Chester A Tyler
September 12, 1896 - October 6, 1985
WWI US Army Cook
Chester A Tyler
Chester A Tyler was the third child and second son born to Matthew Simpson Tyler (1861) and Anna Elizabeth (Headley) Tyler (1871). He joined brother Roy Homer (1892) and sister Blanche May (1893) at their home in the White, SD area where his father farmed. While they did not attend school, the children were able to read and write as indicated by census records. In June of 1918 he completed his draft record paperwork and on August 27, 1918 he enlisted in the Army where he served as a cook and a baker at Fort Riley, Kansas and Camp Upton New York. He was discharged on July 16, 1919 and he returned to White, South Dakota where he again took up farming.
On June 24, 1925 Chester married Olga Marie Olson (1898) whose family lived near Bushnell, SD. Olga taught school in both Sherman #105 and #106 and stayed the Ernest Simmons and the William Pinckau homes. It was during that time that she met Chester. They owned and farmed the northwest quarter of Section 29, Sherman Township, for over 45 years. They raised two daughters, Margaret Ann (1934) and LaVerne Ellen (1935) who attended school in White. After retirement, they moved into White (1971). Chester was a school board member and was active in the American Legion (served as Commander twice). They were also active in the Methodist Church.
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Cook and Baker in WWI
Fort Riley during WWI
Fort Riley, Kansas, was home to the first Cooks and Bakers School, which trained food service specialists for World War I:
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Establishment
The school opened in 1905 in two large buildings, Building 35 and Building 220.
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Curriculum
The school was divided into four squads and had instructors from California. Classes lasted four months and graduated 120 cooks per year.
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Food production
The school also produced 2,000 loaves of bread daily, which were sold for 3 cents each.
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Graduates
The divisions that fought in World War I took the first well-trained food service specialists with them.
Camp Upton during WWI
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Camp Upton, with a capacity of 18,000 troops, was one of three transient embarkation camps directly under control of the New York Port of Embarkation during World War I. The camp was named after Emory Upton, a Union general of the Civil War. The camp was created in 1917 to house troops as they awaited ships for deployment overseas. From Camp Mills the units traveled by trains of the Long Island Rail Road to board ferryboats for the overseas piers in Brooklyn or Hoboken when scheduled for embarkation aboard troop ships.
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The 152nd Depot Brigade was the garrison unit that received new recruits and prepared them for service overseas, and then out processed demobilizing soldiers at the end of the war. Irving Berlin, the composer, and Alvin York, the most decorated soldier of the American army in World War I, were processed at Camp Upton. The 77th Division was first organized there. During part of the war, the 82nd Division was quartered there.
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At the end of World War I, the camp was used to demobilize and inactivate units. Some of the units demobilized at the camp were: the 327th Infantry Regiment, the 325th Infantry Regiment, the 27th Infantry Division's 53rd Brigade (105th, 106th Infantry Regiments and the 105th Machine Gun Battalion), and the 101st Signal Battalion.
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