Memorial Day - Remembering Saugatuck's First Casualty in WWI

On June 18, 1918, Mrs. Harry Morris of 660 Lake Street, Saugatuck, received an official telegram from the War Department, that her son Charles had been killed in action on the battlefields of France. He was the first Saugatuck casualty of the "war to end all wars".

Charles Freshe in France, With His Mother's Gold Star

Private Charles J. Frehse was born in Chicago on Oct. 13, 1893. After his widowed mother married Saugatuck resident Harry Morris in 1907, he and his brother Russell came to Saugatuck to live. He attended Saugatuck schools for 5 years, was a member with his family of the Saugatuck Congregational Church, and played on the Local YMCA Baseball team.

Charles enlisted on April 8, 1917, two days after Congress declared war on Germany. After 6 or 7 weeks of training at Port Royal, SC, he left for France as a member of the 45^th Co, 5^th Regt, US Marine Corps. The Frehse family has pictures which show Charles with his fellow marines at St. Nazaire, France (a major unloading point for troops) on Nov. 10 and 14^th, 1917.

On June 18, 1918, his name was announced by the War Department as one of 45 servicemen killed in action in the fighting northwest of Chateau-Thierry at Belleau Wood. Charles died Jun. 6, 1918, and is buried in the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, Belleau, France. The Commercial Record wrote at the time: "Thus is a gold star added to our service flag, and if the dead can know, it is certain that Charlie Frehse is proud that his star commemorates his supreme sacrifice."

The following year his mother, Lillian Frehse Morris, published this tribute to her lost son:

"Somewhere in France, where duty led,

He fills a patriot grave;

The Lark sings high above his head-

Only the lark knows the hallowed bed

Where lies my soldier brave.

"Sacred the ground where my soldier sleeps

Who came at his country's call,

Onward the tide of battle sweeps;

Only the lark o'er his bosom weeps-

Yet he gave to the world his all."

---MOTHER

Lillian Frehse Morris at son's graveside in France

After the war, Lillian was to visit her son's grave in France with a group of Gold Star Mothers. She was a President of the American Legion Auxiliary, Bruner-Frehse Post (named after her son Charles) and remained active until she died at the age of 91 in 1964. Lillian rests in Riverside Cemetery with her husband Harry. On this Memorial Day, our thoughts and prayers go out to "Gold Star" mothers and families everywhere.

---contributed by Chris Yoder

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Thanks to Patti Kirk for the photos from the Morris-Frehse Collection, now in the SDHS Archives.

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