Dorchester Illustration World War One Service Member biographies: James L. Cronin, Edward J. Cronin and William Francis Cronin
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: Cronin brothers.
Written by Camille Arbogast.
[Illustration shows James at the top, Edward in the middle and William at the bottom.]
James L. Cronin was born on January 22, 1889, at 16 Fulton Street (today Lawley Street) in the Neponset neighborhood of Dorchester. His young brothers Edward J. and William Francis were born on December 19, 1894, and September 23, 1896. Their parents, Patrick and Ellen T. (Sweeney) Cronin, were both Irish immigrants. Prior to her marriage, Ellen worked as a domestic in Newton; Patrick was a nail worker or nailer, perhaps at the Putnam Nail Company on Ericsson Street. They were married in West Newton by the Reverend D.H. Riley in November 1885. In addition to their three sons, they had four daughters: Mary, born in 1887, Annie born in 1890, Margaret in 1891, and Helen in 1893. They lost two children in young childhood, as well: son John Henry died of influenza at four months; daughter Bertha died at two years of pneumonia, a complication of the measles.
In 1894, the family lived on Tolman Street. By 1896, they were living around the corner on Eaton Street, and then, by 1900, moved a short distance to 53 Mears Street (Mears Street was taken to create Morrissey Boulevard). In 1900, Patrick was working for the City of Boston. Living with them was a boarder, Cornelias Kelly, an Irish immigrant who worked in the nail factory. The children attended the Minot School.
By 1910, the family lived at 118 Wrentham Street. Patrick was a city street cleaner. The older children were working by this time: Mary a saleslady in a dry goods store, Annie a telephone operator, Margaret a mail clerk, and Nellie a milliner. James was a plumber in 1910; later in the decade he was an electrician. Though they were still in school in 1910, Edward and William soon began working. In 1912, William was hired by the Boston School Buildings Department as a “boy;” he was later promoted to messenger, then blueprinter. Edward was a machinist.
In 1915, James was arrested as an accessory to a break-in at Elmer Sears’ grocery store at 17 Newhall Street, Neponset. By 1917, he had moved to Flushing, Long Island, where he worked as a painter. He was in Flushing when he registered for the draft in June 1917.
James was drafted and inducted into the National Army on December 9, 1917. The next day, he was assigned to the 2nd Company of the 152nd Depot Brigade and sent to Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York, on Long Island for training. On February 1, 1918, he was promoted to Private 1st Class. On March 18, he was assigned to B Company, 307th Infantry, 77th Division.
On April 6, at 2:30 a.m., the 307th Infantry marched to the railroad and began the first leg of their journey to France. The next day they sailed from Pier 59 in New York City on the troopship S.S. Justicia. After a stop in Halifax, during which they saw the devastation recently wrought by the explosion in the harbor of a ship full of military explosives, B Company headed out into the Atlantic, accompanied by a convoy to protect the ship from U-boat attacks. A history of B Company described their experience on board, “We were crowded … with sleeping hammocks slung over our mess tables. … We were compelled to wear during the day, and to sleep with during the night, ungainly life preservers.”
On April 19, 1918, they landed in Liverpool, then were ferried across the channel to Calais on the Queen of Belgium’s personal yacht, which she had donated for war service. On the crossing, they were escorted by “destroyers, planes, and dirigibles.” They were sent to Picardy for additional training for five weeks, then spent five weeks in Flanders with the Lancashire Fusiliers of the 125th British Brigade. In early June, they travelled to Loraine. On the night of June 20, they moved to the front lines between Ancerviller and Badonviller. A few days later, they experienced their first shell and gas attack, during which the company cook died from gas “inhaled while trying to prepare the company breakfast.”
James was among the patrol of fifty-two men from B Company who were sent on a daylight raid of German trenches on Sunday, July 21. According to the company history, at 2:30 in the afternoon, the patrol “advanced on the enemy lines in a single file … The intent was to surprise the enemy with a daylight raid and thereby obtain information thru capture and observations. But either thru knowledge or by chance, the Germans had prepared against this maneuver and the surprise was reversed. Waiting until our patrol was fairly within their lines, and then partially surrounding them, the enemy centered upon our men a deadly fire of rifles, machine guns, and grenade.” The fighting lasted an hour. James was among the seventeen dead. A religious service was held in Vacueville for the soldiers lost on the raid.
In August 1918, James was reported missing in action; he was officially listed as killed in action in February 1919. He was buried in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, France, in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial, the largest American cemetery in Europe. In 1921, the Ashmont Playground was named the James L. Cronin playground in his honor. (In 2012, the playground was renamed Dr. Loesch Family Park.)
James’s brothers, Edward and William, also served during the First World War. On his notecard for Edward Cronin, Dr. Perkins noted that Edward enlisted and that he served in F Company, 60th Infantry, Army of Occupation. F Company sailed overseas on April 16, 1918, on the S.S. Canopic. Edward returned from France in July 1919 on the RMS Aquitania.
During the war, the Cronin family moved to 54 Burt Street, and they were living there in 1918 when William registered for the second draft, for men who had turned 21 since the prior registration in 1917. On August 28, 1918, William was drafted and inducted into the National Army. He was assigned to the 156th Depot Brigade for training. On September 3, 1918, he was assigned to the 1st Brigade Field Artillery Replacement Draft at Camp Jackson, South Carolina.
William was discharged at Camp Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts, on January 10, 1919. Later in 1919, he was reinstated as a blueprinter in the Boston School Building Department, where he worked for the rest of his life. In the late 1920s, he was promoted to Storekeeper and in 1930, to Chief Storekeeper. He was a member of the City of Boston Clerks Association.
William and Edward both returned to the family home at 54 Burt Street after the war and lived there until the household broke up in 1928. William and Edward then lived for a year at 28 Santuit Street, before moving in with their recently married sister Helen and her husband Henry G. Imbescheid. They lived at 9 Englewood Street, Cedar Grove (Englewood Street later became part of Richview Street), which Henry owned. By 1936, Helen and Henry had two daughters and they had all moved to 475 Ashmont Street. The next year, William moved out, relocating to 422 Columbia Road, where he lived for the remainder of his life.
Edward continued living with the Imbescheids. Directories in the 1920s and 1930s list him as a laborer and a painter. The 1930 the census reported he had no profession. He appears on the 1940 census working as a house painter. In 1942, on his World War II draft registration, he gave his profession as a Works Progress Administration painter, working at Police Headquarters on Berkeley Street. In the late 1940s, the directory lists him as a foreman. By 1951, Edward and the Imbescheids lived at 141 Minot Street, and he was working as a guard.
William died in Dorchester on September 12, 1953. A High Mass of Requiem was held for him at Saint Brendan’s Church in Dorchester Center. Edward died two years later, dying on September 22, 1955. He, too, was celebrated with a High Mass of Requiem at St. Brendan’s Church.
Sources
Birth and Death record, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com
Family Tree, Ancestry.com
1900, 1910, 1930, 1940 Federal Census; Ancestry.com
“Hurley Caught in Store,” Boston Globe, 12 July 1915: 14; Newspapers.com
United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com
New York State Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917–1919. Adjutant General’s Office. New York State Archives, Albany, New York; Ancestry.com
Julius Klausner, Company B, 307 Infantry: Its History, Honor roll, Company Roster, Sept 1917-May 1919. New York: Burke-Kelly Post No. 172, American Legion, 1920; Archive.org
Lists of Outgoing & Incoming Passengers, 1917-1938. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, The National Archives at College Park, Maryland; Ancestry.com
Dorchester Soldier was Killed in Action, Boston Globe, 7 February 1919: 9; Newspapers.com
“Eastern Massachusetts Men in the Casualty List,” Boston Globe, 8 February 1919: 2; Newspapers.com
“Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1820 Loesch Family Park,” Dorchester Historical Society. July 6, 2012, <http://www.dorchesterhistoricalsocietyblog.org/blog/?p=1069>
Military, Compiled Service Records. World War I. Carded Records. Records of the Military Division of the Adjutant General’s Office, Massachusetts National Guard.
Boston Directories, various years; Ancestry.com
City Record: Official Chronical Boston Municipal Affairs, various years; Archive.org
United States, Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com
Deaths, Boston Globe, 13 September 1953: 63; Newspapers.com
Morning Death Notices, Boston Globe, 24 Sept 1955: 2; Newspapers.com