The Great War - Frederick Cilley Steele

On the 100^th anniversary of Armistice Day, the day World War One ended, I present my closest relative who served in “The Great War,” my uncle, Frederick Cilley Steele.  

On June 2, 1918, at age 21, Uncle Fred enlisted in the Quartermaster Corps and went to Fort Slocum on Long Island for training.  He was transferred to Camp Johnston in Jacksonville, Florida on July 28, 1918. He served with the Motor Truck Company 447 and was promoted to Corporal on January 1, 1919.  

 

Camp Johnston

Fort Slocum Parade Grounds

 He left the United States at Newport News, Virginia on August 22, 1918 bound for France on the ship Dante Allighieri with 20 of his comrades.  The ocean liner was built in Italy for Transatlantica Italiana and after transporting personnel during the war a Japanese company bought her.  Fred returned unscathed, from Bordeaux, France on the vessel Black Arrow, which was originally SS Rhaetia, a passenger-cargo ship built in Germany in 1905. The ship departed July 8, 1919 bound for Newport News and the American soil they left the year before, again with the same twenty-one men listed on the passenger list from MTC 447.   

The Dante Alleghieri

He was discharged July 30, 1919 from Camp Devons in Massachusetts. The details of his service in France are a mystery.  Unfortunately, there was a disastrous fire on July 12, 1973 which destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files at The National Archives in St. Louis, Missouri. Army records from 1912 to 1960 were lost, as well as Air Force personnel serving from 1947 to 1964.  The description of the duties of the Motor Truck Corps from Wikipedia is this:

General Order No. 75 spelled out the functions of the Motor Transport Corps as:

• The technical supervision of all motor vehicles.
• The design, production, procurement, reception, storage, maintenance and replacement of all motor vehicles, and accounting for same.
• The design, production, procurement, storage and supply of Transport Corps garages, parks, depots and repair shops.
• The procurement, organization and technical training of Motor Transport Corps personnel.
• The salvage and evacuation of damaged motor vehicles.
• The homogeneous grouping of motor vehicles.
• The operation, in accordance with instruction from the proper commanding officer as to their employment, of groups of motor vehicles of "First Class".
• The preparation of plans for hauling cargo and personnel over military roads, or roads under military control will be under the control of the Motor Transport Corps.
• The procurement, supply, replacement and preliminary training before assignment to combatant organizations, of personnel for operation of motor vehicles of the "Second Class", will be made by the Motor Transport Corps. 

 

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  Third Division Soldiers

  
  

  

  Standard B Liberty Truck

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

There were designated areas called parks all over France for the reception, service, overhaul and reconstruction of vehicles.  The Liberty Truck was the first official standardized motor vehicle adopted and produced by the US Military, having been designed by the Quartermaster Corp in 1917 with the help of the civilian Society of Engineers. Over 9300 of these trucks were produced by various auto companies in the United States from January of 1918 until the Armistice on November 11^th of the same year.

Frederick Cilley Steele was born in Pittsfield, Merrimack County, New Hampshire on April 12, 1897, the first child to Andrew McClary Steele and Althea Ardelle Rowell who were also born in New Hampshire.  Fred was a very ambitious young man. He drove a delivery truck for Puritan Ice Cream Company, was a candy maker and worked for the Allen Print Shop in Beverly, Massachusetts where he lived with his parents. His father was a shoemaker working in several of the many factories making shoes in New England during that time.  His mother ran a boarding house at 40 Bow Street where the family lived for many years.  Fred had a sister, Grace Elizabeth who was two years younger than him.  My father, Richard Andrew, known as “Dick” was born 14 years after Grace.  I was also born with a large gap between my two older siblings.  This is how, at age 61 I have an uncle who served in World War One.  I knew my aunt and uncle when I was a young child, but since they lived both lived in Florida and we lived in Massachusetts, I saw them rarely.

After the war, Uncle Fred married Marguerite Mary Leighton, the daughter of Henry Vye Leighton and Levina Jardine. The couple started a delivery and moving business featuring auto truck transport to Boston from Beverly.  He also worked at the “Shoe”, United Shoe Machinery Corporation, the 10-acre factory producing machinery to make shoes and the largest employer in Beverly for many years.  Their first and only child, Levina Althea Steele was born March 13, 1921.  Fred joined the Beverly police force in 1921 and was promoted to Sargent ten years later.  He retired in 1942.  Marguerite died in 1944 and he married Mabel Agnes Brown, also a widow.  He later served as the police chief in nearby Middleton, where the family lived.  He also worked as the Security Officer at the General Electric plant in Lynn.  He served as the Commander of the Beverly Veterans of Foreign Wars and was as member of the Liberty Masonic Lodge from 1928 to 1960.

Fred and Mabel moved to the warm Sunshine State of Florida in 1960 and lived in Mount Dora near Orlando for the rest of their lives.  He died in 1975 and is buried at Pinecrest Cemetery in Mount Dora. Mabel died fourteen years later and rests with him under a double stone of pink granite.

 

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