Obituary: Rock County, Wisconsin: Walter F. BENSON

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Submitted by Ruth Ann Montgomery, <rmontgomery@cishome.com> June 2005

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WALTER F. BENSON LAID TO REST

Remains of Evansville Soldier Given Military Honors, Sunday, Aug. 14 by
American Legion

Walter F. Benson, only son of Mr. and Mrs. William J. Benson, was born Nov.
1st, 1891. Was called to service Nov. 15, 1917, as a member of Company G.,
341s Infantry at Camp Grant. Later he was transferred to Company H, 345th
Infantry, 87th Division Camp Pike, Arkansas, March 28th, 1918, he was again
transferred to Company D, 9th Infantry, Second Division, Camp Merritt, New
Jersey, leaving Camp Merritt for overseas April 6, 1918, arriving in France
during the last days of the same month. He served with this company until
his death in action, on the Argonne field, October 3, 1918. His body was
interred in the great military cemetery at Romange, France, where 25,000 of
America's best sons were laid to rest.

The body of Walter F. Benson arrived in this city last Friday and Sunday
was given a military funeral by the members of Harry McKinney Post, No. 35,
assisted by hundreds of our citizens who honored themselves by helping to
honor the memory of one who made the Supreme Sacrifice that American might
remain a country where motherhood is revered and womanhood honored and kept
free from Hunnish atrocities.

Escorted by the Evansville band and the American Legion in uniform the
casket containing the remains was escorted from the Benson home to St.
Paul's Catholic church, where over the casket covered with floral
offerings, the last tribute of many friends, the Rev. Father McDermott, in
an earnest sermon on sacrifice and patriotism, gave honor to the dead and
to the thousands of others who died that America might live as the heroes
of the Sixties died that America might stay America, with but one flag and
one government.

After the church services under escort of the American Legion the body was
taken to the stone schoolhouse cemetery, west of this city where it was
interred according to the services of the Catholic church and laid to rest
with the sound of "Taps" given by the firing squad of the American Legion.

The number of friends which followed the casket to its last resting place
in autos was perhaps the largest that ever did that honor, in this city,
there being hundreds of autos in the procession.

August 18, 1921, Evansville Review, p. 1, col. 1, Evansville, Wisconsin