JAKE & EVA
Portrait of Jake and Eva
The United States entered World War I in April of 1917. Victory was declared in November of 1918. When the war started, all men aged twenty-one to thirty were required to register for military service. Jake was 26 years old. From Arkansas, over 70,000 soldiers served in the war, over 2,000 died (more than half from illness), and 1,700 were injured.
Both Jake and his younger brother, Marion, were drafted. Marion served in France, as did most Arkansas soldiers, but Jake actually picked up TB while serving in the Phillipines. After the war was over, the troops slowly demobilized over the course of 1919. Jake left the military in December 1919, and married Eva that same month. She was 18. He was 27. The couple lived on Frederick family homestead, along with her parents and siblings.
Pre-enlistment physical exams rarely picked up the disease, so about 10,000 World War I soldiers were drafted with undiagnosed tuberculosis, and another 5,000 were later diagnosed during wartime, contagious through overcrowding. Tuberculosis became the most common reason for discharge from military service, as well as a common reason for disability pensions after the war. Jake filed for, and ultimately received, such a pension.
Upon receiving his pension, Jake, accompanied by Eva, relocated to Roswell, New Mexico. The region’s dry climate and high altitude were considered ideal for treating tuberculosis, and New Mexico touted its climate to lure people to move there. Jake and Eva’s first child, Foy, was born at Roswell.