James J. Burns

James “Jimmy” or “Jim” J. Burns, the oldest from a Black Rock family of 10, enlisted on April 29, 1918 to serve in the American Expeditionary Forces. He trained for three weeks at Camp Dix, departed from Hoboken with Company “K” in the 310^th Infantry as a private and saw action in Thiaucourt and Champigneulle, France.  He died in hospital from wounds received in action at the age of 22 years, 8 months and was buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France. His mother, Margaret Burns, made a pilgrimage to his grave in 1929.

In his (first) May 10^th letter from Camp Dix, “Jim” writes to his mother and makes sure she knows about the $10,000 life insurance policy he has taken out. He expresses how much he misses her. In the next (undated) letter to his parents from “Somewhere in England,” he writes “I am one homesick boy sometimes” but he feels good otherwise. He asks his parents to speak to the “insurance man” as he is concerned the policy he took out is void because he is “in service in a foreign land.”

Jimmy Burns’ October 9^th letter to his father is written after he has “been to the front…and you can bet I am ready to come home now.” He lists all of the Black Rock boys who also went “over the top” then and he accounts for all but one he did not see after the battle. A few weeks later, the Burns family receives a telegram and official Adjutant Generals document that James died November 2, 1918, “from wounds received in action.” The last letter (typewritten) dated February 15, 1919 if from the Treasury Department honoring Jim’s insurance policy with monthly allotments of $57, a considerable sum for those days, that would send several brothers to Canisius High School and College, and sustain the family through the Depression.