WWI Veteran's Family Retraces His Time In France
EDINA, Minn. (WCCO) -- It's easy to lose our sense of history as the centuries pass.
"A lot of us have had a grandfather in World War I, but we don't have that notebook, that personal story, we don't know what they did, where they were," said Barbara Olson, the granddaughter of a World War I veteran. "We know nothing about it."
Leonard Wieland was among the millions of Americans who were sent to liberate Europe during World War I. He was a Minnesota farm boy who penciled his thoughts into a tiny diary that he kept nearby.
"It's a real treasure," said Jeff Peck, Wieland's grandson. "We never would have found Josselin, France, without that little notebook."
Wieland's family only discovered his diary a couple of years ago, but as they read through the penciled memories, seeing his words only invited more curiosity.
"I guess my expectation was to walk the streets and try to visualize what my grandfather experienced 100 years ago," Peck said.
That's exactly what they recently did, traveling to the quaint French countryside to visit the Brittany village of Josselin.
"And the local people of Josselin took our little family trip with real personal interest," Jeff smiles.
Wieland's 95-year-old-daughter, Marion Peck, along with his grandchildren -- Jeff and Barbara -- spent eight days in France. They toured the Chateau de Josselin, an 11th century castle where Wieland and his fellow soldiers were bedded down in the stable.
"My dad said that's the best sleep he had in weeks, sleeping in the stable and no doubt on straw," Marion Peck said.
When the war ended on Nov. 11, 1918, her doughboy dad wrote of the town's church bells.
The family visited that same church and as Marion recalls, "I felt it was 100 years ago as my dad walked through the door to ring the church bells on Armistice Day."
But the cost of such a celebration is, of course, terrible sacrifice. The small village of Josselin lost 17 local soldiers during the war.
At the request of the town's mayor, Marion placed a basket of flowers at the town's memorial, snapping a sharp salute to Josselin's war dead.
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the war's end, Marion and her children had a gift for Josselin as well -- her father's doughboy uniform.
"And they're talking about the display they're going to have and that uniform will be on display at the town hall," Barbara said.
In gratitude and honor, they'd return the gesture with a medal etched in Wieland's name.
"It's really about keeping these memories alive and the sacrifices," Jeff said.
And renewing an old alliance through the pages of a doughboy's little book.
