Over There and Back Again: World War I as seen through the eyes of three Hoosiers

Storyteller Sharon Kirk Clifton will premiere the story, Over There and Back Again for the Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories series in collaboration with the Indiana Historical Society. On April 2, 1917, Wilson sent a war request to Congress. Four days later, the United States declared war on Germany.

Among the first to answer the call to serve were three Hoosiers. Ruth Wright of Rochester had recently become an RN and was working at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. When she heard the Red cross needed nurses to volunteer for duty in France, she signed up to go with the first wave. Robert H. Tyndall, an Indianapolis native, was a successful businessman who heard the call to serve and sold his half of a tailoring firm to his partner and re-entered the military. Alice Moore French was neither a nurse nor a soldier. She was a determined mother with a passion to organize and mobilize other mothers of servicement to make sure the U.S. military was well-nourished. Thus, she founded American War Mothers.

Using the Indiana Historical Society’s archives, storyteller Sharon Kirk Clifton will share the stories of these three people who, after the war, became leaders in Indiana.