Remembering Monrovia’s Louis García on Veterans Day

By Félix Gutiérrez

As America honors women and men who answered their nation’s call to duty on Veterans Day next Monday, Monrovia may wish to remember Pvt. Louis Ramón García, killed in action in France on Oct. 16, 1918, a few weeks before the Armistice ending World War I on Nov. 11, 1918.

Pvt. Garcíaand his Monrovia hometown are posted in records of the California War HistoryCommittee. Monrovia is under his photograph and name in the book “Soldiers ofthe Great War.” When he entered the Army in Los Angeles on June 5, 1917 he gaveMonrovia R.F.D. (Rural Free Delivery) 1, Box 525 as his home address.         

Born inTucson in 1890 to Homobono and Mercedes García, who came to the United Statesfrom Sonora, México, he traveled with his family in a horse-drawn wagon to theSan Gabriel Valley after 1900. By 1910 he was living in Duarte with his TíoSerapio and Tía Florentina García and picking oranges with his uncle on the CCDavis Addition to Duarte. 

The next yearhe was in Monrovia, living with sisters Clotilde and Jesùs at 801 S. CaliforniaAve. and working as a laborer. In 1917 sister Mercedes came to Monrovia aftermarrying cement foreman Francisco J. Gutiérrez and moving into his home at 427E. Huntington Drive. Both homes were “south of the tracks,” Monrovia’ssegregation line. 

García’s Armyservice began with infantry basic training at Camp Kearny near San Diego.  He was a proud soldier, sending a Camp Kearnypicture postcard of himself standing in Army uniform to Mercedes in Monrovia onJan. 23, 1918.

“Para mihermana Mercedes Gutierrez” (For my sister Mercedes Gutierrez), read his postcardnote. Five months later, on June 28, 1918, García shipped out of Brooklyn, N.Y.to the European battlefields. Four months after that, on Oct. 16, 1918, he waskilled in action in France while fighting with the Army’s 104th Infantry 26thDivision.

“While ‘OverThere’ in France, the men of the 104th Infantry Regiment experienced some ofthe heaviest fighting and suffered the greater number of casualties of the U.S.26th Division,” a history of the unit reported after the war.

In October1918 the 104th and other American and French units were engaged in theMeuse-Argonne Offensive trench warfare to break enemy lines and take prisoners.The Germans defended their positions by counter attacking with artillery fireof poison gas and explosives. 

Pvt. Louis R.García was killed on the day the 104th infantry fought alongside the French17th Army Corps and French 18th Division in “an attack for the purpose ofobtaining possession of the Bois d’Hamont on Oct. 16, supported by tanks,”according to a service narrative compiled for the 26th Division’s return homein 1919.

On Nov. 21,1918 the Los Angeles Times reported García was one of three Southern Californians“killed in action.” He and other war casualties were first buried in Europe,then transferred in the early 1920s to Arlington National Cemetery outside ofWashington, D.C. 

Classified asWhite by the military, García is buried in an Arlington section reserved forWhites, but would not have been if his body was returned to Monrovia. When Ivisited his grave two years ago I saw across the lane the segregated graves ofAfrican Americans killed in action. Last year my sister Lorraine and I visitedMonrovia’s Live Oak Memorial Park to view the graves of Louis’ sisters Jesúsand Mercedes and other family members.

I mentionedto a cemetery staff member that most of our family is buried in Live Oak andone was buried in Arlington National Cemetery after being killed in World WarI. He said that if Louis R. García’s body had been returned to Monrovia hewould have not been buried on the cemetery’s north side, at that time a sectionreserved for Whites.

If this istrue, Louis R. García died in France fighting for others to have freedomsabroad that he and others like him did not yet enjoy at home.