Lieutenant Harold Vane Grenwalt 1891-1918

GRENWALT, GRENAWALT, WHITE

Posted By: CHERYL MOONEN (email)
Date: 9/11/2022 at 12:34:07

Lieutenant Harold Vane Grenwalt, son of C. U. and U. K. Grenwalt, was born in Eagleview, Mo. April 8, 1891, and was taken from this life by Spanish Influenza at March Field, Riverside, California, and Oct. 24, 1918 at the age of 27 years 6 months and fourteen days.

In 1903 he moved with his parents to Lamoni. He graduated from the high school, class of 1909, then continued his education a Graceland College and Drake University, Des Moines. At the age of 21 years he joined the Masonic Lodge, of Lamoni and Feb 1, 1918 was made a Master of the Royal Secret of the 32d Degree of the Ancient Scottish Rite, in San Antonia, Texas.

Lieut. Grenwalt was married at San Antonio, Texas in Sept. 1917 to Miss Maud White.

Vane was of a very genial and loveable disposition, very much devoted to his parents, remarkably popular with the young people readily making friends wherever he went. He was a staunch believer of patriotism of rightness which he put into practice by becoming one of the first to enlist in the Army when the United States entered the Great War.

Although afflicted with lung trouble a sojourn in New Mexico brought so much improvement to his health that he was able to pass the entrance examination. Enlisting July 31, 1917, at Des Moines he was accepted three days later and began his rapid progress with so much progress that his sudden to the call to the Army Immortal was a great shock to his family and all who knew him.
He was made Corporal Oct. 28, 1917, and entered the training camp for Ground Officers at Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas, where he was commissioned 2nd Lieut. Dec. 15. Afterward he was sent to Rockwell Field, San Diego, California, where he was one of the first to arrive when the camp was ready for the men. Here he was made assistant Post Supply Officer and acting Ordinance Officer and on Aug. 21 was commissioned 1st Lieut. and later received his commission as a flyer. All of the camps he was characterized as a good solider and an ideal officer thus fulfilling his boyhood dreams which he often related to his mother in which he dreamed he was a solider.
When Lieut. Grenwalt made his last visit home to attend his grandmother’s funeral in early October he seemed the picture of health and was on fire with the war work, radiating enthusiasm where ever he went. With all his distinction and titles he was still “Vane “in this his home town among his many friends. The cloud has since rolled back; the darkest hour for his family circle was soon to come, but that pleasant visit will ever be a “sad, sweet” memory.

Upon reaching his post at Riverside, he still seemed in the best of health, but the following day not feeling so well he went to the hospital for medicine, whereupon he was placed in a bed and given treatment. “Though brave and patient the battle only lasted a week and he obeyed the Great Commander the following Thursday morning several hours before the anxious parents, who had been summoned by wire, could possibly reach his bedside.

Owing to the nationwide quarantine at the time the funeral services were held, both at Riverside and at Lamoni, were brief and of necessity private as could well be.

The body was brought home by his parents and on Oct. 30 brief services were conducted at the home by E. F. Partridge accompanied by the local band. After the reading of the 14th Chapter of St. John and prayer extracts from the western papers relative to the occasion were read and “America and the Star Spangled Banner” were feelingly rendered by the band.

From the home of the Masonic Orders of Leon, Davis City and Lamoni took charge of the services and carried out in full their beautiful their beautiful and impressive ceremony and laid to rest in Rose Hill Cemetery their brother, our boy and the Nation’s Defender, decorated by the Stars and Stripes and an abundance of floral offerings from his comrades and friends

Page 4 of The Lamoni Chronicle, published in Lamoni, Iowa on Thursday, November 21st, 1918