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Madison Historical

The Yankee Doodle Boy from Fortuna, California 1983

Citation

“The Yankee Doodle Boy from Fortuna, California 1983,” Madison Historical, accessed April 25, 2024, https://madison-historical.siue.edu/archive/items/show/2207.

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Description

The article is from Fortuna, CA on June 30, 1983. The article is about Harold C. Ross when he was a soldier in the Mexican Campaign, World War I, and World War II. He lived in California at the time and was well known by many people. It contains a black and white picture displaying him as well.

This article was digitized as part of a Madison Historical class visit to Liberty Middle School in spring 2020. It was brought to class by Alli Ross, the great-grandchild of Harold C. Ross.

Transcription

  • THE HUMBOLDT BEACON, FORTUNA, CALIFORNIA

    June 30, 1983

    The varied career of a Yankee Doodle Boy

    [Photo Caption: Harold C Ross, Sr. shown above at age 23, in his World War I uniform]

    FORTUNA—What kind of person would be born on the Fourth of July?

    Would he have enlisted to fight in the Mexican Campaign, and World Wars I and II? Would he have been a gold-miner in the North-woods of California as well as the Yukon? Would he have been a wild-catting lumber-miller in Humboldt County.

    He would if he were one Harold C Ross, Sr., since 1950 a resident of Fortuna.

    Mr. Ross was born July 4, 1896 and this Fourth of July will be 87 years-old. Ross has been retired since 1963, when he returned to Fortuna at the age of 66, having spent the past two summers gold-mining in the Yukon.

    His adventuresome life began when he left for the Mexican Campaigns against Pancho Villa, at the age of twenty, from his home in Laona, Wisconsin. His part in the Mexican affair ended April 1917. Three months later, and two days after his twenty-first birthday, he was reactivated for World War I service—July 6, 1917.

    “I was in the old Thirty-second Division, attached to the Tenth French Army,” Ross recalls. “They used us as shock troops, moving us around all the time. We were under cannon-fire constantly.”

    Upon discharge from the service May 19, 1919, he began a relatively tranquil farmers life in Wisconsin, got married, and by the time World War II began, had two children.

    On June 2, 1942, his wife having signed permission for his enlistment, Ross was off to Okinawa.

    “I was in from Okinawa to Japan, in the Army Air Corps Aviation Engineers building air fields.”

    The engineers would go from island to island in the South Pacific, constructing air fields before the Air Corps could move in.

    A few years after WWII ended Ross moved out to Fortuna, where he had a brother who owned a “pop-mill.”

    “We were partners. We’d jump from place to another milling logs.”

    For six years Ross milled lumber in Humboldt County. From there, as Ross said, he went gold-mining out by Redding, near Whiskeytown.

    He did alright there, Ross said, but decided it was time for a change.

    Traveling through the Yukon Ross came across two old miners.

    “I didn’t know anything about mining up there, but I had some money. They didn’t have any.”

    Once, Ross said, he mined 159 ounces of gold in nine weeks and sold it all to the Canadian government for $32 per ounce.

    After two summers of that (“We couldn’t do anything in the winters but sit around.”) Ross returned to Fortuna and retired.

    “I’ve been retired now wince 1963. I’m 87 years-old and I’m still getting around,” Ross said.

    “But I can feel it coming on."

Source

  • Ross, Josh

Subjects

  • culture
  • World War I
  • World War II

Contributor

  • Ross, Alli

Date

1983-6-30

Format

  • jpg

Coverage

  • Fortuna, California
  • 1983

Identifier

  • Ross-Alli-N-001
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