Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimage to European Cemeteries, 1930-1933

This was a once in a lifetime golden opportunity for grieving survivors of sons lost in the Great War ... Gold Star Mother Mrs. Thomas Garrison of 26 Hudson Avenue in Beacon had never been able to visit the grave of her son, Fred Garrison, until a legislative act by the federal government. Private Garrison had been killed in action in the battle of Argonne Forest on September 29, 1918, and lay buried in a military cemetery in France. While most of our honored war dead had been removed from their temporary graves in Europe after the war to be re-interred in their hometown cemeteries, some 30,000 American soldiers, like Fred Garrison, were to remain overseas--buried in eight newly created military cemeteries in France and Belgium.

About ten years after the war's end, the Gold Star Mothers Organization (whose members consisted of mothers who had lost sons killed in World War I) lobbied Congress for funds for an all-expenses- paid voyage for these mothers to visit their sons' grave sites in Europe. The result was the 1929 Pilgrimage Act which allotted $5 million for escorted trips to these cemeteries, with first-class accommodations on ocean liners, for over 18,000 qualifying widows and mothers. Between 1930 to 1933, over six thousand Gold Star Mothers, accompanied by Army officers, sailed to Europe from New York or New Jersey on 31 individual voyages to these sites. Although we have yet to verify that Mrs. Garrison took part in this Gold Star Mothers Pilgrimage, we hope to find that she indeed made it to the Somme American Cemetery in Bony, France, to at long last visit her son.