Joseph Douglas Bruce
World War I Veteran
By Camille Arbogast
Joseph Douglas Bruce was born on December 30, 1899, at 215 Norfolk Street in Dorchester. He was the oldest son of Joseph L. and Mary H. (Blaisedell) Bruce. Joseph, Sr. was from Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia, and immigrated to the United States in the early 1880s. Mary was born in Concord, New Hampshire, and was a school teacher before her marriage. Mary and Joseph, Sr. were married in Brockton in 1897. They had four other children: Norma born c. 1898, William Homer in 1901, Allen Emerson in 1904, and Donald Dean in 1909.
Joseph, Sr. worked in the Boston meat processing industry. In the early 20th century, he was a foreman at a canning factory at 14 Clinton Street. By 1904, he was a manager at Sturtevant & Haley Beef and Supply of 34 Blackstone Street. The 1910 census recorded his occupation as a traffic manager at the National Packing Company, a meat processing conglomerate.
The Bruces lived at 210 Norfolk Street in 1900, according to the census. By 1901, the Boston directory listed them at 215 Norfolk Street. They were residing at 8 Thetford Street three years later. In 1909, they lived at 69 Milton Street. They moved to 19 Edwin Street in 1913. That year, Joseph graduated from the Henry L. Pierce School on Washington Street in Codman Square.
On his notecard for Joseph Douglas Bruce, Dr. Perkins noted that in 1915 Joseph joined the 11th Company Coast Artillery; this was probably the 11th Company of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia Coast Artillery Corps (CAC), one of four CAC companies based at Fort Andrews on Peddock’s Island in Boston Harbor. It appears Joseph might have added a few years to his age when he enlisted, as his military records give his birth year as 1896. Dr. Perkins noted that Joseph “mobilized with National Guard,” most likely on July 25, 1917, the enlistment date on his military records. According to Dr. Perkins’s notes, at Fort Andrews Joseph “volunteered for overseas service in ammunition train.” Joseph served as a Wagoner in Company B, in the 101st Ammunition Train, part of the 26th Division, or Yankee Division. The 101st Ammunition Train was comprised of 713 officers and enlisted men from the 1st Vermont National Guard, as well as 240 from the Massachusetts Coast Artillery. In late August, the 101st Ammunition Train was sent to Camp Bartlett in Westfield, Massachusetts, for training.
On October 3, 1917, Joseph sailed overseas with the 101st Ammunition Train, departing from Hoboken, New Jersey, on the RMS Aurania, and arriving in Liverpool on October 17. After crossing the English Channel on the cattle boat Southwestern Miller, Joseph arrived in Le Havre, France, on October 22. The 101st Ammunition Train was sent to Camp Coëtquidan in Morbihan, Brittany, France. There, Company B was assigned a fleet of 20 motor cars to maintain while the vehicles were being used to transport supplies to the camp. It was a rainy, muddy, and raw winter and the men did not have enough cold weather gear. “Motor truck drivers were obliged to wear stockings on their hands while driving in lieu of gloves, which were not obtainable” remembered one history of the unit.
In February, they moved to the Chemin des Dames sector, where they worked alongside French troops. In late March, they were assigned to the Toul sector. They participated in the Second Battle of the Marne in July, Battle of Saint-Mihiel in mid-September, and the Meuse-Argonne offensive beginning in late September. The 101st Ammunition Train manned ammunition dumps and transported artillery and ammunition.
After the Armistice, the 101st Ammunition Train was sent to Rest Area #8, where they were visited by President Wilson on Christmas. In January 1919, they received orders to make their way to their port of debarkation, Brest, France. They sailed for the United States in April, returning on the SS Winifredian, which left Brest on April 6, 1919, and arrived in Boston on April 18. Joseph was demobilized at Camp Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts and discharged on April 24 or 29, 1919.
In the early 1920s, Joseph appeared in the Boston directory living at 18 Edwin Street and working as an advertising solicitor. He reentered the military in the mid-1920s, serving in the Coast Artillery Corps. On January 1, 1924, he sailed from San Francisco on the USAT Thomas, destined for Fort Mills in the Philippines. He returned to the continental United States in early 1926 on the USAT Cambrai. By that time, he had attained a rank of Sergeant. In the late 1920s, Joseph was again living with his parents at 18 Edwin Street. The Boston directory listed him as salesman; the 1930 census reported his occupation as managing the Radio Department of a newspaper.
In 1930, Joseph married Frances Anderson, a private secretary from West Roxbury. She was the daughter of a Boston police officer who had immigrated from Prince Edward Island. Joseph and Frances had two children: John Douglas born in 1932, and Brenda, in 1938.
The couple initially lived at 89 Redlands Road in West Roxbury. In 1932, they moved to Portland, Maine. By 1934, they had returned to West Roxbury, living first at 200 Manthorne Road, and then, by 1938, at 586 Weld Street. By 1943, they moved to Newton Lower Falls, where they lived at 28 Lafayette Road, their home for many years. In Newton, Joseph was active with the Hamilton School PTA, serving on the school building committee.
In the mid-1930s, Joseph appeared in the Boston directory connected with Racheotes & Bruce Co., later the Allston Liquor Company, a liquor store at 1219 Commonwealth Avenue in Allston. The business, started by Peter Racheotes in 1917, had recently resumed operations after the end of Prohibition in 1933. Joseph was listed in the Boston directory as the president of the company in the late 1940s through the early 1960s. Joseph was also a contractor and engineer with the Harvey-Douglas Company of Cambridge and Brockton, a weatherizing and roofing business.
At the end of his life, Joseph and Frances lived at 1885 Shore Drive South in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida. Joseph died on February 18, 1980 in Pinellas County, Florida.
Sources
Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA; Ancestry.com
Family Tree; Ancestry.com
Boston and Newton directories, various years; Ancestry.com
1900, 1910, 1930, 1940 US Federal Census; Ancestry.com
“Boston Public School Graduates Number 8769,” Boston Globe, 19 June 1913: 6; Newspapers.com
“United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940,” Military Service, NARA microfilm publication, St. Louis: National Archives and Records Administration, 1985; FamilySearch.org
Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Ancestry.com
Lists of Outgoing Passengers, 1917-1938. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985 The National Archives at College Park, MD.; Ancestry.com
Department of Public Health, Registry of Vital Records and Statistics. Massachusetts Vital Records Index to Marriages [1916–1970], Boston, MA: New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA. Ancestry.com
“Hamilton School P.T.A. Hears Mrs. Mitchell,” Newton Graphic, 24 January 1916: 1; Archive.org
Hagan, Stephen. “Community Profile: From Rose Kennedy to Ellis Island, He’s Seen It All,” Allston Brighton TAB, 4-10 February 1997; Brighton Allston Historical Society, BAHistory.org
Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com
State of Florida. Florida Death Index, 1877-1998. Florida: Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, 1998. Ancestry.com
Funeral Notices, Tampa Bay Times (St Petersburg FL) 21 Feb 1980: 41; Newspapers.com