"NO NEED OF DOING ANY WORRYING..."

My great-grandparents, John Allen and Frances Sabin Gould, had five sons. Four of them were active in World War I (the fifth, Gardner, was exempt from overseas duty; his engineering position at US Naval yards near Boston was considered vital to security):

          Allen (see last week’s post), member of the Cleveland, Ohio Cavalry;

          Richard, Naval aviator;

          Howard, sailor on a submarine chaser; and

          Prescott, Sergt. in the Massachusetts Cavalry.

The Goulds had a “Sons in Service” flag hanging in their window at 1206 Boylston Street; red border, white field and four blue stars – one for each son in active service.

Almost all of them came home.

 Prescott Wilder Gould was born in 1894 in Newton Upper Falls. He attended grammar and high school in Newton, then Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He played ice hockey in school, succeeding his brothers, who had made a name for themselves as the well-known “Gould trio” (Gardner, Richard and Allen) on the varsity hockey teams of both Newton High and MIT.

He enlisted with Co. C of the First Cavalry (Massachusetts), going with them to the Mexican border to chase down the infamous Pancho Villa; his brother Allen, in Ohio’s Cavalry, was also there – the brothers managed to meet up in El Paso!

Company C later merged with the Machine Gun Battalion; Prescott was shipped overseas to France in September, 1917.

The Goulds were all prolific letter-writers. Family members at 1206 wrote daily to their sons/brothers in uniform, and the boys wrote back as frequently as they could.

Prescott wrote in January, 1918:

Dear Ma, Received your letter...also one from Pa... came yesterday along with the three boxes. Certainly was a fine collection of eats and smokes and wish you would thank all concerned...I haven’t wanted for sweet things for the past few days...

And later:

Dear Ma...don’t feel worried about Dick’s flying. I’ve seen so many planes floating around over here that they don’t attract my attention any more than a fliver would... guess he was born to be an aviator...

And in March:

Dear Ma...have just had a shower and a complete change and just about at present feel as if I could knock the stuffing out of the whole German Army...

And then in April:

Dear Ma...the men are so well protected that it is mighty seldom anyone is hit...provided they stay where they belong and I’m one of the best little fellows at doing that you can imagine, so you see there’s no need of doing any worrying on my account...

But on the 21^st of May, 1918, Prescott’s grandmother, Roxanna Sabin, wrote in her diary:

Terrible news came to night that Prescott is dead in France...

Prescott was  buried in Grave 15 of Plot B, Row 8 at St-Mihiel American Cemetery in Thiaucourt, France; his mother, Frances Sabin Gould, visited his grave as a Gold Star mother in the 1930s.

The family established a memorial stone in the family plot in Newton, one that I've visited many times over...tucked in among the members of his family: 

In Memoriam

Prescott Wilder Gould

Sergt. Co. C. 102^nd M.G.B.

Died in France

May 16, 1918

Aged 24 years