Clyde White
World War I
Clyde White was a tricky one to research. When I first did a search for him, there was no record of him in the centennial book: no family history and no record in the cemeteries, so I had no record of his birth or death dates, which is what helps me to research veterans on Ancestry.com.
I guessed at the year of his death based on others above and below him on the list of departed Legion members, and the search turned up a Walter Clyde White, who lived at Foster at the time he was inducted into the military during World War I.
There was a death date listed and when I looked in the Osmond Republican to find an obituary, there wasn't one. There was, however, an article around that time saying that “Clyde White buys old library building.” How could he buy a library building if he had passed away at that time?
I took a break from the search, and then tried again, and this time, somehow, I found the correct Clyde White.
Clyde was born in Iowa to Lyman and Florence White in 1899. Unfortunately, his mother died only days after his birth and he was sent to live with his grandparents. I found him living with them in the 1900 census, while his three older siblings, Coe, 16, Hattie, 10, and Mabel, 8, were listed in a separate household with their father. In 1910, Clyde is still living with his grandparents, at the age of 10. By then, his father had remarried a woman named Cordelia.
Clyde was inducted into the Army on April 11, 1918, shortly after graduating high school, and served with Company C, 108th Field Signal Bn. According to the article about his marriage in 1942, Clyde went overseas in May 1918 — I found him on the ship Melita leaving from New York.
He was an active participant in the Somme Sector with the Australians, seeing action in the Somme, Verdun and Meuse-Argonne battles, being slightly gassed in the latter battle, which necessitated his spending three weeks in the hospital.
Following the Armistice, he served with the Army of Occupation and was stationed at Dierkerk, Luxemburg. He returned to the United States on the ship Kasserin Auguste Victoria, leaving Brest, France May 14, 1919. He was mustered out of service at Camp Dodge, IA, on June 21, 1919.
Although I had found the article about his marriage in 1942 to Ida Stark, I found him in the 1930 census with another woman, his first wife, Nellie, whom he married in 1928. At that time he is listed as a printer in a newspaper office in Iowa.
In the 1940 census, he is still listed as married, probably to Nellie, but he is living with other men at what is translated from the census as “Cir Con Cust Camp” — but what I believe is probably the Civilian Conservation Corps. It states he is a truck driver in soil conservation. It also shows his duration of unemployment as 52 weeks.
It is possible that the hardships of unemployment and/or being away from his wife caused the breakdown of this marriage. Either way, the article in 1942, just two years later, shows Clyde marrying Ida Stark.
His military records also shows that he was inducted into the army again in 1942, and served from July 7, 1942, to Feb. 9, 1943. At that time he was apparently living at Bloomfield, because I found an article in the Bloomfield Monitor on a list of men to be inducted.
The article about his marriage to Ida was also in the Bloomfield Monitor, and it says he came to Bloomfield on Sept. 1 of that year and entered the employ of The Bloomfield Monitor, as a printer and solicitor.
After writing most of this article and finally finding his date of death, I looked in the Osmond Republican and found Clyde’s obituary. This states that his tour of duty in WWII was in the United States.
After working at the Bloomfield Monitor, he and his wife started the first drive-in at Bloomfield, and then operated the West Side Café for three years.
They were proprietors of the Rainbow Inn for 10 years, and he worked at
Gavins Point Dam and for Jay Lush at the Bloomfield Hatchery.
In April 1961, the couple purchased the Osmond Café and in May began the business which they had operated ever since then. The article I found about him buying the old library building was in the Osmond Republican in 1962, and it says that it would be removed from the corner lot and remodeled into living quarters.
After being in failing health for several years, Clyde died at the Plainview hospital on June 20, 1969, due to heart disease. Funeral services were held at Immanuel Lutheran Church here and at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bloomfield. Legionnaires of the Osmond and Bloomfield posts and members of the VFW of Creighton conducted military services. The flag was presented to the widow by Norman Blunck.
Clyde and his wife are buried in the Bloomfield Cemetery.
