Hometown Hero and WW II Pilot Succumbed to Polio - Major Charles Rex Langdon

 

Born in Sherwood, Ohio to John Jackson and Eleanor M. (Bayliss) Langdon, in 1921, Rex Langdon must have held the dream of becoming a pilot. Right after his high school graduation at Sherwood High School in 1939, he signed up to serve in the Army Air Corps.

Major Langdon was one of the ace pilots chosen to fly the P-38 Lightning, a twin engine fighter with a single seat, used as a bomber escort and a tactical bomber, with a powerful engine to climb quickly. It was filled with armaments -  four machine guns and a small cannon.  

Although developed in 1939, it was not used extensively until November 1942 in the North African campaign. It also could fly at a low altitude to protect ground troops. For his expertise, Rex Langdon received the

Distinguished Flying Cross as a First Lieutenant. 

The award read: 

"...for extraordinary achievement while participating in actual flight in the North African Theater of Operations as pilot of a P-38 aircraft. On 2nd February 1943, Lt. Langdon's squadron escorted six B-25 (bombers) in an assault on an enemy convoy in the Sicilian Straits. Enemy fighters made repeated attacks on the formation. In the face of intense aircraft fire from the enemy ships, Lt. Langdon shot down one enemy aircraft and aided in the destruction of six others, thereby protecting the bombers. Three ships of the convoy were left sinking or in flames.

The skill and devotion to duty displayed by Lt. Langdon in many combat missions reflected great credit on himself and the armed forces of the United States."

Distinguished Flying Cross

The Sherwood Chronicle reported on November 8, 1945, on page 1:

"The Army could not make up its mind where it wanted to send the town's Major Rex Langdon for discharge, and as a result, he was delayed about a month in getting home, but it is good to see him around, vital and fit, the best kind of hero there is - 

an extremely modest one."

After arriving home, he married Miss Hazel Diehl at the Sherwood Methodist Church in January 1947. In 1949, the couple were vacationing in Michigan with their small son and an unborn baby, when Rex was stricken with polio. 

His obituary telling his story appeared in the local Sherwood paper:

CHARLES REX LANGDON  1921 - 1949

"Friends numbering in the hundreds paid their final respects to Charles Rex Langdon, one of the heroes of World War II, over the weekend. They came from all sections of the county and district with more than 600 of them passing through the Moats Funeral Home on Saturday evening alone.

Mr. Langdon died at 2 o'clock last Thursday morning in St. Luke's Hospital, Marquette, Michigan, of polio of the bulbar type. The news of his sudden passing came as a great shock to his family and to his legion of friends, for he had left Sherwood only the previous Saturday in apparent perfect health, bound for a two weeks' vacation in Hessel, Michigan, in the company of his wife, Hazel, and his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Wesche of Greenville, Ohio. The party arrived in Hessel, where Mr. Langdon had spent vacations since boyhood, Sunday morning, and in the afternoon, they went out on Lake Huron, trolling and hunting for a likely spot to fish the next day for bullheads. When they returned to their cabin that evening, Mr. Langdon was not hungry enough to want any supper, and he reported a mild sore throat.

The following morning (Monday), his condition had not improved, so he rode to Pickford, Mich., with Mr. Wesche and visited a doctor, who gave him medicine for what he termed a light case of intestinal influenza. Later that day, a doctor visiting at Hessel looked at Mr. Langdon, but found no evidence of a serious ailment.

Tuesday morning, however, his throat had become very sore and Dr. Richard Dietrick, son-in-law of Mr. and Mrs. Elwood Saunders of Defiance, just arrived at Hessel from Pasadena, California, recommended that Mr. Langdon be removed to the hospital at Sault Ste. Marie. That evening, doctors diagnosed the illness as polio, and Mr. Langdon was taken in an ambulance to St. Luke's, in Marquette, the center for treating polio in upper Michigan.

Mr. Wesche talked with Mr. Langdon Wednesday afternoon and found him in excellent spirits. Several muscles in his throat had been paralyzed, but he was able to talk without impediment and there seemed every reason to believe that two weeks would find him well on the road to recovery. Therefore, at Mr. Langdon's insistence, Mr. Wesche started home with his wife and Mrs. Langdon that afternoon. They did not learn of Mr. Langdon's death until they arrived in Mark Center Friday evening.

Funeral services were held Sunday afternoon at 2 o'clock from the Sherwood Methodist Church, with the pastor, Rev. Anthony Drake, and the former pastor, Rev. E.E. Roberts, officiating. Burial was made in the Moats Cemetery, with graveside services by the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. On Saturday evening, Masonic rites were performed at the Moats Funeral Home by officers and members of Sherwood Lodge 620.

Surviving beside the wife are a son, his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Langdon, and two brothers, Jack of Muskegon, Mich. and Ned, of Corpus Christ, Tex.

Mr. Langdon was associated with his father in the gasoline distributing business, and he lived with his family in Defiance.

Rex Langdon was born and reared in Sherwood and graduated from the high school here in 1939. He had an early premonition, or belief, in the inevitability of war, and on the night of his commencement, he told a classmate, 'There is going to be a war and the sooner we get in it, the better it will be for the world.'  In October of that year, he enlisted in the Army, and in November, he was called to active duty.

Rex Langdon went from buck private to major the hard way - on ability and intestinal fortitude. As an enlisted man, he was trained to fly the P-38, then in experimental stages, and with a squadron of other enlistees, he received his first wings. He was not commissioned until just before he sailed with his squadron for Ireland on September 28, 1942. And from Ireland, he went to North Africa in January of 1943, and thereafter participated in the African campaign, the invasion of Sicily, several invasions of Italy, the attack on Naples and helped give fighter protection when Rome was bombed.

He finished the war front assignments in Burma, and was discharged in October 1945, with the rank of major after 150 missions.

Of his original squadron, he was one of a pitiful handful of survivors of the North African campaign, where the experienced German Luftwaffe tested the green Americans in the hot fires of battle. He had many brushes with death and once had to slam his plane into a suicide dive at the water to escape three Nazi airman who had been forcing him to fly in tight circles. Only a few hundred feet from the water, a  current of air caught his plane and leveled it out so that he could escape. 'It was then,' he said later, 'that I understood about God.'

Rex was a Sherwood boy to the core; he and his wife talked many times of buying to building a house in this community, and he was happiest when with his friends of long standing. Proud of his family and growing in stature daily as a businessman, he had a warm, pleasant future ahead of him, but it now seems that Rex Langdon was predestined to give the major portion of his adult years to the defense of his country, and in this high calling, he never failed -not even one second"

Moats Cemetery

Dianne Kline, Researcher

See You in September!

Time for a blogger vacation!

We will not be posting in the month of August.

Watch for a new blog post during the first 

week of September.

In the meantime, we ask/beg for some feedback to help us determine future content.

Please comment!

*Do you have a genealogical or local history topic that you would like to see addressed on the blog?

*What topics have interested you most, readers?

(Settlers, Soldiers, Past local events, photos, etc.?)

Have you ever read about one of your ancestors on this blog? Has it been of any help to you in your family research?

Please let us know your responses by commenting on this post or emailing us at 

defiancegenealogy2002@yahoo.com

 

The Pioneer Recollections of J. B. Heatley - Fire and Shootings

 

More Heatley Memories on Sharing the Land With the Indians

Excerpts from the Defiance Democrat, December 19, 1878, p. 3

J.B. Heatley explained that when he lived in a cabin on the Hudson farm,(about 1827) Elias Shirley built a cabin on forty acres in the wilderness near where Heatley lived. It was a thick woods above Three Mile Creek with mostly sugar maples. Elias had been married about a year and they had their first child. The cabin was also built alongside an Indian trail.

"One day Mr. Robert Shirley had called on the whole country around to get hands to help him on a certain day to raise a cabin on the bluff on the south side of the river (Auglaize) from H.C. Bouton's farm. All the help he could find in the neighborhood was James Hudson, John Hudson, Mr. Hudson, James Shirley, Nathan Shirley, Robert Shirley and Elias and Moses Heatley. Of course, I had to stay home that day because mother would not stay alone.

About eleven or twelve o'clock, we heard someone hollowing on the other side of the river, Mother told me to run down to the foot of the island and see what was wanted. I ran down and saw it was a woman standing in the tall grass at the mouth of the creek, close to the water's edge. I asked if she wanted over.

'No, run down and tell Elias to come quick; the Indians are burning our house.'

My, how I did run; the distance is about one and a half miles. When I got there, I told Elias the Indians were burning his house, enough said, they all jumped off the house and every man got his gun and ran to the burning house. Mrs. Shirley still remained in the tall grass at the mouth of the creek until they came.

They proceeded to the house, and there they found the two Indians had piled their bedding and bedsteads, and all their dishes and clothing of all description in the center of the floor.. They had taken a new ax and torched fire to the bedding and eloped for Openoxey's Town, which is now called Charloe.

There was ten or twelve white men following them with their guns. Every once in awhile they came to an Indian wigwam; they inquired if they saw the two Indians pass, giving the description of them as well as they could. At last they found then at the head of Six Mile Creek.

Mrs. Elias Shirley came down the next day and pardoned one of them, she called him the friendly Indian, she said he saved her life. His partner was kept in jail for a few days longer. Oppoxkey, their old chief, came down to reprieve him. He offered Shirley

$500 in gold and silver if he would let him go; he concluded he would, so the Indian was discharged. That is what made that large farm above Three Mile Creek."

The other incident Heatley described took place in 1840 when the canal was being dug south of Defiance. An Indian on pony back saw some Irishmen digging in the canal, and he asked them what the best way was to go through the woods to river.

The Irishmen purposely led him astray and soon the Indian found himself in the swamp. The workers could be heard making fun of the drunk and, now angry, Indian. He got off his pony, raised his gun and began shooting at the Irish man who made fun of him the most. The other Irish went after the Indian and captured him without resistance.

He was put into jail, the old log jail which was about 10 x 12. There he sat for several weeks. 

"One day a man named James Laflan, who lived here at that time and who spoke good Indian language, went to see him and talked to him through the window and told him that they were going to hang him. It scared him; he told James they would not, and for several weeks, he ate but little. The jailor always gave him a rough case knife to feed himself with. So one day he thought he would save them the trouble; he took the old case knife strapped it a few times across the stove and then commenced sawing across his throat, squealing each time he did it. "

Finally, someone heard him and by that time, the young man had cut his windpipe. A doctor was called who sewed it up to the best of his ability, leaving a small hole in the throat to feed him. But it was too late. The young Indian lived nine days before dying. Two squaws were allowed to sit with him in his final days.

Dianne Kline, Researcher

The Pioneer Recollections of J. B. Heatley - Points in his Indian Experience

 

An Early Settler - James B. Heatley 

James B. Heatley came to Ohio from Virginia in 1821 with his father, Moses, mother, Mary (Polly) and sister, Elizabeth, settling first in the Dayton area and arriving in Defiance in the fall of 1824. The family spent their first night here with the Robert Shirley family at the blockhouse cabin they inhabited. The choices for a habitat were slim as there were only three houses here at the time, all former blockhouses. The story of their early years here can be found in the Defiance County 1883 history. 

James had little early education just because there was none available. He was the oldest son and helped his father clear the land and do whatever work was necessary. Later, Mr. William A. Brown taught him to read and write, and he served his new community as township treasurer, assessor, recorder, and over thirty years as township constable.

He married Rebecca Garman and the family grew to four children: Lorenzo, born in 1851 who died at the age of 30; George A. born in 1853; Millie, born in 1855, and Rebecca, born in 1857. 

In the Defiance Democrat of December 19, 1878, he was interviewed about his early pioneer experiences for a column called Pioneer Times. Heatley recounted:

"In 1827 we lived on Abraham Hudson's place, which is known by almost everyone in this country. Our residence was in a small cabin on the bank of the Auglaize, on the upper part of the farm, and stood on the southwest corner of the old orchard, east of what is called Hudson's Island. It was a very lonely spot.
Members of the red-face tribe exchanged civilities with us nearly every day, and, at times, four or five times a day would call to see us. They would ask mother for food; though frequently would walk in and silently go to the cupboard and help themselves to what they would find and then pass out. Their wigwams were in sight of our cabin. South and southeast of us were their broad hunting grounds.

Abram Hudson went to their camp one day and told them that they were upon HIS hunting ground, and they must leave within a few days or he would make them. They paid little heed to him.

He took down his old rifle one day: 'I am a sure shot, and I will never forget them. I hunted them in the War of 1812. They massacred my grandfather's whole family, and I will have a bit of revenge now,' and saying this, he went away into the woods. He was not long before we heard several reports of his rifle. When he returned, we asked him, 'Where is your game?" and he said he had left it in the woods.

Father asked him if he was not afraid they would catch him out someday, to which he replied, 'When I hunt, I am hunting Indians; I can see them as quick as they can see me.' The result was that they became afraid of him - there being so many of their tribe missing, and they suspecting what had become of them, they all left the country, and he was never bothered more with red faces."

Forest Sporting

"Mr. Hudson was a good hunter - always a dead shot and scarcely ever missed a deer. He would go out in the morning before breakfast and kill from two to four before returning. Uncle Abram was an industrious man. When engaged in cleaning his land, he could not spend time to hunt in daylight hours; so he made a bark canoe that would hold two men, and father or myself would accompany him. That was what we called 'fire hunting.' The mosquitoes were very numerous - the whole country being wilderness and swamp. When we started on a fire hunt, we always went early in the evening, and in the dark of the moon."

The man who sat in the back would do the steering, while the one in front would handle the blind they built. They used a beeswax candle that would last all night.

 "This blind keeps the persons in the canoe all in the dark. One can hunt but not as well as two. There should be a steersman and he should hold the paddle in the water all the time and skull his boat and not let it touch a rock, keep his thumbs between the paddle and canoe...If your light should strike a deer and you should touch your paddle on the bottom of the canoe, it's gone without a shot.

It is the most fun I've ever had; two of us have killed as high as four or five in a night. It was no trouble to kill a deer. That time is past and gone forever in this country now."

(To be continued...)

Dianne Kline, Researxher

Spanish - American War Soldiers - Private Frank G. Korn

 

#14 Private Frank George Korn

Private Korn was a resident of Defiance when he enlisted in Company M, 6th Regiment O.V.I. at the age of 29. He served in Cuba and mustered out with the rest of the company in May 1899, in Augusta, Georgia. According to his death certificate, he was born on June 20, 1869, the son of Johann Adam (Adam) and Margaret (Wolsifer) Korn.

On December 28, 1899, he married Hattie Mae Wahl in Defiance. The family moved around, mostly in Indiana and Illinois, with their children: 

Elizabeth May (Bessie), born in 1900; Franklin J. 1903, Everett W, 1909; Virginia Marie, 1916, and Vernon Howard,1917. The last three children were born in South Bend, Indiana, which was their residence in the 1910 Federal Census. Frank worked as a harness maker.

The family was still in South Bend for the 1920 Census, but now Frank had a job as a "metal man" in an auto factory. Hattie was a homemaker, and two children, Bessie, 19, and Franklin, 17, had jobs outside the home. Bessie was a bookkeeper at a laundry and Frank was a clerk at an auto body shop. The rest were in school.

Their next move , according to the 1930 Census, was to a rented house on Maypole Street in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. Frank, 60, was back to leather work again as a harness maker, and Hattie, 50, was minding the house. Most of the children were still living at home: Bettie (Bessie), 29, was a bookkeeper; Everett, worked as an electrician; Virginia, 14, and Vernon, 12 were in school.  This last move might have been due to Frank's health.

In September 1931, Frank was admitted to the U.S. Home for Disabled Veterans located in Danville, Illinois; he was 62 years old at admission.

His disabilities included dental cavities, defective vision, hemorrhoids, and a heart condition, myocarditis. His pension of $50 a month may have been used to cover his care. Unexplainably, he gave his next of kin, Hattie, as living at Route 1, Elkhart, Indiana. In 1936, their son, Franklin, passed away.

The family could not be located in the 1940 census, but in 1950, Frank G., 80, and Hattie, 70 were enumerated in Elkhart, Indiana, now retired. Frank died that same year on May 2, 1950. His obituary appeared in the Defiance Crescent-News on the same day:

Hattie ordered a military bronze marker for Frank, which was the only kind permitted in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Chicago, his burial place. It took until October, 1951, to have it approved.

Hattie lived on until 1969, remarried and moved back to South Bend. Her obituary appeared in The South Bend Tribune on April 18, 1969:

MRS. HATTIE M. HODGES

Mrs. Hattie M. (Korn) Hodges, 98, of 619 Park Ave., South Bend, died at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday in Memorial Hospital after an extended illness.

She was born Nov. 1, 1870, in Defiance, Ohio, and came here 13 years ago from Elkhart. On Dec. 28, 1899, in Defiance, she was married to Frank G. Korn, who died in 1950.  In 1958, she was married to Elmer Hodges, who died in 1959.

Surviving are two sons, Vernon H. Korn of South Bend and Everett W. Korn of New York City; one daughter, Mrs. Virginia Thompson of Elkhart; three grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and two sisters, Mrs. Mabel Gallagher and Mrs. Ethyl Bullard, both of South Bend...

Burial will be in Highland Cemetery. She was a member of the church (First United Methodist), Naomi Rebekah Lodge of Elkhart; The Royal Embroidery Club of Elkhart; and the Jones-Darling Auxillary 44 of the United States War Veterans."

Highland Cemetery, South Bend, Indiana

Dianne Kline, Researcher

 

Spanish - American Soldier - Private Albert L. Rollins

#11 Joseph Hesselschwardt, #12 E. Gleason (not on the roll)

#13 Albert L. Rollins  #14 Frank G. Korn

Albert L. Rollins, 21, of Defiance, enlisted into Company M, 6th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry for the Spanish-American War in 1898. He was the son of James A. and Elva Ann (Woodcox) Rollins. As it turned out, he made the military his career, primarily fighting in the Philippiines.

Albert re-enlisted a second time for a three year term in the infantry that took him until June 24, 1902. He enlisted a third time under Major Browne, again for three years. This enlistment gave his birthplace as Defiance, Ohio; he was 25. His description noted that he was 5'6" with blue eyes, light brown hair and a dark complexion. On his last enlistment, he became a Captain in the 1st Regiment, Company K. His military career ended on February 17, 1906, with a discharge at Cuartel de Espanila, Manila, P.I

After mustering out, he soon married Nora Eva Delap on April 8, 1907, in Denver, Colorado, but they first resided in Nevada, Missouri. She was only 16, and Albert was more than ten years older. By the Federal Census of 1910 in Rawdon, Ellis County, Oklahoma, they were renting a home there. With them, lived an eleven year old nephew, Edward L. Sawyer, born in Kansas.

They were in Harrison, Nemaha County, Kansas by the 1920 census.  Albert had become a partner in a farm with his father-in-law, George Delap, 57, and wife, Elizabeth, 55. with the children of Albert and Nora - Minnie A., 7, and Elvia A (Elizabeth)., 5.

The rambling family had moved on by 1930, back to Center, Vernon County, Missouri. Albert, now 54, owned a farm and lived on it, but he named house carpenter as his occupation. Their two children, Minnie - 18 and Elizabeth - 16, were home with them. Sadly, Albert and Nora divorced some time after this, probably around 1936 in Reno, Nevada.

Albert moved to California and died there on Friday, November 20, 1939. He had resided at Fort Wiley, Orville, California and died in the Veterans' Administration facility there. The obituary appeared in the Defiance Crescent-News on January 31, 1940:

"BURY FORMER RESIDENT WITH MILITARY HONORS

Albert L. Rollins, former Defiance resident who served in Company M during the Spanish - American War, was buried with full military honors in the Presidio of San Francisco, a (national) military cemetery, it was learned by relatives here today. Mr. Rollins died in the Fort Wiley Veterans Hospital in San Francisco on November 20, 1939.

Besides Company M, he also served in the 19th and 21st Infantry in the Spanish-American War and was a member of the U.S.W.V. and V.F.W. in Missouri.

Survivors include his daughters, Mrs. Perry Bedsoe, Orville, California and Mrs. H.L. Hood, Yuba City, Colorado, two grandchildren and a brother, F. D. Rollins, Nevada, Missouri; James Rollins, Defiance, his cousin and Mrs. Mitchell Moore, a niece."

San Francisco National Cemetery, The Presidio

The Presidio

Albert's wife, Nora remarried to George L. Ackerman on December 18, 1936. She was 44, and George was 58 years old. They also made their home in Orrville, California. The local newspaper, the Oroville Mercury Register, announced the Reno, Nevada divorce from Albert Rollins on December 1, 1936.

Nora Delap  Rollins Ackerman died on March 2, 1958, in Oroville at the age of 67. She was survived by her husband, George Ackerman and one daughter, Mrs. Betty (Elizabeth) Glidwell of Sacramento, California. (The Enterprise Record, Chica, California, March 3, 1958)

Nora was buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Oroville, CA.

 
Dianne Kline, Researcher

An Old Settler - Robert Shirley, Sr. PART TWO/ Settling in at the Fort

 

The Shirleys settle in at Fort (Defiance) Winchester

"We reached Fort Defiance that afternoon to our joy and the great delight of our brother, Robert, who had been there several days. My parents were pleased to find Mr. William Preston, a gentleman of intelligence and of pleasing manners, in possession of the fort. He had been there most of the time since the war.

There were two good log houses in the fort, built for the officers, one of which Mr. Preston's family occupied; in the other my father's family found narrow but comfortable quarters.

The fort was all standing in good preservation excepting the barracks on the banks of the Auglaize. The bank was very steep and commanded a fine view of the low land on the opposite side of the river.

The block houses, the four large gates with sentinel boxes over them, were good, and the pickets were in good order and strong enough to be a protection even then.

The block house on the northeast corner of the fort had a good cellar that had been used for a magazine* during the war. From the cellar, an underground way led to the river, by which the soldiers could get water without being seen by the enemy. In the blockhouses at the end of the barracks, facing southeast, were two or three iron bound chests, full of written documents of the war, left by the army officers."

*Magazine - a safe, dry place to store ammunition and anything explosive

*The fort where they actually stayed was at the Fort Winchester location, built for the War of 1812 by General Winchester. It was on the Auglaize River banks but down the way. At the time, there was almost nothing left of the old Fort Defiance, shown above.

Ruth Shirley Austin went on to say:

"Only a few white people lived in the vicinity at the time of our arrival. Four French families were living in log cabins on the banks of the Maumee, and three American families on the Auglaize one mile above the fort - two of these by the name of Driver, one a silversmith, the other a shoemaker. Six miles below Fort Defiance, at Camp Number Three, there lived three American families, namely, Mr. John Perkins, Mr. Montgomery Evans and Mr. Hivel. Two of these families had looms and wove flax and tow linen. Every farmer's wife took her spinning wheel to the new country. There were no sheep in that area then. In 1824, my brother, James bought 3 sheep in Urbana and drove them to Defiance...

Much was told of their dealings with the Ottawa Indians with whom all was well nearly all of the time, except for times when drunkenness took over, especially with Chief Okonoksee.  One night in a drunken rage, the Chief killed both his son-in-law and grandson. This brought him contempt from all the neighboring chiefs who decided to take away his role as chief, A new chief was named, but the people still listened to the advice of Okonoksee.

Eventually this family moved to the Charloe area where they were well-known in Paulding County.

Further information on the Shirleys was printed in an article by Maryetta Bowyer in the Crescent-News of March 10, 1961 on page 8:

"One of the earliest families to live in Defiance was that of Robert Shirley Sr. who came to this area from Ross County, Ohio in 1821. They found it difficult to build a house with the supplies on hand, and so first living in one of the log houses at Camp Winchester.

The Shirleys had come to Ohio from Culpepper County, Va. in the Shenandoah Valley in the early 1800s. The family had lived in England, where they had been honored for their valor by knighthood.