John F Jasper was the nephew of our second great grandparents, Bernard “Barney” and Elizabeth Jasper Happekotte. He was born in Quincy on February 28 in either 1892 or 1894; there is conflicting evidence here that has not been resolved yet. John left Quincy on August 30, 1918 for training before being sent abroad to fight in World War I in France. The training took place at Camp Wadsworth, (Spartansburg) South Carolina and he must have impressed his superiors. Shortly after arriving, he was promoted from private to corporal. He served in the Fifth Artillery Corps on the French front. His brother received a letter from John from Camp Upton, New York where he was sent before
shipping out to Europe. John said he was “liking the life of a soldier of the republic and hopes soon to be sent overseas to take part in the finishing up of the Huns”! I do not have any information about his actual service yet as I have only recently discovered this ancestor. But he was back home by April, 1919. He had been working for American Express in Detroit, Michigan before the war. He returned to that job after his return. But he would eventually come back to Quincy where he joined the police force as a detective. John died on May 16, 1948 probably in Quincy. This death information is not confirmed yet, but it seems to be likely true since he appears on the 1940 US Census in Quincy. He would have been about age 54 in 1948.
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| Soldiers practicing at Camp Upton |
Coming next will be the maternal ancestors who fought in the Civil War. I have not found any other maternal ancestors from World War I or II.
Camp Upton Photo from the following archive:
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