Forêt was suffering.  It is not dated.  Because it cites his second retirement date, February 1919, it must have been typed after February 1, the day he retired again (does that mean he reretired?).  Maybe he was preparing to file for a pension or a medical claim?

The address at the top of the list, 615 Indiana Str[eet], Vallejo, mataches that of Emma when she first filed for a pension based on Jean's service.

The "diseases" that he details are a varied lot.  He doesn't list the causes of any of them, so they might not have been associated with his time in the Army or Marines.  Two of them I didn't recognize and had to look up:

A hydrocele is a "fluid-filled sac surrounding a testicle that causes swelling in the scrotum."  Interestingly, though, a "[h]ydrocele is common in newborns and usually disappears without treatment during the first year of life."¹  Jean certainly wasn't a newborn, but the definition didn't preclude it occurring in adults.

Varicocele veins are enlarged veins within the scrotum², similar to varicose veins in the legs.

Jean was very blasé about his treatments for his ailments.  I particularly like his comment about the hernia:  "easily maintained inside body."  Well, that's certainly good news!

After going through his medical problems, Jean gave a synopsis of the military and consular history he detailed on the previous sheet.  If this page were intended to accompany the work history, he probably wouldn't have needed to repeat that information, so maybe this page had some other purpose.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, originally called Armistice Day, so it's somewhat fitting to post this page now, as Jean mentioned "the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th Month", when the armistice ending World War I officially went into effect in 1918.


1.  Definition from Mayo Clinic, http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hydrocele/basics/definition/con-20024139.

2.  Definition from Mayo Clinic, http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/varicocele/basics/definition/con-20024164.

Armistice Day

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.  That is when the armistice ending World War I was signed.  I grew up hearing about Armistice Day (now called Veterans Day in the U.S., to honor all veterans) from the time I was a small girl because my mother's birthday was November 11.  She knew her birthday was special, and she shared that with us.

I was in England in 1996 on Armistice Day (they still call it that).  Everything stopped at 11:00 a.m. -- drivers pulled over, radios didn't play anything, and people stopped moving and talking.  For two minutes the country remembered the sacrifices and deaths it endured during World War I.  It was a very moving experience.

A friend of mine in Chicago goes every year on Veterans Day and places a flower on the grave of Zalman, the grandfather of a friend of mine in the Bay Area.  Zalman served from 1917-1918 and was in France during the Armistice.  He wrote to a girlfriend during the war, and when he returned he asked her to type up all the letters he had written to her, so my Bay Area friend has a fascinating collection of letters he wrote from the war front.  As much as he was permitted to, he included where he was writing from, so we have a pretty good idea of his movements throughout his tour and what he experienced.

On Veterans Day this year I particularly want to honor my stepson and daughter-in-law, who both served in the U.S. Army, but I also am thinking of all members of armed forces, past and present.  They sacrifice a lot in the service of their country, and they deserve our thanks.