Robert Towle Burr
World War I Veteran
By Camille Arbogast
Robert Towle Burr was born in Dorchester on April 12, 1896. His parents, Charles Sargent Burr and Annie L. (Towle) were Bostonians with ancestral connections to northern New England; Charles’s mother had been born in Maine, and Annie’s parents were from New Hampshire. Charles and Annie were married in Roxbury in July 1891. They had two other sons: Kenneth born in 1893, and Malcolm in 1901. Charles spent his career with Bowditch and Clapp, a wholesale millinery business, eventually becoming treasurer of the company. The family owned 9 Walton Street in Codman Square, where, in 1900, they employed a live-in servant.
Robert entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, in 1915. A member of the class of 1919, he pledged Theta Delta Chi and was the captain of the hockey team. In the spring of 1917, he enlisted in the American Field Service, a volunteer ambulance service begun in 1915, which worked directly with the French military, evacuating wounded from the front. Volunteers were generally financially secure, college-educated men. They were required to pay their own passage to Europe and purchase a uniform. An advertisement for the Field Service listed basic qualifications: “American Citizenship–Good Health–Clean Record–Ability to drive Automobiles (superficial knowledge of repair work an advantage).”
Robert was issued a passport on May 31, 1917, and sailed from New York on June 9. He served in “Section Sanitaire Unis 68,” primarily made up of New England college men. The largest group came from Amherst College, but there were also men from Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, MIT, even Milton Academy. Robert was one of four Bowdoin students. In July 1917, Section 68 began serving on the Western Front; Robert served with the unit for three months.
He then joined the United States Air Service. In October 1917, he returned to the United States for training, sailing from Bordeaux, France, on the SS Rochambeau. He enlisted on December 8, 1917, and trained at Call Field in Wichita Falls, Texas, attaining the rank of Second Lieutenant on August 29, 1918. In October, he was sent to Cadet Aviation, Camp Dick, in Dallas, Texas. He was discharged on December 19, 1918.
The 1920 census reported Robert living at home and attending school. In 1925, he began a career with the New England Bolt Company of Everett, “manufacturers of wrought and cast iron of every description.” By 1928, he was a treasurer with the company, which was described as a “family business” in his obituary.
On April 26, 1923, Robert married Margery (sometimes spelled Marjorie) Southack, a copywriter, of 30 Moultrie Street, Dorchester. They were married in Dorchester by Reverend Adelbert L. Hudson of the First Parish Church on Meeting House Hill. They initially settled in Arlington, Massachusetts, at 19 Chandler Street. In 1925, they moved to Winchester, the town Robert lived in for the rest of his life, where they purchased 50 Glen Road. Twelve years later, they bought 71 Wildewood Street, about three-quarters of a mile from their previous home. The couple had three children: Malcom, Philip, and Virginia. During World War II, Malcom was a B-17 Flying Fortress bombardier with the 351st Bombardment Group.
By the early 1950s, it appears Robert and his wife were living apart. Articles in the Winchester Star report Robert living at 314 Highland Avenue and Margery living in Boston. They do not appear to have formally divorced; she was named as his wife in his obituary.
Robert moved to 1 Fenwick Road by the late 1950s. At the end of his life he lived at 200 Swanton Street. Robert died suddenly in Winchester on December 19, 1972.
Sources
Birth Record, Massachusetts Vital Records, 1911–1915. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, Massachusetts; Ancestry.com
Family Tree; Ancestry.com
US Federal Census, 1900, 1910, 1920; Ancestry.com
“Honor Bowditch, 50 Years Head of Firm,” Boston Globe, 5 Jan 1932: 21; Newspapers.com
Woodman, Ernest S., Ed. The Directory of Directors in the City of Boston and Vicinity, Boston: The Bankers Service Company, 1911; 444; Books.Google.com
Bowdoin Orient, Brunswick, ME, 5 October 1915; Archive.org
“Pick Dorchester Boy,” Boston Globe, 3 March 1917: 5; Newspapers.com
Selected Passports. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C., 28 May 1917-31 May 1917; Ancestry.com
World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration; Ancestry.com
“Prologue: The First Steps,” “Roster OF VOLUNTEERS OF THE AMERICAN FIELD SERVICE IN FRANCE, 1915-16-17,” “History of The American Field Service in France, Appendices,” & “Roster, SSU 68,” The AFS Story; ourstory.info
“Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957,” Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Year: 1917; Ancestry.com
Beneficiary Identification Records Locator Subsystem (BIRLS) Death File. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Ancestry.com
“United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917-1940,” St. Louis: National Archives and Records Administration, 1985, FamilySearch.org
Field Service Bulletin, 20 April 1918, number 41, 21 Rue Raynouard, Paris; Archive.org
Air Service Journal, 26 September 1918; Air Service Journal, 3 October 1918, Books.Google.com
General Catalogue of Bowdoin College and the Medical School of Maine, Sesquicentennial Edition. Brunswick, ME, 1950; Archive.org
“Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915,” Massachusetts State Archives; FamilySearch.org
“Real Estate Notes,” Winchester Star (Winchester MA) 4 December 1925: 1; Archive.org
“Deeds, Middlesex County,” Boston Globe, 3 Sept 1937: 39; Newspapers.com
Notice, Winchester Star (Winchester MA), 25 February 1938: 4; Archive.org
World War II Draft Cards (Fourth Registration) for the State of Massachusetts; Records of the Selective Service System; Ancestry.com
“Wins Second Oak Leaf Cluster,” Winchester Star (Winchester MA) 12 January 1945; 2; Archive.org
“Obituaries: Robert T Burr,” Winchester Star, 21 December 1972; 2; Archive.org