GEORGETOWN

A century ago, Alvah

Reynolds of Georgetown was drafted into the Army and shipped off to Europe to fight in World War I.

On Friday, his son, Eugene Reynolds, and grandson, Eric Reynolds, will be giving a presentation about his service in the war, as well as WWI’s effect on Georgetown and the surrounding area.

The United States entered the war in April of 1917, more than two years after the war had begun in 1914. A treaty brought the war to an end in November of 1918, but before that Reynolds took part in multiple battles, including the Battle of Saint-Mihiel in France in September.

Alvah Reynolds wasn’t the only young man from Georgetown to head off to war. According to Reynolds, his father was one of about 20 people from the tiny town of 600-700 to be drafted.

Before the war, Reynolds said his father was a farm boy who grew up in Georgetown and worked at the quarry for $1 a day. But during the war, he’d leave that life behind to become a machine gunner on the battlefields of Europe.

“He was a good hunter and they had him on the trigger of a machine gun,” said Reynolds.

During the battle, a mortar shell exploded over Alvah Reynolds and two other soldiers. The others were killed, said Reynolds, and his father was wounded by shrapnel.

“A piece of shrapnel came in back of my father’s neck and ran all the way down his backbone and stuck in his belt,” said Reynolds, just missing his jugular. “He was bleeding like a pig … so he rolled in the mud and managed to get the bleeding stopped.”

A medical wagon picked him up and carried him off the battlefield before he was taken to Paris to recover. Others weren’t so lucky. His brother-in-law and others in the battle were gassed.

While his father’s time in the war was brief, all things considered, Reynolds said the battles he took part in were decisive in ending the war.

“It was a turning point in the war,” sad Reynolds. “It showed that the American boys can fight like heck.”

When the war ended, Reynolds returned to America. After a brief stay at a hospital in Portsmouth, he came back home to Georgetown, where he went back to work at the quarry and got married.

Reynolds said his father didn’t like to talk to his kids about his time in the trenches in Europe.

“I remember getting a cuff in the ear for asking ‘How many (Germans) did you kill?’” recalled Reynolds.

Instead, Reynolds has collected information about his father and his time in the war from other relatives and his own research.

At 87 years old, Reynolds has operated Gene Reynolds and Son’s Paving in Georgetown for decades. Over the years, he has collected WWI memorabilia, including a few propaganda posters urging the United States to get involved in the war and for young men to enlist in the armed services. He’ll bring some of that memorabilia to the Georgetown Community Center on Friday for people to see.

Along with the memorabilia, Reynolds and a couple other locals will share their knowledge of WWI at 6 p.m. Friday at the Georgetown Community Center, marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the war.

nstrout@timesrecord.com