History 21 The Podcast - 5.05 The Sammie Backer Club

Looking to support the war effort, students at Anoka High School created the "Sammie Backer Club" on Oct 3, 1917 after the United States entered WWI. The goal was to send mail to every Sammie (or soldier) who had been a student at their school. Learn about the club and some of the soldiers they corresponded with.

Host Sara Given, ACHS Volunteer Coordinator, and Rebecca Desens, ACHS Executive Director.

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Sammie Backer Club

History of the Club as written by one of the students, circa 1918.

A.H.S. Sammie Backers. Last fall, when the students of Anoka High school were asking the question, “How can we do our bit?” urgent requests for more mail came from various camps. We decided “our bit?” was to cheer the Sammies by filling their mail bags.

October 3rd a club was organized for the purpose of sending magazines, papers, cards, jokes, cartoons, and letters to all boys in the service who had at some time been students of Anoka High School. Major Caswell upon receiving several letters, referred to the students of .H.S. as “Sammie Backers”, and this name was immediately appropriated. All seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen were enrolled as charter members. Two students were elected from each class to serve on a committee to take charge of the work. Miss Hognason and Miss Matson of the faculty were appointed to assist the committee. Other members of the faculty have assisted materially in making suggestions, supervising , writing letters, and mailing packages.

Oct 4th the committee met and organized electing Helen Veidt President, Bernice McGoffey secretary and Frank Quackenbush treasurer.

The first duty of the committee was to get the names and addresses of all AHS students in the service. With the assistance of students and teachers the committee soon had a list of fifty six names. A card catalogue was made. Each card contains the name and address of one boy and a record of all the mail sent to him by the organization.

Room a was made Sammie backers headquarters. The committee designated Monday and Tuesday as receiving and mailing days and Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as work days

On receiving days all the students of the high school were asked to bring to room a papers, jokes, magazines, cartoons, good editorials, and pictures for posters and scrapbooks.

On each work day one member of the committee took charge of the work and asked the assistance of eight other members of his class; thus nearly every student in the high school had the opportunity of contributing his services (from) some time during the semester. Life magazines were wrapped for mailing, interesting stories were cut from older magazines and placed in attractive covers, unique booklets were made of editorials, jokes and cartoons, such as “when a fellow needs a friend,” “Snoodles Diary” “the cheerful cherub” and “Bringing up father”. Mechanical drawing students made the books attractive by printing the titles on the covers. Printing offices in Anoka generously contributed papers for books and covers. Brightly colored pictures were cut out and made into posters and scrapbooks for hospitals.

On mailing days a member of the committee was on duty in Room A before school in the morning, at noon, and from 3.00 to 4:30 in the afternoon. All packages were ready for mailing and were marked with the stamp, ahs Sammie Backers students who sent the packages were urged to add their own names to give a more personal touch to the package. Students went to room a for the package, looked up the addresses of the boys in the card catalogue and left a record of the mail sent. The first mailing day was Oct 10th, at which time 56 packages were sent. Since then each boy has received from 2-6 packages every week.

The committee made arrangements so that each boy receives a copy of the Anoka Herald or the Anoka Union every week. Sunday papers and magazines have been sent to the boys regularly. They especially enjoy the sport sheets of these

Thanksgiving the Sammie Backers had a post card shower on the boys. Three hundred cards were sent.

The last of November the Sammie backers assisted he Red Cross by contributing 30 Christmas packages for the U.S. soldiers in France and by wrapping 60 more packages contributed by the grade and country schools. Dec 1st 840 packages had been sent.

Dec 11th was cooky day. A three pound box of assorted home made cookies gladdened the heart of each AHS Sammie.

Seventy two cheerful ,newsy Christmas letters, decorated in water colors with Christmas scenes, pictures of Santa Claus, holly, mistletoe, tec and 50 Christmas cards were sent in time to reach the boys Christmas day. Students who wrote the Christmas letters received credit for them in their English Classes. The sophomores have been writing letters to the soldiers as a part of their regularly composition work. They have written some 200 soldier letters.

Dec 21st fifteen scrapbooks were sent to one of the ahs boys who was in the hospital at Camp Cody.

When one of the sammies has a birthday, his name is posted on the board in the assembly room and the students are urged to send him greetings. Twelve birthdays have been celebrated in this way.

The news letters were received by the boys write great enthusiasm. These letters consisted of the names and addresses of all AHS boys in service and a line or two of news about each one. Miss Curry had charge of the news letters. Copies of these letters were run off on the [?] by the commercial department. Two such letters have been sent to all the boys and they are eagerly looking for the next ones.

Jan 16th twenty four posters, consisting of bright attractive pictures mounted on card board were sent to the boys at Camp Cody as decorations for their tents.

The Sammie backers are very proud of having three boys in France. Jan 25th a large package of the December and January members of our best magazines was mailed to each of these boys.

Jan 25th the Sammie backers had been in existence three months and a half. During that time they had sent 1480 pieces of mail with the hope that each piece by encouraging the Sammies might prove an effective weapon against the kaiser.

Dec 3rd the school board presented the Sammie backers with a beautiful service flag, containing 56 stars. This flag was made by the advanced domestic science class under the direction of Miss Mellon. It hangs on the west wall of the assembly room and is a constant reminder of the students of loyalty and patriotism of the 56 brave lads who have offered their best service to their country. Since this flag was presented, are list has been constantly growing. We should now have 73 stars on our flag.

Every Thursday afternoon at literary a report of the work done by the Sammie backers was given.

The boys are very appreciative of our work and have sent many interesting letters and pictures to the Sammie backers. Extracts from the letters were read at literary. When the letters were especially interesting, several copies were made and sent to the boys, who wer thought would particularly enjoy them. The pictures were posted on the bulletin board in the assembly room. These the students learned much about army life in the various camps and their interest in the boys was kept alive.

We are proud of the splendid record our boys are making We have on our list 15 non commissioned officers and 8 lieutenants. We also boast one major and two lieutenant colonels from whom we have received some exceedingly interesting and inspirational letters. The influence of these older men has tended to give our patriotism a more serious vein.

Looking back over the semesters work the Sammie backers feel that they have received more than they have given. They have grown in loyalty and patriotism and they have a greater desire and determination to back the Sammies upon whom the burden of this great war rests so heavily.