NEMERRIC-L Archives

From: Carol Page Tilson <>
Subject: PVT. WILLIAM BEYER
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 06:49:13 -0700

Posted on: Merrick Co. Ne Obituaries
Reply Here: http://genconnect.rootsweb.com/gc/USA/Ne/MerrickObits/16

Surname: Beyer, Zillmann
-------------------------


From the "Palmer Journal," 5 Dec 1918:

BUSINESS HOUSES TO CLOSE FOR MEMORIAL SERVICES

By order of the town board all business houses in Palmer are asked to close
from 3 o'clock to 4 o'clock p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 11th, for memorial
services at Opera House for Wm. Beyer who died in the service in France.

_______

IN MEMORY OF WM. BEYER

For several weeks the Beyers family had had no word from from Wm. Beyers,
whose division was known to be in the thickest of the fighting in France.
As the days lengthened into weeks and no word came, and as his name was
not mentioned in the casualty list, they consoled themselves with the old
saying, that "no news is good news."

When hostilities ceased they hoped for a letter saying that he was all
right and that he would soon return home, for he had been in France for
several months and had been in several desperate engagements. Imagine their
grief, when instead of the letter, there came last Friday the following
brief telegram:

"Mr. Charlie Beyer: Deeply regret to inform you that Private Wm. Beyer
is officially reported as killed in action Oct. 17. Adjt. Gen. Harris"

Every person in this community with a relative or friend in the service,
has scanned the casualty list every day, and when the armistice was signed,
and no boy from this community had been reported killed, all had hoped
that no soldier from this place had been called upon to pay the supreme
sacrifice, but hardly a community escaped, fathers and mothers who have
sons in France are waiting anxiously for news from them, for it was well
known that the troops from this section were in the thickest of the fighting
at the last, and it will be several days before the casualty list is completed.

The deceased was born in Grand Island May 11, 1893 and had spent most of
his life in Central Nebraska. He enlisted in the U. S. Army Sept. 15, 1917,
being among the first of the Nebraska troops to land in France.

Although a quiet youth, he was very popular and his friends and relatives
were looking forward anxiously to the time when he would come home and
tell them about his struggles with the crafty foe upon foreign battlefields,
but now this hope is gone for he is one of the Grand Army of noble young
Americans who gave their lives in the great struggle for human liberty.

Of all these it may be said as it was said of the heroes of Ancient Greece:
"Their glory shall never fade; the whole wide world is their sepulchre;
their epitaphs are written in the hearts of men, and wherever there is
speech, of noble deeds, their names are held in the most grateful remembrance."

The heartfelt sympathy of the entire community is extended to the bereaved
parents whose consolation is that their son died for a good cause and that
he fell fighting bravely.
________

From Funeral Card (death date error): "Pvt. William Beyer Killed in Action
While Serving as an Infantryman with American Expeditionary Forces in France
Oct. 1, 1918."
________

Final Notes: Pvt. Wilhelm Franz Walter Beyer, U.S. Army, 61st Infantry
Regiment, 5th Infantry Division, is buried (Plot E, Row 16, Grave 15) with
14,245 others in Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, Romagne, France. He was
the son of Charles Johann Frederick and Bertha (Zillmann) Beyer, who moved
to Palmer, MERRICK COUNTY, NE, about 1915 and lived there until they died
(he in 1942, she in 1921).

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• PVT. WILLIAM BEYER by Carol Page Tilson <>