Doris Kellogg: Indomitable Spirit,World War I Volunteer
By Stephen Kellogg
“Now please don’t worry about me….Death loses its terror here as everyone becomes a Fatalist.”
Doris Kellogg, age 26, wrote these words on the second night after she arrived in Paris in early 1918 in one of her many letters sent home to her family. Surrounded by air-raid sirens, huge searchlights flashing and dancing skyward, bombs dropping, the horrendous noise of anti-aircraft cannons, falling debris and frequent explosions, fire trucks, wounded soldiers wending their way to hospitals, she needed to reassure her parents and family that she would be fine—and she was. She then confessed that, on that night, while everyone else headed for shelters, she had raced out into the street—just for a glimpse—to experience the full measure of the war that would fill her life for the indefinite future—a completely unknown future. Her spirit proved indomitable, however, and as her letters to family show, the tireless work she was about to perform as vehicle mechanic, auxiliary nurse and canteen worker over the next year in support of the allied forces gave her immeasurable feelings of satisfaction, even exuberance, despite the emotional upheaval and the sheer ugliness of the world’s cruelest global war.
Doris Kellogg was one of four Western New York women who volunteered their services during World War I in support of the Allied cause. Alice Lord O’Brian (featured in the Spring 2019 issue) and Anna Perit Rochester, both from Buffalo, arranged through the American Red Cross to be a part of its canteen program. Mary Belknap, from Lockport, worked as a nurse, leaving quickly at the end of the war after she caught pneumonia—a common communicable hazard, as many troops acquired it and other diseases in the wet, lice- and rat-infested, mustard gas- and bacteria-laced trenches along the frontlines. The support of all four of these brave, selfless women was of critical importance, as they were able to bring about healing, lift the spirits of the fighting men and—along with their colleagues—help to turn the tide of the war.
Doris Kellogg was born in February 1892, and was the youngest daughter of Spencer and Jane Morris Kellogg—one of seven children surviving to adulthood. Doris had many natural advantages growing up and may have seemed an unlikely candidate to volunteer for wartime service. As part of her education, she attended the Buffalo Seminary and then went on to The Bennett School in Millbrook, NY, at age 18, as the school was transitioning into a two-year junior college. She enjoyed Bennett and was elected president of her class, as well as “most popular” by her classmates, many of whom were from prominent families. It was there that she met and became lifelong friends with Alice O’Brien (“Al”—and no relation to Alice Lord O’Brian), from St. Paul, MN. This friendship would lead, following the start of the Great War, to their joint desire to volunteer to go to France and serve in the war effort.
Automobile Mechanical Work
In 1917, Doris and Al, along with two other friends—Marguerite (“Mugs”) Davis and Genevieve Washburn—signed up with the American Fund for French Wounded to serve as automobile mechanics in France. The four young women studied and trained as part of a special program in a Packard garage in St. Paul, and following completion sailed on the steamship, SS Rochambeau, arriving in Paris in April 1918. The women were assigned to a garage and began work on a chassis of a Ford ambulance, which was completely covered with rust, as it had been left outside in the rain for weeks. They cleaned it extensively, assembled it, and when it would not start, they recleaned it and reassembled it. This time it started and ran “like a sewing machine.” “It was a triumphant moment,” Al added, “when it purred out of the Garage in perfect order!” Other vehicles were maintained and restored, and there were promises for more, but the work soon dried up, either because of bureaucratic red tape or an unwillingness to accept women as accomplished automobile mechanics.
“Four Jills. . . et un camion” Alice “Al” O’Brien sits in the driver’s seat with Doris Kellogg behind her, while Genevieve Washburn and Marguerite “Mugs” Davis sit on the running board. Washburn became a driver in Paris, continuing with the American Fund for French Wounded, while the other three chose to work for the American Red Cross and became auxiliary nurses and canteen workers.
Credit: Courtesy Joan Miller
Hospital Work
Lacking any mechanical work for which the women were trained, Al used connections to contact Mrs. W.K. (Anne Harriman) Vanderbilt, the head of The American Red Cross in Paris, and the women were assigned to start work in May 1918 at a canteen near the front, working with French soldiers. Before they could report, however, they were diverted to the American Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine, just west of Paris, as the Red Cross needed auxiliary nurses to tend to American soldiers just returning from the Battle of Cantigny and the wounded Marines returning from Belleau Wood.
Before beginning their canteen work, Doris and her friends were assigned to the American Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine, just west of Paris, in the late spring of 1918.
Credit: Library of Congress
Doris was a natural for hospital work; a constant ray of sunshine, as she was told many times, and she knew instinctively what to do to minister to and comfort her patients. “I seem to take to [hospital] work like a duck to water,” she wrote in one of her letters home, “and the odor of ether and things makes me quicken with enthusiasm.” The hours were long and incredibly busy, but Doris found being so useful and contributing so meaningfully a source of exhilaration. Before long, the women had treated every form of injury and hardship; they had to deal with the excruciating pain of patients dealing with shrapnel, open wounds, loss of limbs and more.
Most shocking of their cases were some of the facial disfigurements, and in the course of their duties the women went to visit the studio of American sculptor Anne Coleman Ladd to witness how she made prosthetic casts and personalized lightweight masks (using patient photographs) to cover the wounds and improve the looks and functionality of faces that were so badly injured. Of course, there were also many soldiers that had been burned by mustard gas laid down by the Germans in trenches. It burned everything, including the faces, eyes, noses, throats and lungs. Doris rose to every occasion and did all she could to improve the quality of life for those around her. She thrived on her work and went to bed each night completely exhausted.
In June 1918, Doris, Mugs and Al were sent to work at the Cantine des deux Drapeaux, at Orry-la-Ville, about four miles south of the town of Chantilly. Much of their remaining time would be divided between this “Canteen of Two Flags” and the French Hospitals in Chantilly on the Oise River. [Ed. Note—this was not the same as the Cantine des deux Drapeaux at Saint-Germain-des-Fossés, where Alice Lord O’Brian served.] Doris, Al and Mugs were assigned to one of the two hospitals in Chantilly in July 1918 to care for the wounded from the major international battle of Soissons. Doris found herself mending and caring for wounded Moroccans, Senegalese, Americans, French and even Germans, side by side. While she and others had grown to hate the Germans, her feelings moderated towards the young, helpless enemy soldiers in need of medical assistance.
Outside the Cantine des deux Drapeaux at Orry-la-Ville. In the Canteen proper, the soldiers were served a solid meal. At this booth outside, which was called the Goutte de Café, they could get chocolate, coffee, soup and sweet drinks. The Gottee de Café was busy day and night. Visible inside pouring coffee is Doris’ friend Alice “Al” O’Brien.
Credit- Library of Congress
Canteen Work
The American Red Cross had established around 130 canteens near the fighting zones in Europe, providing about a million soldiers with adequate meals each month, along with fresh donuts, coffee, hot chocolate, cookies, pies, candies and American cigarettes, with tiny American flags. Equally important, the volunteer women were there with quick smiles and conversation to boost the morale of those who came each day. The canteens were strategically placed along railroad lines that transported troops to and from the war zones. Doris wrote home that her canteen had just set a record serving over 1,000 meals in three hours, with only a staff of seven. Before long however, they were routinely serving 1,300 meals daily during the same time period. The war zone then crept closer to the canteen, which put them all in greater danger, and the sounds of war were everywhere.
The crew of Roger W. Sundin. The four officers assigned to typical B-17 crews at this time are in the back row, with the enlisted men in front. Frank Thompson is in the front row, far right, while the pilot—“Big Sundin”—is in the back row, far left.
Credit: Thompson Family collection
Doris, Al and Mugs were billeted at the “White House” in nearby Chantilly. The women would take the 7:15 train for Orry each morning, spend the day working at the canteen, and then be driven home by truck. One of the truck drivers was discharged, and Al was temporarily assigned to drive the truck. She was eventually given the job of chauffeur permanently—even though it was a “man’s job!”) The women could occasionally tour the countryside, which was beautiful in summer. Doris was exhilarated, as she wrote “France is gay with fields of red poppy and blue bachelor buttons, and … yellow hay….” All of this was in sharp contrast to the seemingly senseless bloodshed and the pervasive ugliness of the frontlines just a few miles away. Throughout the tour, Mrs. W.K. Vanderbilt, made frequent rounds, checking the American Red Cross canteens, and she told Al, Doris and Mugs, repeatedly, that they “were among her best Canteeners and she wished that she had hundreds more” just like them. Their commitment to their duties, and their dedication was complete.
Hospital beds inside la bibliothèque Spoelberch de Lovenjoul. Note the empty bookshelves in the background that would have held the library’s collection.
Credit: Courtesy Institut de France
Letters to Family
Most all of Doris’s letters home to her Family were published in a 200 page book, entitled “Canteening Under Two Flags,” handsomely bound and printed by Roycroft Press, with a forward by her proud Father, Spencer Kellogg. The letters are interesting, but the single most striking aspect of Doris’s letters home is the open love and affection she shows toward all of the members of her family and friends. Despite the horrors of war, she expresses a closeness and joyfulness uncommon in formal, patrician families of that era. All of her letters, except one, were signed with variations of “Love, Hugs and Kisses”. On one occasion after she had been assisting young American soldiers write letters to their families at home, she asked if she should close one of the letters with “Love”. “NO”, he replied, “This is not a love letter!” and they agreed upon “I Remain Your Son, Jeremiah”! In closing her own letter to her family describing this, she jokingly signed her letter: “I Remain Your Daughter, Doris!”
Doris often explained that she and the other women were subject to military restrictions against pinpointing locations or revealing information which might give aid to the enemy if known. Her letters are still informative about much of what she did and generally where she was. She thought and wrote often about home, and admitted once to being homesick, thinking that she had heard her Mother’s voice in the night. All of her family and many other friends and extended family wrote back to her, which became an essential lifeline, keeping her going and so very positive about her work. There were numerous problems of mail delivery, however, and at one point, Doris went for more than a month without mail, which was painful. She then wrote home, and told her family, in part, to run a newspaper ad: “WANTED: Everyone who knows her to write to Miss Doris Kellogg, Somewhere in France”!
Relationships with Soldiers and Between French Women and Men
Doris was forever smiling and friendly with her soldiers and cared about them all. Of course, there were even some spontaneous proposals of marriage (mostly, in jest) and her stock answer was “Thank you, but I am very busy now,” which she always was. The French soldiers loved the efficiency of the American women, and constantly compared them favorably to French women. Weeks after her arrival, Doris expressed her own view on French men and women: “You know I can’t stand the attitude between [French] men and women here at all. The men treat the women just as though they were only made to be a plaything and the silly women love it. I think We English and American women may do some more for France than war work if we can sow some seeds of social conscience in the French women’s brains.” Doris also wrote: “Father warns me not to let the Poilus [French soldiers] get too fresh and not to think they are honest. No danger, they are always sensitive to conditions and are as gentle as lambs with us American girls.”
She was clear that she felt that she was always treated with full respect, and that her soldiers could not have been more thankful for the support that she was able to provide. As one French soldier said to Doris: “You American girls are wonderful,… you come up to help us fight, and you are the first ones to give us a smile when we come out of the trenches.” Finally, Doris mused: “You know, I think the inundation of Americans into France is going to do wonderful things in the way of liberating French women. Already the French girls are beginning to revolt against the confining lives they have to lead, and look with envy at the freedom of American girls.” The liberation had begun, in more ways than one.
Peace, Armistice Day
On November 11, 1918, at 11:00 am the fighting stopped. Doris, Al and Mugs had just been reassigned to work at an American canteen in Toul, and when they heard the soldiers shouting and the church bells ringing outside their room, the women wept with joy. Doris went to the balcony, watched the crowds assemble to celebrate, and felt the great sensation of peace. Six huge American planes flew overhead, circling in unison with the chimes. “It was quite overwhelming!” she wrote. Moreover, Doris had been surprised by her oldest brother, Spencer Kellogg, Jr, who had just arrived in full uniform a few days earlier, as the war was now ending. Spen was helpful, however, by booking passage for Doris and Al on the SS Lorraine, which arrived in New York on December 16, 1918. Doris was soon home in Buffalo for one of the most joyous Christmases ever.
Marriage and Family
Doris soon rekindled a friendship with Major Charles T. “Oats” Neale, an Air Force pilot who had flown successful missions during the Great War. They were married in 1921, had four children, many grandchildren, and great grandchildren, who were infused with the same love of life and spirit of adventure. They all adored Doris. Joan Miller, a granddaughter, wrote a book about her, entitled: “The Life of Doris Kellogg Neale: The Little Lady with the Pleasant Smile (1892-1988)”, which outlines many of the major events in her life. Doris remained a vibrant, active woman until her death at age 96. Doris still lives on through the memories and discussions of all her extended family members whenever they gather. She lived her life to the fullest.
About the Author
Stephen Kellogg is a retired practicing lawyer and professor of business law. He is the grand nephew of Doris Kellogg Neale. He thanks Joan and Rick Miller, Doris’s grandchildren, for their helpful assistance in preparing this article.