Thomas Franklin Ward: Experiencing WWI through artifacts

Pictured are artifacts from Thomas Franklin Ward, who fought in World War I. (Photo courtesy of ACHS)

The world wars are incredibly popular historical topics.

They are recent enough to be well documented, even remembered by people still living today, and so influential that they have long-established fields of study. As someone who grew up in the United States — watched American movies, read American books and was educated by the American school system — I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know about World War I or World War II. It was an omnipresent force, something that had changed the shape of where I lived long before my parents were born (and in the case of WWI, my grandparents too).

With this constant knowledge, though, there also came a feeling of disassociation. The world wars didn’t feel like something that had happened to real people. They were immutable facets of the past, there was no question about who would have won or lost, who would have lived or died, because I knew the ending before I even knew the beginning.

I had never thought of the world wars as something that people ever would have been uncertain about or would have sacrificed for. I certainly had never thought about the world wars as something that might not have happened, but those would have been the conversations leading up to them — What’s going on? What will they do next? Will we get involved?

It’s strange to think about such an enormous part of history in the future tense.

Perhaps this is why, when I was working with our collection at the Anoka County Historical Society, I found one discovery so fascinating.

One particularly large donation that has been waiting to enter our collection for a while are the personal belongings of Thomas Franklin Ward, who fought in WWI. The donation comprised a jumbled assortment of letters, professional documents, knick-knacks and larger artifacts (including a pair of crutches). I had no background knowledge about who Thomas Ward was, or why his things had been donated, so I began the process of examining and sorting.

Examining a donation, especially one without much attached context, is an evolving process.

At first I believed that these were the belongings of brothers: Thomas and Franklin, and that Thomas had died in the war. We found early life documents all attributed to “Thomas” and the wallet he would have carried with him in the trenches was signed “Thomas Ward.”

He had the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary written on the back of his Army information card. He carried a picture of a young woman in his card, and requested that if his body were found that someone notify his mother and his sweetheart, Lucretia Foster. It was strangely heartbreaking to find all this, the personal effects of someone who had lived and died before I was born.

As I continued to sift through papers, I found an announcement of marriage between Lucretia and someone named Frank Ward. Frank! How could you? I thought for certain that he had swooped in and married his brother’s lady, but kept examining the records and quickly realized that I was wrong.

I discovered that T.F. Ward had gone by his first name in his early life and his middle name after serving in WWI. (This is why it’s important for archivists to examine their collections carefully.)

Thomas had been reborn as Frank, and I couldn’t help but cheer. He even attended St. Thomas University, had children and ran his own business.

Discovering these artifacts and documents gave me a glimpse at the uncertainty the world wars must have caused. Had this person survived? What had they carried with them into war? Did they come home? And what then? Though it was only a microcosm, it gave real insight into what living during those times would have been like, and showed how similar it is to today.

Erin McBrien is the archivist/curator for the Anoka County Historical Society.