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Contact information: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/vhp.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/2017655247
Collection material is in English.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
Arranged in three series: Recordings, Manuscripts, and Photographs
Accessioned, 2011.
Duplication of collection materials may be restricted.
Collection is open for research; access restrictions apply. To request collection materials, please contact the Veterans History Project at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/vhp.contact
Selected items from the Leo Joseph Bailey collection are available on the Library of Congress web site at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/eadvhp.vh017013.01.
Leo Joseph Bailey Collection (AFC/2001/001/76979), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Leo Joseph Bailey was born on November 28, 1894, in Leetonia, Pennsylvania. Working as a teacher in Pennsylvania when war was declared, Bailey enlisted in the United States Army on June 1st, 1917. He was assigned to Company M, 9th Infantry, 2nd Division. He trained at Ft. Slocum, New York and Syracuse, New York. Bailey was deployed with the 2nd Division to France in the fall of 1917. Training in France until spring of 1918, he used his days off to become acquainted with the French language, people, and their customs. Bailey saw combat at Belleau Woods, and was wounded on his right arm by a shell explosion on June 21, 1918 . He spent the summer recuperating in Base Hospital 27 at Angers, France. In early fall of 1918, Bailey was notified that he would be recommended to return to the United States due to his injury. He sustained another injury to his right arm soon after this notification, and thus Bailey remained in France to recuperate. Later in 1918, he was assigned to the Prisoner of War Escort Company #85, Army Service Corps. He served in this role until his discharge at the rank of Sergeant on October 25, 1919. Bailey was awarded a Purple Heart for his injury sustained during action.
After the war, Bailey returned to Pennsylvania to teach Agriculture, receiving his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Agriculture from Pennsylvania State College. He moved to upstate New York and resided in the area for the rest of his life. Following his service, Bailey wrote a memoir of his World War I experience titled, "The War as I Saw It." His memoir helped construct the basis of the chapter, "The Education of Private Bailey," in Laurence Stallings book
Collection includes correspondence, a memoir, military papers, photographic prints, transcription of memoir and correspondence, and a DVD containing two speeches given by the veteran. The bulk of the collection consists of a bound and typed memoir of the veteran documenting his period in the United States Army during World War I. He used the memoir as a scrapbook, attaching photographs and newspaper clippings to some of the pages. The memoir also features corrections and annotations created by Bailey, as well as annotations by those who read the memoir. The photographs feature numerous scenes of camp life and destruction caused by the war across Europe. Correspondence is primarily with his sister, Francis Bailey, while overseas in France.
Catalog Record: http://lccn.loc.gov/2017655247
Digital content available
MV01: DVD of two speeches given by Leo J. Bailey at Southern Cayuga Central School, the first to a social studies class, and the second to a French class. In both, Bailey discusses his war experience in France with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Topics include World War I dog tags, veteran's injury during the war, corresponding with French soldiers and German Prisoners of War, and the United States' entry into the war.
MS01: An article about Bailey and his wife traveling to Europe to visit World War I battlefields (1968); an article from
Digital content available
MS02: 12 pages of 32 transcribed letters from Bailey to his sister, Francis Bailey Heinrich, from 7/18/1917 to 7/11/1919 about his Army service; an original one page handwritten letter from Bailey to his sister, Francis, from a hospital after he was wounded by shrapnel with an envelope addressed by a YMCA volunteer (6/21/1918); an original one page double-sided handwritten letter from Bailey to his mother about his travels and service in Europe (11/17/1918); two copies of a typed letter, one copy is five pages and the other is seven pages with images, from Bailey to his friends about an American Legion trip to Europe from 8/1927 to 10/1927 to visit battle sites and memorials from World War I where his company fought (11/15/1927); a copy of a four page typed letter from Bailey to members of his former company and surviving relatives about his trip and photographs of an American memorial cemetery (10/18/1968).
Digital content available
MS03: A hard bound 119 page typed manuscript written by Bailey from 1922 to 1926, with additions and handwritten notes through 1964 from people who read it. Documents Bailey's Army service during World War I from 1917 to 1919. Memoir also includes clippings and photographs (some of veteran). The manuscript was later used by Laurence Stallings as basis for the chapter, "The Education of Private Bailey," in his book
MS04: A 168 page transcribed copy of MS03 with scanned images from the memoir.
Digital content available
MS05: Bailey discharge certificate (10/25/1919) and certificate of appointment for Bailey as sergeant in Prisoner of War Escort Company 85 (7/18/1921).
Digital content available
PH01: An image of Louis Van Iersel (right) standing next to E. B. Evans (a.k.a. Elias Bumbaroff) of Company M, 9th Infantry, wearing their Army uniforms, Soulacourt, Haute-Marne, France (1917 - 1918).
PH02-12: Scenes of the French countryside during the war.
PH10-PH12: feature Bailey.
PH13: A French nurse standing outside, Ile-sur-Fille, France (8/1919).
PH14: A French and Germany cemetery near Reims, France (1919).
Digital content available
PH15: A black and white portrait of Bailey wearing his Army uniform on leave in Paris, France (4/1919).
PH16: A color image of Bailey kneeling at the grave site of John Thomas in the cemetery at Fère-en-Tardenois, France (1968).
PH17: A color portrait of Bailey standing outside wearing his Army uniform on Memorial Day (5/1987).
PH18: A color image of Margaret Bailey Redmond holding her father's memoir with the transcribed version (2010).