Remembering Those Fallen at Victory Memorial Grove

By Courtland Jindra

When the First World War ended, memorial parks became one of the more popular ways to honor the fallen. One of the more famous soldiers who died in the war was Joyce Kilmer, whose poem Trees is often referenced in these parks, as well as on monuments. When Victory Memorial Grove was initially established in 1919, the plan was to have a forest of trees dedicated to those who died in the war. When the park was moved a year later from what is Radio Hill to its current location, the space reduction meant there would never be that forest, but there was still space enough for dozens of trees. Records are spotty but seem to indicate there may have been at least forty planted in honor of various individuals who were instrumental in the war effort.

Elizabeth “Libbie” Yocum Stevens

One of the first to be honored in this manner was not for a soldier at all. Elizabeth "Libbie" Yocum Stevens was born in Pennsylvania in 1869. When she was a child her family moved to Anaheim, California. After the death of her father in 1880, she relocated to Los Angeles and in 1888 she married Otheman Stevens (they had one daughter). He was a newspaperman for the Los Angeles Examiner newspaper and was very well connected. When the United States finally joined the war in April of 1917, Elizabeth Stevens organized the salvage corps of the Red Cross in Los Angeles which basically recycled materials to raise cash for the war effort. What started in her home as collecting aluminum foil soon expanded and spread throughout LA with at least 150 stations open collecting all sorts of "trash" other than aluminum foil to salvage. Along with Mrs. Theodosia Carlin in New York, the idea went national with hundreds of thousands of such stations all over the country, raising millions for the war.

In May of 1919, Stevens suddenly got sick and died unexpectedly. Her husband's employment with the Examiner may have helped her get approved for a tree.  The Examiner had been instrumental in the establishment of the first Victory Memorial Grove, and he was a respected man. Obviously, servicemen were the priority to recognize in the park, but Elizabeth Stevens had been so key in the war effort no one seemed to object to her being honored. Some of the older trees are still alive, but it is impossible to know if Mrs. Stevens' tree is one of those. Hers was one of the first three planted in the current VMG during the opening day ceremonies on August 2nd, 1920.  She is buried in San Gabriel Cemetery. 

Charles P. Stauffer

When seedlings were planted at VMG, they were to have plaques attached, so people could see who they memorialized. Only one such plaque remains today.  Charles P. Stauffer was born in Illinois in November of 1890 and at some point, the family moved to Los Angeles. He served three years in the Navy, but was already back in civilian life by the time WW1 broke out.  He was a bookkeeper at a business in Dowtown L.A. Stauffer was called back into the service and was the coxswain on the USS Tjikenbang.  The Tjikenbang was an ex-Dutch Ship that was operated by the Navy as a troop and freight transport running from New York to France. Stauffer passed away from pneumonia on September 22nd, 1918, likely the result of the Spanish Flu, on one of those crossings. Quite a few men died from the disease in the cramped quarters of troop transports, especially as the Spanish Flu was raging at the time. Because the bodies were still considered infectious, he was buried at sea. His tree was gone, but replaced in November of 2018 during one of the replantings the Citizens Committee to Save Elysian Park has sponsored at VMG. He is also listed on the Walls of the Missing at Suresnes American Cemetery outside Paris.

Ross Snyder

On June 14th, 1921, four local Chapters of Daughters of the American Revolution erected a boulder memorializing relatives of the State organization lost in the war.  It's the only monument at Victory Memorial Grove, so it is the de facto centerpiece of the park.  The only person that we know of who was originally listed on the monument and had a tree dedicated was Ross Snyder.  He was the son of LA Mayor Meredith P. and May Ross Snyder. Mrs. Snyder was a member of the Eschscholtiazia chapter of the DAR. Ross Snyder was born in Los Angeles, June 29th, 1892. When Snyder was a child he often played with toy soldiers as a child and his mother instilled in him a deep sense of patriotism. Hence, it came as no surprise that he attended and graduated from the Harvard Military school (now Harvard-Westlake).

In 1916, Ross Snyder enlisted to serve on the Mexican Border in June with the cavalry troops of Los Angeles, as General John J. Pershing chased Pancho Villa in Mexico after Villa's raid into the Southwest. Snyder was soon sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for officer training and was commissioned soon after. He bounced around to a few different camps as he continued to be promoted, finally transferring into the 4th Division of the Regular Army. In May 1918 they sailed for France and units of the Division were soon in active service attached to the 42nd (Rainbow) Division near Sergy. During the counter-offensive after the initial defensive stand in the Second Battle of the Marne, Snyder (now a Captain) commanded his battalion under heavy enemy artillery and machine-gun fire after three of the previous battalion commanders had become casualties. He reorganized his unit and directed its movements in the attack, constantly exposing himself until he was killed by enemy machine-gun fire, eventually being honored with the Silver Star posthumously for this action.

There was a delay in shipping bodies home during and after the war.  It was obviously a monumental task to bring tens of thousands of caskets home.  Families were also given the choice of leaving their loved ones on foreign soil or bringing them back to the States.  About two-thirds asked for the bodies to be repatriated. Snyder's body was brought home after the war and he was given what amounted to a State Funeral His body now lies in Hollywood Forever Cemetery and a city park still bears his name on 41st Street.

William Egbert Beach

Because the monument was for California as a whole, plenty of soldiers not from Los Angeles are also honored.  William Egbert Beach of Oakland graduated from Oakland High School in 1909 and the University of California at Berkeley in 1916. After graduation, Beach was employed in the engineering department of the San Francisco-Oakland Terminal Railways. He was a member of the First Baptist Church of Oakland and was active in “Young People's Work” at that church. He was the first member of the church to enlist, signing up as a private in August of 1917.  He entered the first officers’ training camp at the Presidio in San Francisco in the Engineers Corps. He was later commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant while training in Camp Lewis, Washington.

Beach traveled overseas at the turn of 1918 and was assigned to the First Division (The Big Red One) Company B Engineers. Though the United States had entered the war in April of the previous year, only a few divisions had made it to France and had been mostly involved in training up until the late spring of 1918. That’s why when Beach was killed in action on April 27th, 1918, he was called the first California officer "to be a sacrifice on foreign soil."

Late in 1918, Piedmont’s Lake Avenue School was renamed the Egbert W. Beach School in Lieutenant Beach’s honor. Though it has been rebuilt, the campus still bears his name. He is buried at Somme American Cemetery in Bony, France. 

Byron Jackson Junior

Those memorialized didn't just die in combat or from the dreaded pandemic of 1918-1919, or make it overseas. For example, Byron Jackson Junior of San Francisco, a graduate of Lowell High School and later the University of California. Jackson entered the service in Oct. 1917 as a cadet in the School of Military Aeronautics on campus, which was one of only a handful nationwide at a University. He often told his mother, "I feel that I must enlist and serve my country." Jackson's squadron was ordered to Call Field in Wichita Falls, Texas, and was promoted to 2nd Lt. and made an instructor of young pilots going to Europe. Soon after receiving his commission, on April 1st, 1918, he was giving instruction to a cadet who became frightened clinging to the levers. Trying to wrestle control back, Lt. Jackson lost control of the ship and fell from a height of approximately 600 feet and was killed instantly. According to one news article, his student survived. Jackson was cremated and his urn is today in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.

There are dozens of stories like these among the trees and plaque at Victory Memorial Grove.  Every name is a tale all their own.  There are drownings and accidents. Disease and combat. Volunteers and Enlistees. A nurse and at least one Brit. 

They are all but forgotten now, but should not be. Memorial Day is usually the time one thinks to remember those lost in war, but we believe that the DAR ladies chose Flag Day as a time to differentiate their monument. Those who have fallen are also honored with trees, which CCSEP has helped to plant and care for. In paying respect to those held in honored glory at the park, we also pay our respects to the over 116 thousand Americans who died in the Great War. 

Please join us this Flag Day as we pay tribute to those who gave their lives over a century ago.