Dorchester Illustration World War One Service Member biography: Ralph Cunningham Barnstead
At the Dorchester Historical Society, we are in the process of a year-long project to commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War I. Using a collection of photographs we have of WWI Dorchester residents, we will be featuring servicemen in a number of short biographies throughout the year. At the culmination of the project, we hope to produce an online exhibit that highlights these men and their service to our country.
Our next biography features: Ralph Cunningham Barnstead.
Written by Julie Wolfe.
Ralph Cunningham Barnstead was born at 21 Berkeley Place in Boston on September 7, 1879, the fifth of nine children of Robert P. Barnstead and Ellen “Nellie” Cunningham. Robert was born in Nova Scotia, and Nellie came from Ireland; both emigrated to America around 1865. When Ralph was born, Robert was a plumber; at the turn of the century, he held multiple patents on water-distilling and -sterilizing equipment used in hospitals and laboratories and was the president of the Barnstead Pure Water Still Company (later the Barnstead Still & Sterilizer Company), ultimately located at 2 Lanesville Terrace in Jamaica Plain.
In his school years, Ralph distinguished himself in athletics, but was not the only Barnstead to do so. His younger brother Frederick, a star pitcher, would play semi-professional ball across North America and was, according to his 1956 obituary, among “the last living members of the famed semi-pro baseball club, the Dorchester Lower Mills” of the World War I era.
In 1900, Ralph resided with his parents and five of his siblings at 49 Burt Street in Dorchester, which the family owned since the late 1890s. His elder brother Charles and sister Ida were both married and living elsewhere by this time, and one of his younger brothers, Herbert, Frederick’s twin, had died in 1888 of “blood poison” at age 4. (Another younger brother, Walter, would die in 1904 at age 16.) For several years, Ralph worked as a clerk, first at 29 Bedford Street and later at 62 Sudbury Street; the industry is uncertain.
In 1907, Ralph ran for city council as a Democrat in Ward 24, but wasn’t elected. The following year, on August 12, 1908, he married Margaret J. Bennett, the daughter of Canadian émigrés. Their first home was at 86 Tuttle Street, in Dorchester’s Savin Hill section. By 1910, Ralph had settled into his lifelong occupation, as a plater, initially in the jewelry industry. He and Margaret later rented a home at 89 Auckland Street, still in Savin Hill, where three of Margaret’s relatives boarded with them. In 1912, when a broken sewer made area living conditions hazardous and intolerable, Ralph was one of two neighborhood men to petition the mayor to approve the sewer’s immediate repair. Margaret also participated in the campaign. The following year, the couple moved near Ralph’s parents, to 45 Burt Street, where they would remain until 1927.
A member of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Dorchester’s Ashmont neighborhood, Ralph was elected a delegate to Boston’s archdeaconry two years running. In 1916, he garnered several mentions in the Boston Globe for his performances as an interlocutor (master of ceremonies) in church “minstrel shows.” These shows were a staple of civic and fraternal organizations at the time, and although they were considered comic, the performances’ racially charged elements would be deemed distasteful today.
It seems Ralph put his penchant for performing to use during World War I. He was close to 40 years old when he registered for the draft, a foreman specializing in nickel plating at his father’s business, Barnstead Still & Steel. His service card—a punch card—is unlike any we’ve encountered during this project. It comes not from military archives but from the YMCA Archives. After enlisting in the YMCA’s motor service as an “auto driver,” Ralph applied for a passport on October 14, 1918, and set sail for Europe the following day with a “party of American YMCA secretaries.” In addition to facilitating the YMCA’s wartime entertainment and R&R programs, the 82d Division, to which Ralph belonged, also assisted the Red Cross in base and field hospitals. On June 28, 1919, he was one of 12 YMCA volunteers from New England rewarded for “their good work” with an invitation to accompany their units home. He arrived on July 5, 1919, sailing from Brest, France, to Hoboken, NJ, aboard the SS Leviathan.
Ralph and Margaret resumed life on Burt Street; he remained a plater and continued performing. While Ralph had been overseas, on April 1, 1919, his mother, Nellie, died; her funeral wasn’t held until November of that year. Her death appears to have been overwhelming for his father. On October 11, 1921, five months after selling their “large frame house” at 49 Burt Street, Robert reportedly “threw himself in front of an inbound train in the Ashmont station and was instantly killed.” Ralph and his brother Bob rejected the Globe’s speculation that their father had died by suicide, asserting that he “had been subject to fainting spells” and had “had an attack when the train approached.”
Until 1927, Ralph worked at Erikson Electric at 6 Portland Street. In 1928 he and Margaret moved to 4 Stockton Street. Ralph had switched employers, working at Boston Edison at 6 Power House, South Boston, until at least 1936. When the 1940 census was taken, the couple had moved again, this time to 170 Ashmont Street. Ralph was a foreman plater in light fixtures; the city directory shows that he had returned to Erikson Electric as of 1939.
On April 26, 1942, Ralph, age 62, now unemployed, registered for the World War II “Old Man’s Draft.” Standing 5’7” and weighing only 100 pounds, he may have been sick, although this isn’t indicated on his card. Ralph died at home less than a month later, on May 18. His longtime church, All Saints’ at Peabody Square, held his funeral. For the next several years, Margaret appeared in Boston city directories, a widow working as a bookkeeper, her job before marriage. In a strange coincidence, Margaret apparently died on May 18, 1951, exactly nine years to the day after her husband.
SOURCES:
Ancestry.com. 1900 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2004.
Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2006.
Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2002.
Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
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Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
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Ancestry.com. U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.
Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
Ancestry.com. U.S., Passport Applications, 1795-1925 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007.
Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2015.
Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2005.
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Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1880 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
“Barnstead (Herbert J.).” Boston Globe, March 21, 1888: 6.
“Barnstead (Ralph).” Boston Globe. May 19, 1942: 28.
“Broken Sewer Causes Protest: Residents of Savin Hill Start Action Against Intolerable Conditions in the Neighborhood.” Boston Globe, September 30, 1912: 14.
“Busy Inventors Receive Patents.” Boston Post. November 5, 1916: 11.
“Change in One Service Hour at All Saints in Ashmont.” Boston Globe, January 24, 1918: 5.
Documents of the School Committee of the City of Boston. (Boston: School Committee, 1898), 247.
“Dorchester District.” Boston Globe, October 22, 1918: 5.
———. Boston Globe, April 30, 1920: 8.
———. Boston Globe, April 22, 1921: 9.
FamilySearch. Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915, database.
FamilySearch. Massachusetts Marriages, 1695-1910, database.
FamilySearch. Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915, database with images.
FamilySearch. United States, YMCA World War I Service Cards, 1917-1919, database with images.
“Fred J. Barnstead, Oldtime Pitcher, Dies.” Boston Globe, April 2, 1956: 13.
“In and About Greater Boston: Dorchester District.” Boston Globe, April 27, 1918: 3.
“In sad and loving memory….” Boston Post, April 2, 1920: 30.
“Leaps on Track to Death under Train: Robert P. Barnstead, 75, of Dorchester, Suicide.” Boston Globe, October 12, 1921: 5.
“List of Patents.” Boston Globe, July 29, 1891: 5.
“New Englanders Honored by Wild-Cat Division.” Boston Globe, June 28, 1919: 2.
“Real Estate Transactions: Dorchester Dwellings.” Boston Globe, May 16, 1921: 11.
“Results of City Primary.” Boston Globe, November 15, 1907: 7.
“Sibley Gives List of Bay State Workers for YMCA in France: They Won Golden Opinions in Service for Soliders.” Boston Globe, April 1, 1919: 18.
“Son Says Dorchester Man’s Death Accidental.” Boston Globe, October 12, 1921: 4.
“To Give ‘Somewhere on the Border’ in the Form of a Minstrel Show.” Boston Globe, November 14, 1916: 16.
WorldWarI.com. The History of the YMCA in World War I.
Young Men’s Christian Associations. National War Work Council. Summary of World War Work of the American Y.M.C.A.: With the Soldiers and Sailors of America at Home, on the Sea,