Walker Family Collection, 1915-1996
| Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs
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Abstract
Administrative/Biographical History
William Henry Clowes Walker of Hingham, Massachusetts was born in 1883. He enlisted in the American Field Service (AFS), a volunteer ambulance corps serving with the French Army in World War I, in December 1915. From January to May 1916, he drove an ambulance with Section Sanitaire [Etats-] Unis (SSU) 2 at Pont-à-Mousson and elsewhere on the Verdun front in France. He returned to Rampont in September 1916 and was wounded in October 1916, when shrapnel entered his thigh after he had just finished dropping off wounded men. While recuperating, he worked at AFS headquarters, and then returned to SSU 2 in June 1917. Walker enlisted in the Canadian Field Artillery August 1917 after the United States entered the war and AFS was absorbed by the U.S. Army, consequently ceasing to exist as an independent entity. Walker was honorably discharged from the Canadian Forces in December 1917, due to a physical disability. For his service in the war, he received the Croix de Guerre in the Order of Division (1916), the Verdun Medal (1937), and the AFS medal.
After returning to the United States, William H.C. Walker married Miss Helen F. Brewer, also of Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1920. They had one daughter, Frances Walker (d. 1953), and one son, Willard B. Walker (1926-2009). William H. C. Walker passed away at an unknown date.
Willard B. Walker was born on July 29, 1926, and attended Philips Academy. After the American Field Service was reactivated by Stephen Galatti during World War II, Walker volunteered in 1944 and was sent to Italy in January 1945 with unit CM 94. He was transferred to India-Burma in July 1945 with unit IB 59-T, and was posted to No. 2 Company until October 1945.
After the war Willard Walker graduated from Harvard (Class of 1950), earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D. from Cornell. A specialist in Native American languages and cultures, he was Chairman of the Department of Anthropology and Linguistics at Wesleyan University. He married C. Pearline “Perch” Walker in 1953. The couple had two sons, Christopher and Andrew.
Willard B. Walker passed away on May 23, 2009.
Subjects (links to similar collections)American Field Service (American Ambulance Field Service)
American Field Service--Central Mediterranean Units (CM)
American Field Service--CM 94
American Field Service--IB 59-T
American Field Service--India-Burma Units (IB)
American Field Service--SSU 12
Cornell University
Harvard University
Section Sanitaire [États-] Unis (SSU)
University of Arizona
Walker, Willard
Walker, William H.C. (William Henry Clowes), b. 1883
Wesleyan University (Middletown, Conn.)
World War, 1914-1918
World War, 1939-1945
Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative Information
The bulk of the Walker Family Collection consists of photographs, papers, and artifacts collected by William H.C. Walker during his service in World War I. Additionally, there is one artifact from Willard B. Walker’s service in World War II and drafts of his manuscript entitled Working for Galatti’s Lira: An AFS Driver’s Recollections of Cross-Cultural Encounters in World War II (American Field Service Archives and Museum, 1996.)
The World War I material includes two photograph albums containing ca. 450 photographic prints taken and/or arranged by William H.C. Walker during his time in France with the American Field Service (AFS) Section Sanitaire [Etats-] Unis (SSU) 2 and Paris Headquarters in 1915-1917. All of the images in one album, and about a third of the images in the other, are captioned. Images include AFS ambulance drivers, ambulances and driver’s quarters, the American Hospital at Neuilly, French soldiers, ruins, trenches, and landscapes (of Verdun, Paris, and other sites.) The collection also includes two photographic albums containing reprints (dated 1968) of some of the same photographs from the original albums, along with 1968 reprints of other World War I photographs which do not appear in the albums of original prints. Three loose album pages appear to have been removed from one of the two original albums. In addition to the albums, there is a box of thirty six small loose World War I prints and twenty nine loose negatives (some of which are duplicates of photographs in the albums) arranged into labeled groups by Willard Walker, three loose photographic portraits of William H.C. Walker in uniform (one hand tinted from July 1916), one in front of the American Ambulance Hospital in Neuilly (early 1917), and one mounted portrait, taken in Hingham, Massachusetts ca. August 1917. The collection also includes a partial inventory of the photographic material, written by Willard Walker in 1995.
The collection also includes several World War I artifacts, including Walker’s Croix de Guerre on a chain, his AFS and Verdun medals, bronze AFS cap insignia and red and white enamel cap insignia, AFS bronze collar insignia, four American volunteer ribbon and star buttons and a boutonniere with miniature Croix de Guerre, and Canadian Field Artillery shoulder insignia. Other artifacts in the collection include a Red Cross armband stamped “Ministière de la guerre” and signed by Walker, and a small Tricolor flag attached to a twig with a handwritten inscription on the white section: “Vive La St. Henri R.F.”
The collection also contains three World War I-era French maps, and other papers including William H. C. Walker’s French certificate of residence, correspondence and a certificate relating to his Verdun medal, his AFS orders, a postcard to him from SSU 2 comrade Ed Seccombe (dated 1964), and a photocopy of a 1916 letter written by Walker.