Harry William Holland

Special tribute is paid to members of the armed forces who are killed in action, which is defined as a death that occurred during combat due to enemy action and before the victim could reach a medical treatment facility. Those deaths are tragic, but so are those who died after they reached a medical facility. 

Under those circumstances, the death is categorized as “died of wounds received in action” or simply “DOW.” The time spent in treatment could be a matter of minutes or even months. In Harry’s case it appears it was at least several weeks.

His last letter home from France was sent in late September, 1918 shortly before the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the largest and last American offensive of World War I. Apparently Harry was hospitalized for some time after being wounded during that campaign and died on  November 8. It was one day before his 32nd birthday and three days before Armistice Day when the fighting was over.

He had joined the Machine Gun Company attached to the 316th Infantry Regiment, 79th Division, after being inducted on May 26. Basic training was brief, partly conducted while on board the ship transporting the “doughboys” of the 316th across the Atlantic. After arriving in July, the last leg of the journey was to the Argonne Forest near the Meuse River. 

Harry was the second child, between Isabelle and Laura, born to an Irish shoemaker and his wife in the Devil’s Pocket section of South Philadelphia. In the first decade of the 1900s the father apparently left the family, Harry’s mother moved in with her newly-married oldest daughter, and Harry joined the Navy.

The 1910 census lists him as a seaman aboard the USS Georgia, part of the Great White Fleet that circumnavigated the globe from 1907-1909. On his 1917 draft card, Harry said his term with the Navy was seven years before returning to civilian life. By then he was 30 years old, single, living on his own at 5313 Greenway Avenue, and a foreman at the Great Northern Paper Company at Pier 19.

His life in the Army lasted just six months. His burial was in France until his mother and sisters were able to have his remains brought home and buried here in 1921. Joining him in later years in the same plot was his mother plus older sister Isabelle and her husband. His other sister, Laura, and her husband are buried elsewhere at Mount Moriah.

Isabelle Holland Meany determined that she could best honor her brother’s memory through service to other veterans of the war. She became a pioneer American Legion Auxiliary (ALA) worker. The American Legion was founded by veterans in 1919 as a patriotic service organization; the ALA was founded the same year to support the Legion in honoring veterans and their families.

Isabelle helped organize the auxiliary at one of the first posts founded in Philadelphia, Prince Forbes Post 7. On the state level, she was twice elected president of the Pennsylvania Department of the ALA, in 1931 and 1932. (A charter member of the American Legion from Philadelphia is also buried at Mount Moriah. Read more about the Legion and the Notable life story of Harry Stinger here.)