Franklin College prepares for World War I

Written by Bev Hollandbeck, originally published in the Spring 2017 issue of the Nostalgia News.

What was supposed to be six weeks of military training camp morphed into an intensive medical emergency late in 1918.

As soon as the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, Franklin College began to lose men to the war effort, some to officers’ training at Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, others to recruitment centers, and some back to family farms to help boost food production. Social activities were curtailed, commencement ceremonies were somber, and an air of patriotism mobilized the remaining professors and co-eds.

A year later, the spring 1918 graduation rates had fallen by at least 50%. It seemed doubtful that the campus would even open the following fall. Then during the summer, an announcement was made that Franklin College would be a venue for a Student’s Army Training Corps (SATC) unit, and that all colleges with SATC camps would not open until Oct. 1.

Believing that college campuses would be a major source of quick and reliable officer candidates, in 1916 the US government, anticipating America’s entrance into the war, had established the ROTC, Reserve Officer Training Corps. Two years later, Congress authorized the SATC for “every college that could furnish a minimum of one-hundred able-bodied men of military age,” according to Charles H. Rammelkamp in a history of Illinois College.

By April 1918, 157 college campuses supported an SATC, jointly administered by the university and the military, with the US government paying for tuition, room and board, military salaries, and uniforms.

The announcement that Franklin College would become a training camp sent the campus into overdrive to prepare for the conversion. Professor C. A. Deppe, Orville Roberts, Charles Cross, Elwood Watkins, and Tom Semon traveled to Ft. Sheridan in Lake County, Illinois, to become military instructors for the camp. A mess hall was quickly erected, and the gymnasium remodeled to be used as barracks.

A company roster of Camp Franklin from the Franklin College yearbook The Almanack of 1920 lists 209 men divided into four platoons and even a company band, all under the direction of Captain Charles W. De Jarnette of Des Moines, Iowa, and Lieutenant Warren C. Waite of Minneapolis, Minnesota. They all reported for duty on October 1, 1918.

That’s when a non-military repurposing of the camp began. On the next day, the first victim of the Spanish influenza was taken to the hospital, and the epidemic swept through the ranks. At first an emergency hospital was established in a house near the campus, but it had to be abandoned in just a few days because of the large number of patients. The gymnasium that had been converted to barracks became the company hospital. Women from Franklin and neighboring communities volunteered to care for the sick, filling both day and night shifts.

According to The Almanack, “Men fell out of ranks while standing roll call. Others fainted while at mess. The college closed. An attempt to conduct classes for the SATC men failed. The number of patients in the large gymnasium increased with the hours.” Military drill was suspended. At one time, more than eighty men were in the hospital, close to half the enrollment in SATC. Two patients died.

And then something remarkable happened. Germany surrendered. Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, was only five weeks after the opening of the camp, three days before the men’s first military paycheck was issued. Hardly soldiers yet, their service now seemed unnecessary and superfluous. They had not even received uniforms yet.

But the wheels of the military grind slowly, and the camp remained in existence for two more months, in a stage of demilitarization. Flu victims recovered, the paperwork was filled out, the arms handed in, platoon photos taken, and farewell events staged, including a dinner and a parade through the city on December 20, a week after the arrival of their uniforms. Honorable discharge papers list December 21 as the last day of military service.

The lead for the Franklin Democrat story about demobilization on December 20, 1918, sums up the experience: “When the 209 men of the Franklin College unit of the Students’ Army Training Corps return to their homes Saturday

[Dec. 21] with honorable discharges in their pockets, the chances are that while they may not be able to tell the home folks much about readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic, they certainly can give the boys an idea of real soldiering.”

Posted on April 2, 2020