US History III
Joshua Henry Bates
Joshua Bates was born on April 2, 1895. He was the oldest of seven children. Half of his siblings were boys and the other were girls. The names of the boys were Andrew, Roy, and Lorenzo Bates. The girls names were
Dorothy, Effie, and Ruth Bates. One of his siblings died around three years old in 1910. This was probably very hard on Joshua since he was only 15 .
His mother’s name was Eliza Peterson and his father’s name was Joshua
Bates. The family photo (document 4) showed how big their family was and how different in age they were.
In 1915, Joshua graduated from North Summit High School as
Valedictorian of his class of 11 people. He spent two summers at the
University of Utah and graduated. After that he became the principal of
Wanship and joined the Utah Education Association in 1916, receiving an official certificate (document 7).
After getting his teaching certificate he continued his very social life.
He hung out with a girl (document 8), went to the opera (document 41), and kept a diary full of what social events he went to and people he hung out with (document 47). He clearly had a lot of friends and was a popular guy.
On May 18, 1917 the Selective Service Act was the new law that
President Wilson made. So, Joshua filled out an army registration form
(document 12) and acquired a registration certificate (document 13), making it official that he was an US soldier. The government put out an article as a letter to all the new soldiers and there was a farewell dance for them. Joshua attended the dance with his friends since he was very social.
In September, 1917, Joshua had already left home for training and was at Camp Lewis, Washington. While there, Joshua’s father sent him a telegram from his hotel (document 18) saying that he was in town to visit him. They took pictures together while his father was there (document 19).
On June 5, 1918 Joshua was deployed to France. He sent a letter home to his