Defiant Deserter & Mother (1918)

CALLAHAN

Posted By: JoAnne Walker (email)
Date: 4/19/2007 at 10:34:26

The Winterset News
Winterset, Iowa
October 9, 1918

MAYME CALLAHAN IS UNDER BOND - DEFIANT WHEN ARRAINGED. RATHER SHOOT BOY THAN SEE HIM GO TO WAR. - GEORGE CALLAHAN DESERTER -

Indicted by Grand Jury for Urging Her Son to Desert and Boasting About It. --

Mayme Callahan, mother of George Callahan who failed to register for the army, was indicted by the grand jury for seditious utterances and "obstructing the order of the War Department." In other words according to the evidence on which the grand jury indicted her she encouraged her son to desert and go in hiding and has consistently and openly declared her opposition to the war. "I had rather see him dead than go to war." is a statement that a half dozen witnesses before the grand jury allege she made.

Mamye Callahan is the daughter of old Pat Callahan, who worked so many years as the Winterset section foreman on the Rock Island. He bought a farm three miles east of town and when he died the property fell to his son, Frank, and two girls. From the farm recently Frank sold at one time over $10,000 of hogs, and shortly before that $9,000 cattle. When the war broke out and the young men commenced to go Mayme Callahan openly opposed the war and when her son, who was a Highland Park student, was called, he failed to appear.

In the court room, after being arrested, Miss Callahan declared that she was a victim of "a put up job" and that the officials were a lot of crooks. She refused to give bonds and went to jail that night. She thought better of it next day and Doc Hartley furnished bonds for her to the amount of $5,000.