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| | HORSESHOER BLAKE R. BEEMER
Serial No. 2,017,872
Flushing, Mich.
Coming from the Ammunition Train, he joined the Battery in September. He was by trade a blacksmith and a typical son of Vulean. He had served in that capacity in the Ammunition Train and with Privates Henzler and Eddy did yeoman service in our Battery. Unlike the Village Blacksmith, of which Longfellow wrote, whose smith was “under the spreading chestnut tree,” he performed his work under protection of Sergt. Reddaway’s camouflaged scenery in the fighting area. Here he was forced to a sort of itinerary way of conducting his line of work, as frequently the shells came so rapidly that he would have to move the horse he was shoeing, as well as his forge and anvil, to a safer spot.
He had the kindly philosophy which has made Longfellow’s poem famous. |