Francis William Coffey
World War I Veteran
By Camille Arbogast
Francis William Coffey, known as Frank, was born on August 24, 1888, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to Jeremiah and Mary (Kelley) Coffey. Jeremiah was also born in Montreal. He first came to the United States in September 1868, entering through Burlington, Vermont, where Mary was born. They were married in Canada in 1872. Jeremiah and Mary had seven other children: Elizabeth born in 1873, Charles Patrick born in 1874, John in 1876, Jeremiah, Jr., in 1881, Agnes in 1884, Thomas in 1886, and Helen, known as Nellie, in 1891. According to an article in the Boston Globe, Jeremiah was “for many years prominent in Canadian athletic circles, being at one time captain of the Shamrock lacrosse champions of Canada.”
The Coffeys had moved to the United States by 1891, when Nellie was born in Massachusetts. They resided in Cambridge, where Jeremiah was a boiler maker with a shop on 6th Street. During Frank’s childhood, the family moved around the Cambridgeport neighborhood. Their homes included:18 Blanche Street, where they lived in 1893; 32 State Street in 1896; 55 Pleasant Street in 1900; 55 Pearl Street in 1901; 496 Green Street in 1906; and 50 Western Avenue in 1907.
Frank’s mother, Mary, died of Bright’s disease in 1894. In 1900, the census reported that his father, Jeremiah, had been out of work for five months. Many of Frank’s older siblings were working by that time: Elizabeth was a laundry marker, John a bartender, Jeremiah, Jr., a cracker packer, and Agnes a candy maker. Frank was still attending school in 1900; he graduated from Saint Mary’s Parochial School in Cambridge. Charles Patrick, an employee of the National Biscuit Company, died of tuberculosis in 1903. Frank may have been the Coffey boy from Cambridge who, with a 16-year-old friend from Pleasant Street, boarded “a westbound freight on the Boston Albany railroad” and made it as far as Indianapolis. Jeremiah, Sr., died of stomach cancer in 1908. Three years later, John died of tuberculosis.
In the years following his father’s death, Frank’s whereabouts are somewhat speculative. The Cambridge directory listed a Frank W. Coffey at 408 Putnam Street in 1909. In 1910, a 21-year-old Frank Coffey was living on Goddard Avenue in Brookline, Massachusetts, while employed by a private family as a groom. A Francis W. Coffey appeared in the Somerville, Massachusetts, directory from 1910 through 1912 at 72 Prentiss Street. By 1914, Frank was working as a teamster and boarding at 15 Hallet Street in Neponset. This was the address he gave when he enlisted and reported for duty in the Massachusetts National Guard on June 4, 1917.
Frank served in Company E of the 9th Infantry of the Massachusetts National Guard, which was stationed at Camp Framingham, an existing National Guard summer training ground and state armory. In August 1917, the regiment was reorganized as the 101st Infantry, part of the 51st Infantry Brigade of the 26th Division, or Yankee Division.
The 101st Infantry sailed for France on September 7, 1917, on the USS Pastores, leaving from Hoboken, New Jersey and arriving in Saint-Nazaire, France, on September 21, 1917. The 26th Division went to the front in the Chemin des Dames sector in early February 1918. They moved to the Toul-Boucq sector in early April. After a few days in the Champagne-Marne defensive sector in early July, they participated in the Aisne-Marne offensive from July 18 through 25.
On September 12 and 13, the 101st took part in the Saint Mihiel offensive, attempting to capture ground that had been held by the Germans since September 1914. Captain John W. Hyatt described the conditions of the battle in A History of the Yankee Division: There was “heavy fighting over the most terrible terrain. This was filled with concrete pill boxes and machine-gun nests, and the woods were full of barbed wire. There were scores of ravines running perpendicular to our attack, so that it was necessary for the men to fight over each one. The ground was covered with bushes about 5 or 6 feet tall, with few trees, and barbed wire interwoven.”
During the battle, Frank was mortally wounded. Most sources report he died of his wounds on September 13. A note in The Gold Star Record of Massachusetts gives an alternate date of September 24 and the additional information “of gunshot wound,” citing as the source “Casualties, 26th Division.” Frank was buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, Department de la Meuse, Lorraine, France. A high mass was celebrated in his honor at Blessed Sacrament Church in Cambridge on May 13, 1919.
Sources
Gabriel Drouin, comp. Baptism Record, Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin; Ancestry.com
US Veterans Administration Master Index, Military Service, NARA microfilm publication, St. Louis: National Archives and Records Administration, 1985; FamilySearch.org
Naturalization Records. National Archives at Boston, Waltham, Ma; Ancestry.com
“Cambridge,” Boston Globe, 9 Dec 1897:3; Newspapers.com
Family Trees, Ancestry.com
Cambridge & Boston Directories, various years; Ancestry.com
Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA; Ancestry.com
1900, 1910 US Federal census; Ancestry.com
“John J. Graham Missing,” Cambridge Chronicle. 24 October 1903: 1; Cambridge Public Library, Cambridge.dlconsulting.com
Putnam, Eben, ed. The Gold Star Record of Massachusetts, Volume II. Boston: Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1929; Archive.org
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
Battle Participation of Organizations of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, Belgium and Italy 1917-1918. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1920; Archive.org
Benwell, Harry A. History of the Yankee Division. Boston: The Cornhill Company, 1919; Archive.org
“Casualty List Has 635 Names,” Boston Post, 25 October 1918: 14; Newspapers.com
“Eastern Massachusetts Men in Casualty List,” Boston Globe, 27 October 1918: 2; Newspapers.com
Died, Cambridge Chronicle, 17 May 1919: 3; Cambridge Public Library, Cambridge.dlconsulting.com
“Francis W. Coffey.” American Battle Monuments Commission. ABMC.gov