OBIT: Harry RICE, 1918, Bellwood, Blair County, PA

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A MILITARY FUNERAL AT BELLWOOD FRIDAY

Body of Harry Rice Brought from Arizona to His Home for Interment

  The body of Harry Rice, who died at Camp Douglass, Arizona, of empyema, last 
Thursday, will be laid to rest in Logan Valley cemetery, Bellwood, on Friday, 
with the honors of war. The body arrived yesterday morning, accompanied by the 
parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Rice, who had arrived at Douglass a short time 
before he died.
  Cause of death was not scarlet fever, as has been rumored, but a collection of 
pus in the pleural cavity.  Harry Rice was born December 14, 1896. He graduated 
from the Antis township high school and later took a business course and became 
a Pennsy stenographer, which was his occupation at the time of his enlistment, 
February 18. He was assigned to Headquarters troop, Seventh cavalry, at Camp 
Henry J. Jones, Douglass, Arizona. His letters to friends at home had been 
cheery and the news of his critical illness came as a shock and his death as a 
great grief to a host of friends here.
  Funeral service will be held at the Lutheran church, Bellwood, on Friday 
afternoon at 2:30, followed by interment in Logan Valley cemetery. The body has 
been taken to the Rice home, North Tuckahoe street, Bellwood, where friends may 
view it at any time.

Altoona Tribune, Wednesday morning, May 15, 1918, page 1

BELLWOOD SOLDIER BURIED WITH HONOR

Military Funeral for Harry M. Rice Attended by a Large Concourse

  Not since 1898, when the body of Bruce Tweed was brought home from Chicamagua, 
a victim of the typhoid scourge, has there been such an outpouring of Bellwood 
people to do honor to a fallen soldier as occurred yesterday, when the funeral 
of Harry Melvin Rice took place.  Schools were dismissed and business places 
closed early in the afternoon.  The Lutheran church was not nearly large enough 
to accommodate the people - no church would have been.  More than 2,000 were in 
the throng at the cemetery.  Floral tributes were numerous and impressive tokens 
of the esteem in which the young man was held.  At the church Miss Currence 
Beard presided at the organ.  The choir sang a touching selection and D. E. 
Wentzel an appropriate solo.
  Rev. H. R. Shipe, the pastor, made an eminently fitting address based upon the 
text, "Behold thy Son."  He referred to the fact that war is always taking the 
best of the young men and that they answer the call for service in the spirit of 
the Christ.  This spirit of service became the American spirit, and now abroad 
in the world are the spirit of Christ and the American spirit, exemplified in 
the young men who give their lives.  Emphasis was also placed on the call for 
sacrifice, self denial and consecration, and a closing word of great comfort 
given the bereaved family.
  The Bellwood Division band led the long line of march to the cemetery.  Finley 
Strunk, John Campbell, William Miller, Wilbur Trout, Warren Burns and William 
Hoffman were honorary pall bearers.  Roy Pickens, Ray Strunk and Earl 
Farnsworth, home on furlough, and three Civil war veterans, D. A. Raugh, J. F. 
Gilmore, and J. T. Criswell, acted as escort, together with Troop C, 
Pennsylvania Reserve militia, led by Captain McKinney, forty in number.  
Following the horse-drawn hearse was the riderless horse of the cavalry funeral.
  Thus headed, the long procession of autos and people afoot wended its way to 
Logan Valley cemetery, where after the ceremonies at the grave the volley was 
fired and the body of the young man, who died for his country just as truly as 
if on the fields of France, was left in its last resting place.

Tribute of a Friend.

  Harry is dead.
  It seems such a short time ago that he told us he was leaving for the army.  
Before we were fully able to realize it he had gone from our midst; and now, to 
our great sorrow, that common enemy has come and taken him still further away 
from us.
  Singer, as he was better known to all his friends, came to this world December 
14, 1896.  Bellwood has been his home ever since, except for the short time he 
had been away just recently.
  He attended the public schools of Antis township ever since a child, ambition 
being with him from the very start.  At the age of 17 he graduated from the 
Antis township high school.  Still having that desire for more knowledge and 
education he entered Zeth's Business college of Altoona.  He completed his 
course there in a very short time and was given the honor of being the best and 
most accurate stenographer ever having finished from that institution.  This has 
been proven by him successfully filling the position as third stenographer to 
the general superintendent, Pennsylvania Railroad company, Altoona.  It was from 
this office that he heard his country call him and he immediately enlisted in 
the U.S. Cavalry, February 18, 1918.  Upon being asked why he had chosen that 
branch of the army, he said, "I am particularly fond of horses and am sure one 
would be a good companion."
  Singer was very fond of music and also talented along this line, mastering the 
piano in a most pleasing manner.  Yes, he could sing.  Nothing delighted him 
more than to be with the boys singing some good old melodies.  Nothing pleased 
us more than to have him.  It was so easy to like him.  His smile was so ready 
and his character so open and sincere.
  It was at Camp Harry J. Jones, Ariz., where he was taken ill.  Not for one 
minute did he think of surrender.  They did everything that surgery could do.  
To the very end he fought off the great common enemy with every ounce of grit 
and courage in him.  It was a hopeless battle; but he fought it manfully.
  In reading the reports that have come up to us from Arizona, I have thought 
again and again of those lines of Shakespeare's: "Nothing in this life became 
him like the leaving of it."
  He was singularly free from selfishness.  What his plans may have been for the 
further future I do not know, but we do know that he had always succeeded in all 
his undertakings.  We were proud that he was a Bellwood man.  And in his death - 
a sacrifice for his country as truly as though he had died in France - we have 
mingled with our grief a solemn and a sacred pride.

T. Finley Strunk

Altoona Tribune, Saturday morning, May 18, 1918, page 13