Walter T. Calundan
World War I
Walter Calundan was born at Osmond on May 3, 1894, to Charles and Laura Calundan. He was one of eight children born to the couple. They lived on an acreage on the southwest edge of Osmond, where Charles began his carpentry business – a vocation that Walter followed later in life.
Walter was 23 years old when he registered for the draft, and 24 when he shipped out on the ship Cretic in 1918. He served with Company B of the 109th Engineeers, which was a part of the 34th Division stationed in France.
According to the Calundan family history, Walter served as a cook. It also says that, as a young man, he worked in the train’s “cook car,” preparing meals for the crew in charge of railroad repair. I wasn’t able to determine if that was supposed to be during his military service or not.
Walter returned to the United States on the U.S.S. Postores in June 1919.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any information on any censuses between then and 1940, but I know he worked in carpentry with his father, and then after his father’s death, which occurred in 1920.
I wrote some time ago about an incident that happened in 1923 involving his mother, Laura Calundan. She was accused of child abuse of her grandchildren — Walter’s brother Alfred’s daughters, Dorothy and Althea. When Osmond people found out about it, mob action against Walter came near breaking out when he returned home from working on a bridge gang on the railroad.
However, the leaders were made to see that he was not to blame.
In the 1940 and 1950 U.S. censuses, Walter is found living with his mother in Osmond. He never married, and died at Osmond General Hospital on April 16, 1974, at the age of 79.
Burial was in the Osmond cemetery, about at the top of the hill, on the left side of the main road, with his parents, two sisters and a brother. Honorary pallbearers were veterans of World War I: John Bahr, Victor Stech, Ferdinand Kumm, John Adkins, Irwin Record and Harry Thomsen. Members of American Legion Post 326 conducted graveside services.
