OUR FAMILY EQUATION
WAR + ALCOHOL + GUN = BURT & MILDRED KENNEDY
This website grew out of an effort by Burt Kennedy, Jr. to document the experience of his parents during World War I (WWI). It started as a compilation of the surviving letters between Burt R. Kennedy and Ida Kuhn during World War I, plus related pictures and WWI artifacts. It has since grown to include a video presentation providing a brief summary of their history and will likely continue to grow with additional contributions.
Burt Kennedy enlisted twice in the Canadian Army, first as himself and then the second time as Robert Keene, after Burt Kennedy received a medical discharge. During this time, he married his sweetheart Ida, and after the war they settled into domestic life, eventually raising two children, Mildred and Burt, Jr. The letters, pictures, and artifacts combine to illuminate the unique personal history of a family, but also a story reflective of the times – war, the 1918 flu pandemic, the temperance movement.
The title of this website and of the original CD comes from the first words in many of the letters.
Our Family Equation
In this short presentation, Burt Kennedy, Jr. presents a summary of his father’s service in images, text, and occasional audio. Watch the entire video here, or click the button below to browse the entire presentation, slide-by-slide, and read the whole story.
More Info
Introduction
This DVD is my attempt to make a record of the correspondence between my father and mother from 1917 to 1919 and to show proof that he did enlist twice under different names in the Canadian Army. This is a record for my parent’s descendants. I first heard about Dad’s war record from his sister, Aunt Hazel, in 1977. In her story, she claimed Dad was a hero holding a rear-guard action when the German shot him. She said there was a newspaper clipping somewhere, but I have never found it.
He never spoke much about his enlistments, I knew about the damaged revolver; from him showing it to me when I was a kid. I believe he did not talk about his service history since he was accepting a disability pension from the Canadian government and did not want anyone to know he reenlisted while holding a disability discharge.
The short story is this: He was working for Ford in Detroit and went to Canada to enlist in the 33rd Canadian Battalion. While on a 48 hour pass he was injured. (They say he fell off a train, but it may also have been from fighting or drinking, or both.) At any rate he was in hospital when the 33rd shipped. There is a picture showing the 33rd and Dad has put X’s on most of the men. (Not being with them probably saved his life.) He later gets overseas and serves about a month with the 58th Canadian when he is sent back to England because of having Epileptic Fits. He spends time in hospitals in England and Canada before being discharged as “Unfit.”
He convalesces at his brother’s house in Bloomfield. Over the fence in the next house is my mother’s family and of course my mother Ida. They apparently fall in love over the back fence.
I think my Aunt Hazel took Dad to Minnesota, Johns Hopkins, for medical evaluation. They must have helped him a little, at least enough to fool the Canadian Officers when he enlisted for a second time. The US was entering the war and drafting people. I don’t think Dad wanted to serve in a new army, so he went to Canada again and enlisted under a different name. He finally got back to France in the 75th Canadian. On September 30, 1918, as a Lewis Machine gunner, he was wounded. The bullet hit his pistol and lodged in his back. The pistol may have been hanging in front of his heart, it certainly saved his life.
Again, back to England and Canada to recover from the wound. He again has epileptic fits. They finally discharge him in April 1919, the next week, he and Mom get married.
I will attempt to read the letters and explain some of the pictures. I hope that it will not be too boring.
The title is obvious once you see and hear his letters.
-Burt Kennedy Jr.
purpose
This is a record of Burt R. Kennedy and Ida Kuhn correspondence from 1917 to 1919 when they were married. I created this record for their descendants. Please let me know of any mistakes with the Hyperlinks so I can correct them and if you have any good suggestions for improvements.
Transcribing Rules
What we wanted, not necessarily what we accomplished.
Punctuation is inserted to separate sentences, and sentence openings are capitalized. Other capitalizations (or lack thereof) within sentences are retained. Where there is the possibility of another interpretation of sentence breaks or punctuation, a footnote contains the original.
Most misspellings are retained and hyphens used as they did. Where a misspelled word is open to interpretation, a footnote appears containing the original spelling. Where his meaning is not clear, the original is retained in Italics.
Paragraph breaks are inserted where a new thought begins or when an addendum was made to a letter. The material is also organized into chronological order.
Significant words and phrases that are crossed out in the original letters are contained in footnotes. An occasional dropped word or word ending is inserted in the text in brackets.
Date line openings of each letter are standardized as much as possible. Several undated fragments were found among the letters, and are included here with a note to that effect. In all of these cases, the fragments are placed among the dated letters whose content most closely matches that which is discussed in the fragment, or in the order in which they were originally found
Burt’s original grammar is retained throughout the letters, including his occasional neglect of the past tense and possessive forms, his frequent failure to use the apostrophe in a contraction such as “Dont” was changed by the word processor to “Don’t”.
Transcribed exactly as written. Footnotes explain people and places where known.
But as the reason he went to Canada in the first place I can only guess. As a child he knew that his two grandfathers had served in the Civil War. Perhaps he was emulating them, John A Ross enlisted twice also.
