Sergeant, 50th Aero Squadron, U.S. Signal Corps.
Died of pneumonia in an Army hospital at Baltimore, Maryland, January 11, 1918. Age 27.
Town: LeRoy
Burial: Machpelah Cemetery, LeRoy, Genesee County, New York
John Randall Wilder was born in LeRoy (Genesee County), New York, on August 5, 1890. He was the son of Frank Wilder, a farmer, and Emma nee Randall Wilder, who died in March, 1897, when John was six years old. The 1900 US Census shows John at age 9 living with his father and his 7-year-old brother, Irving, in LeRoy. In June, 1909, John Wilder married Miss Belle Verney of LeRoy. The 1915 NY Census shows the couple on Richmond Road in LeRoy with two young daughters (Dorothy, age 4 and Ruth, age 2). That census was taken in June. The following month, on July 20, 1915, Belle Wilder was killed in an accident at a train crossing in Stafford, New York, while returning home from a Sunday school picnic at Horseshoe Lake with her two daughters and her mother, Mrs. Charles Verney. The daughters and mother were injured, but recovered.
When he registered for the draft on June 5, 1917, John Wilder listed his occupation as locomotive fireman for the BR&P (Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh) Railway. “Railroad fireman” is also the occupation given in 1917’s Genesee County “Militia Enrollment List,” on which Wilder’s address is still Richmond Road in LeRoy.
According to newspaper reports, John Wilder enlisted in Rochester in the aviation branch of the U.S. Signal Corps on October 29, 1917. His NYSS gives his official enlistment date and place as October 31, 1917, at Fort Slocum, New York, which at the time was a major depot for recruits from New York and surrounding states. Wilder was assigned to the 50th Aero Squadron and sent to San Antonio, Texas, where the unit, newly organized in August, 1917, was training at Kelly Field. “Through his mechanical abilities,” reported the January 19, 1918 Batavia Daily News, “he won several promotions and had earned the rank of sergeant.”
In a letter to his aunt, Alida M Randall, dated December 8, 1917 and printed in the December 19, 1917 LeRoy Gazette-News, Wilder wrote: “I passed my final exams last Wednesday and am now rated as a Zenith Carburator [sic] expert and have won a promotion to second class sergeant and will wear on arriving in France three stripes on my arm. . . . Yesterday I was put on the list of prospective fliers so will get at that later. I am willing to do any thing to whip those heathens in Central Europe.” He went on to describe his unit as “the finest squadron ever in Kelley field” and mentioned that they would be leaving soon for New York and then on to France.
On December 28, 1917, according to the unit’s published history, the 50th Aero Squadron left Kelly Field under orders to Garden City, New York, for overseas duty, and arrived there on January 3, 1918. Wilder was reported to have fallen ill on January 2, and died on January 11 in U.S. Army General Hospital No. 2, Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, Maryland. This suggests that he was sent to the hospital while en route with his unit. At the time, Fort McHenry had only recently been converted to an army hospital as a part of the war effort, and in the month of January 1918 recorded its first two deaths—one of which would’ve been John R Wilder’s.
The 50th Aero Squadron left the United States on January 9, two days before Sergeant Wilder died of pneumonia. It was to become, and remains recognized as, one of the war’s most accomplished American flying units. The 50th Aero made aviation history on October 5 and 6, 1918, when it performed the first American aerial supply drop to combat ground troops in an effort to resupply the 308th Infantry’s famed “Lost Battalion,” which had become cut off and surrounded by enemy forces in the Argonne Forest.
Sergeant John R Wilder was interred at Machpelah Cemetery on January 16, 1918. The 1920 US Census shows his daughters, Ruth and Dorothy, at ages 6 and 10 respectively, living with their maternal grandfather, Charles Verney, on Richmond Road in LeRoy.
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July 21, 1915 LeRoy Gazette-News p1 c3-4
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December 19, 1917 LeRoy Gazette-News p3 c4
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January 12, 1918 Batavia Daily News p8 c3
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January 17, 1918 Batavia Daily News p8 c2-3
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Source: New York Service Summary from Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919, NY State Archives, Albany, New York
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John R Wilder and Belle Verney headstones, Machpelah Cemetery, LeRoy, Genesee County, New York
GPS Coordinates: Lat 42° 59’ 18.94” N, Long 77° 58’ 58.5” W (DD: 42.988594, -77.982917)
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John R Wilder Sources:
– All County Lists
– Nov 27, 1889 LG p3 c6
– Mar 15, 1897 Buffalo Evening News p7 c3
– Jul 21, 1915 BD p1 c6-7
– Jul 21, 1915 LG p1 c3-4
– Dec 19, 1917 LG p3 c4
– Jan 12, 1918 BD p8 c3*
– Jan 12, 1918 RDC p5 c3
– Jan 14, 1918 BD p5 c6
– Jan 17, 1918 BD p8 c2-3
– “United States Census, 1900.” Online index and images, HeritageQuest.com. Entries for Frank Wilder (head) and John R Wilder (son, age 9), citing Census Records, LeRoy, Genesee, New York; sheet number 10B, line numbers 55 and 56, microfilm series T623, Roll 1038, page 243.
– “United States Census, 1910.” Online index and images, HeritageQuest.com. Entries for Frank Wilder (head) and John R Wilder (son, age 19), citing Census Records, LeRoy, Genesee, New York; sheet number 16, line numbers 9 and 11, microfilm series T624, Roll 951, page 260.
– “New York State Census, 1915.” Online index and images, Ancestry.com. Entry for John Wilder, age 26, citing Census Records, LeRoy, A.D. 02, E.D. 02, Genesee, New York; page number 43, line 42.
– “United States Census, 1920.” Online index and images, HeritageQuest.com. Entries for Charles Verney (head) and Dorothy and Ruth Wilder (grandaughters, ages 10 and 6), citing Census Records, LeRoy, Genesee, New York; sheet number 14B, line numbers 33-35, microfilm series T625, Roll 1114, page 264.
– “Militia Enrollment List” (Genesee County, 1917), p W10
– NYSS
– Roll of Honor (NY State), p 65
– World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 (Ancestry.com)
– History of the 50th Aero Squadron, pp 7, 9, 19, 43-53, 93
– The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, Volume V, Military Hospitals in the United States, Chapter XVI, with statistical data chart (pp 361-62), accessed online, U.S. Army Medical Department, Office of Medical History (http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwi/MilitaryHospitalsintheUS/chapter16.htm)
– BCF
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Click for Key to Source Abbreviations. See the Bibliography for complete title, author, and publisher information, with links to online access when available.