Daughter's Wartime Service Marked Upon Her Untimely Death in 1929

On Armistice Day 1929, Matawan dedicated a monument at Memorial Park in honor of Elizabeth Spader Clark Clegg, who died in Philadelphia on 6 February 1929. Her father, William V Clark, of Matawan, arranged for the memorial, which "commemorates the service of one who did her bit."

Elizabeth's 22 July 1919 letter home, published in full in the 27 Sep 1929 Matawan Journal article (pp 1, 8) about the memorial, indicates that she served honorably at the Eagle Hut, a renowned center for servicemen operated in London by the YMCA beginning in 1917.

 Operated by the Y.M.C.A. the centre, staffed by some 800 voluntary personnel, offered overnight accommodation and food for American servicemen passing through London. The centre additionally helped with arrangements for London sightseeing tours and entertainment.  Turnover was heavy: in February 1919 alone 134,566 meals were served.  The Eagle Hut remained open beyond the armistice, finally closing its doors on 25 August 1919. (FirstWorldWar.com) (For more about the YMCA in World War I, see Women and War: A Historical Encyclopedia from Antiquity to the Present, by Bernard A Cook, pg 654, available at Google Books)

Her letter home tells of long hours cleaning dishes and serving ice cream and soda to long lines of soldiers. But it also tells of being rescued from her labors to attend a ball at The Savoy, where she hobnobbed with generals, including General Pershing himself.

The Matawan Journal describes the monument: The memorial takes the form of a sundial on a granite base, which matches in kind the memorial to those who were in service from here in the World War. The pedestal is simple and graceful of design with a bronze plaque to register the time of day. It is beautifully surrounded with a planting of evergreens. . ."

I went to Memorial Park and found the monument, which appears as a pedestal with a planter in the back of the park. It commemorates her service in Liverpool, not London, suggesting that she served briefly in London in the final weeks of YMCA operations in Europe. The plaque reads:

IN MEMORIAM

ELIZABETH SPADER CLARK

HOSTESS

AMERICAN OFFICERS INN

Y. M. C. A.

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND

1918

MARRIED

JOSEPH W CLEGG

1921

The 1920 Federal Census for New Jersey shows Elizabeth S Clark, single, 31 years old, a musical director at a school (probably Matawan High School, as the Matawan Military Academy, nee Glenwood Institute, had closed in 1915), living with her widowed father, William V Clark, age 68, who was head of household at 224 Main Street in Matawan. Elizabeth's three spinster aunts, her father's sisters, lived there, too.

Elizabeth married Joseph Worrell Clegg on 15 August 1921 in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

Sources: Index of Births, Deaths, and Marriages in The Journal and Matawan Adviser, Book VI (1919-1928), Book VII (1929-1938).

See also later blog articles on this topic, including those detailing her obituary and marriage announcement in the Matawan Journal.