Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 225, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1917 — SEVEN SONS FIGHTING KAISER [ARTICLE]

SEVEN SONS FIGHTING KAISER

Mrs. Tisdall of New York, One of the Greatest “War Mothers” in Whole United States. New York. —Clicking her knitting needles over a heavy gray sweater In Hoboken, just across the Hudson river, sits Mrs. W. J. Tisdall, one of the greatest “war mothers” in the country. ' T 7 She has seven sons, all married, all • with from two to six children, and all In military service.. Another unusual thing, every one of the seven was an electrical engineer before he heard the call to arms. But this is not all. Mrs. Tisdall has six daughters, two of whom are doing hospital work. “I can only sit home and knit for the army myself,” modestly said Mrs. Tisdall. The seven sons were born in Dublin of Scotch-Irish parents. The eldest son, John, forty, and Elward, tw T enty-seven, having both lived some years in Canada, enlisted in the Canadian forces and have come through many months’ service in France unscathed. Victor, twenty-six, left his home in Hoboken, three months ago to join the gailant Canadian Scots. His wife is studying nursing and hopes to be sent across with a Red Cross unit. Henry Tisdall, thirty-eight, has been in the British army five years and' holds the rank of colonel. Trevor Hastings Tisdall, twentyfive, is a member of the engineer corps of the Eleventh regiment, New York, which has been in France two months. The two remaining sons, William, thirty, and Mark, thirty-four, both residents of Connecticut, were taken in the recent selective draft and have passed physical examinations. Both have families, but will not claim exemption. “My father, Thomas McCurdy, fought in the English army with Wellington at Waterloo, when Napoleon came to such an ignoble end,” said Mrs. Tisdall. “My brother fell in the battle of Aden in Egypt in 1870. My husband was an officer in the British army until his death 16 years .ago. “While I am glad, of course, that my sons have followed the precepts of their forefathers so faithfully, I am proudest of them for having risen by their own efforts to such positions that they are now able to leave their families well provided for; which is, after all, the greatest duty d man owes to his country.”