Of old Scotch-Covenanter blood he came.
Into the Presbyterian Church he was born, and at her altar dedicated to
the service of his God.
Taken back, when four years of age, to the old home in the Pennsylvania
hills, he was present at the Centennial Celebration of the church where
his ancestors have worshiped for five generations.
Called on to say his little speech—I can see him yet—he marched bravely
down the long aisle of the crowded auditorium, climbed up the pulpit
steps, too high for his short legs and, facing the great audience, the
childish treble rang out true and clear, as he volunteered for his first
service under the banner of the Cross:
My name is Dinsmore Ely, I’m only four years old;
I want to fight for Jesus and wear a crown of gold;
I know he’ll make me happy, be with me all the day;
I mean to fight for Jesus, the Bible says I may.
Twenty years passed. His country called. Among the first to answer, he
volunteered in the American Ambulance Field Service that he might secure
immediate passage to France and go at once into active service. Arriving
there on the fourth of July, 1917, on the sixth he volunteered and was
accepted the same day, in the Lafayette Flying Corps.
Taking his aviation training for a fighting pilot in the French schools
and leaving the last school in January, with the reputation of wonderful
skill as a flyer and aerial gunner, he volunteered at once for service
with a French escadrille, serving and fighting with it from January to
April in the Toul Sector near Verdun, when his escadrille was ordered to
Montdidier, then the center of the great German drive.
On reaching Paris, he was notified to report at American Army
headquarters to receive his commission in the United States Army. Having
received it, at his own request, he was assigned as a detached volunteer
American officer to go into battle at once with his old French
escadrille.
On the following day, in closing his last letter to his parents, he
wrote, in a single short sentence, his creed as an American Soldier,
and, all unknowingly his own epitaph, now carved in stone upon his grave
in the cemetery at Versailles, the heart of France:
_It is an investment, not a loss,
when a man dies for his country._
Flying in his Spad to Montdidier, Death met him near Villacoublay.
In his poem, _To Whom the Wreath_, an appeal for the fatherless children
of France, he wrote:
Give us to help beat back the Hun,
But give the French the honor won;
Pray God, we’ll know when Death is done,
That France is safe and Children’s Homes.
* * * * *
Death is done, my Soldier Son, and you know, aye, you know, that France
is safe and children’s homes.
And the little mother (ah! well we ken, Laddie, you and I, how much she
gave herself to you) sends you this message:
“Thank God I gave my boy to be a Soldier,”
and saying it, her face glowed with the pride of the mother whose
first-born son, flying in the heavens, was transfigured before her eyes
as he soared upwards into the presence of his God.
We’ll nae’ forget you, Laddie, and we’ll be greeting you soon, but while
we tarry here, sitting often alone by the fireside in the old home you
loved, we won’t grieve for you, Laddie, and if we are a wee bit lonely
at times, we will open the treasure box of “pleasant memories” you left
us and let the joy of them fill our hearts.