Remembering Those Fallen at Victory Memorial Grove
By Courtland JindraWhen 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 numerous monuments throughout the country. When Victory Memorial Grove (VMG) was initially established in 1919, the plan was to have a forest of trees dedicated to those who died in the war. When the garden was moved a year later from what is now Radio Hill to its current location off of Lilac Terrace, 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 to the war effort.
Elizabeth “Libbie” Yocum Stevens
One of the first to be honored in this manner was not 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 married Otheman Stevens (they would have one daughter). Stevens was a newspaperman for the Los Angeles Examiner 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 L.A. with at least 150 stations open collecting all sorts of "trash" other than aluminum foil. 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 of dollars for the war.
In May of 1919, Elizabeth 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 Otheman Stevens was a respected man. Of course, servicemen were the priority for recognition in the park, but Elizabeth Stevens had been so important to 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 them as nearly all of the original plaques are gone. Hers was one of the first three trees planted in the current VMG during the opening day ceremonies on August 2, 1920. She is buried in San Gabriel Cemetery.
Charles P. Stauffer
When seedlings were planted at Victory Memorial Grove, 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, his family moved to Los Angeles. He served three years in the Navy, but was already back in civilian life by the time WWI broke out. He was a bookkeeper at a business in Downtown L.A. When the nation's colors were called back into the service, Stauffer would serve as the coxswain on the USS Tjikenbang which 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 22, 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. Because their bodies were still considered infectious, Stauffer was buried at sea. His tree was gone when Elysian Park first started being rehabilitated, but it was replaced in November of 2018 during one of the replantings sponsered by Friends of Elysian Park. Stauffer is also listed on the Walls of the Missing at Suresnes American Cemetery outside Paris.
Ross Snyder
On June 14, 1921, four local chapters of Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) erected a boulder memorializing relatives of California DAR members lost in the war. It's the only monument at Victory Memorial Grove, and has become its de facto centerpiece. 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 L.A. Mayor Meredith P. Snyder and his wife May Ross Snyder. Mrs. Snyder, in addition to being married to the mayor, was a member of the Eschscholtiazia chapter of DAR.
Ross Snyder was born in Los Angeles, June 29, 1892. When Snyder was a child he often played with toy soldiers and his mother instilled in him a deep sense of patriotism. It came as no surprise that he later attended and graduated from the Harvard Military School (now Harvard-Westlake).
In June 1916, Ross Snyder enlisted to serve on the Mexican border with the cavalry troops of Los Angeles, as General John J. Pershing chased Pancho Villa through Mexico after Villa's raid into the Southwestern U.S. 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 the division sailed for France and units were soon in active service attached to the 42nd (Rainbow) Division near Sergy. During the counter-offensive that followed 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.
Delays in shipping bodies home during and after the war were common; it was a monumental task to bring tens of thousands of caskets across the Atlantic. Families were given the choice of leaving their loved ones on foreign soil or bringing them back to the United 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 on 41st Street still bears his name.
William Egbert Beach
Because the Victory Memorial Grove monument was designed to represent all of California, plenty of soldiers not from Los Angeles are also honored. William Egbert Beach 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 27, 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 Jr.
Those memorialized didn't just die in combat or from the dreaded pandemic of 1918-1919. Some, like Byron Jackson Jr. of San Francisco, didn’t even make it overseas. A graduate of Lowell High School and later the University of California, Jackson entered the service in October 1917 as a cadet in the School of Military Aeronautics, which was one of only a handful nationwide housed 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, where Jackson was promoted to Second Lieutenant and made an instructor of young pilots going to Europe. Soon after receiving his commission, on April 1, 1918, he was giving instruction to a cadet who became frightened and began clinging to the levers. Trying to wrest control back, Lt. Jackson lost control of the aircraft 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 more stories like these among the trees and DAR plaque at Victory Memorial Grove. Every name is a tale all its own. There are drownings and accidents. Disease and combat. Volunteers and Enlistees. A nurse and at least one Brit.
They are long gone now, but must not be forgotten. Memorial Day is usually the time one thinks to remember those lost in war, but the DAR ladies chose Flag Day as a time to set their monument apart. Those who have fallen are also honored with trees, which Friends of Elysian Park has helped to plant and care for. In paying respect to those held in honored glory at the park, we pay our respects to the all of the 116,000 Americans who died in the Great War.
We invite you to join us annually on Flag Day as we pay tribute to those who gave their lives over a century ago.
