The son of a Kansas City tile setter, Lon Boyer entered active service for World War I on 5 January 1918. At the time, he was just six weeks shy of his 21st birthday and had been married about five months. Despite his relatively early entry into the service, Boyer never saw combat. in fact, he never left the United States, spending most if not all of his military service time in Texas.
Boyer's first assignment was to an Aero school in Austin, Texas. (The training received by Boyer in Austin is not known for certain but it is known that there was a pilot's ground school there.) When he finished his school in Austin, Texas, Boyer was stationed at Camp Dick, near Dallas, Texas. Although we have no photographs or letters from Lon Boyer himself, we can read about Camp Dick through a letter by aviator Stanley Louis Haynes published on MaxAir2Air.com, Stanley Louis Haynes wrote to his wife that Camp Dick was "merely a concentration camp for aviators. There are 1300 new men here. Several hundred who have finished training school and also as many commissioned flyers. We get our military drill here and will be held here until there is room for us in the training schools. The best squadrons are sent out first. It will take about three weeks before we are ready for training school. There is no way to tell where, when, or how we will go." As for the accommodations, Haynes described his new quarters as "no more or less than the hog and sheep pens of the fairgrounds" and added that "They are going to be fine. Cement floors with both sides wide open."
The Ellerton Evening Record, Monday, December 9, 1918, summarized the role of Camp Dick as follows, "The Dallas camp, while neither a ground school nor a flying school was the neck of the bottle through which practically all aviators who have entered the service since its establishment, January 30, 1918, have passed. It was designed as a place in which the morale of the aviators could be maintained while the men were in transition from one stage of development to another." Even nearly a month after the Armistice, readers were still very curious about such matters because articles like this probably would have been considered a security risk while the war was still being fought.
On the same page as the Camp Dick article, the Ellerton Evening News Personals column makes it plain that war deaths may have ended but the influenza pandemic was still claiming lives, both civilian and military. An item in that Personals column reads, "George Meade left this morning for Seattle because of the death of his sister Mary, who passed away as the result of the influenza." Men in uniform continued dying as well, including men like Ralph Harrison Prettyman, Belton native, who died of influenza in France on December 14, 1918. Boyer, however, would be released from service on 27 November 1918 while still at Camp Dick, and would return home to his wife of little more than a year, Mildred G. Sackett. He would live in the Kansas City area, earning his living in the laundry business, until his death in 1974.
Boyer's first assignment was to an Aero school in Austin, Texas. (The training received by Boyer in Austin is not known for certain but it is known that there was a pilot's ground school there.) When he finished his school in Austin, Texas, Boyer was stationed at Camp Dick, near Dallas, Texas. Although we have no photographs or letters from Lon Boyer himself, we can read about Camp Dick through a letter by aviator Stanley Louis Haynes published on MaxAir2Air.com, Stanley Louis Haynes wrote to his wife that Camp Dick was "merely a concentration camp for aviators. There are 1300 new men here. Several hundred who have finished training school and also as many commissioned flyers. We get our military drill here and will be held here until there is room for us in the training schools. The best squadrons are sent out first. It will take about three weeks before we are ready for training school. There is no way to tell where, when, or how we will go." As for the accommodations, Haynes described his new quarters as "no more or less than the hog and sheep pens of the fairgrounds" and added that "They are going to be fine. Cement floors with both sides wide open."
The Ellerton Evening Record, Monday, December 9, 1918, summarized the role of Camp Dick as follows, "The Dallas camp, while neither a ground school nor a flying school was the neck of the bottle through which practically all aviators who have entered the service since its establishment, January 30, 1918, have passed. It was designed as a place in which the morale of the aviators could be maintained while the men were in transition from one stage of development to another." Even nearly a month after the Armistice, readers were still very curious about such matters because articles like this probably would have been considered a security risk while the war was still being fought.
On the same page as the Camp Dick article, the Ellerton Evening News Personals column makes it plain that war deaths may have ended but the influenza pandemic was still claiming lives, both civilian and military. An item in that Personals column reads, "George Meade left this morning for Seattle because of the death of his sister Mary, who passed away as the result of the influenza." Men in uniform continued dying as well, including men like Ralph Harrison Prettyman, Belton native, who died of influenza in France on December 14, 1918. Boyer, however, would be released from service on 27 November 1918 while still at Camp Dick, and would return home to his wife of little more than a year, Mildred G. Sackett. He would live in the Kansas City area, earning his living in the laundry business, until his death in 1974.
The son of a Kansas City tile setter, Lon Boyer entered active service for World War I on 5 January 1918. At the time, he was just six weeks shy of his 21st birthday and had been married about five months. Despite his relatively early entry into the service, Boyer never saw combat. in fact, he never left the United States, spending most if not all of his military service time in Texas.
Boyer's first assignment was to an Aero school in Austin, Texas. (The training received by Boyer in Austin is not known for certain but it is known that there was a pilot's ground school there.) When he finished his school in Austin, Texas, Boyer was stationed at Camp Dick, near Dallas, Texas. Although we have no photographs or letters from Lon Boyer himself, we can read about Camp Dick through a letter by aviator Stanley Louis Haynes published on MaxAir2Air.com, Stanley Louis Haynes wrote to his wife that Camp Dick was "merely a concentration camp for aviators. There are 1300 new men here. Several hundred who have finished training school and also as many commissioned flyers. We get our military drill here and will be held here until there is room for us in the training schools. The best squadrons are sent out first. It will take about three weeks before we are ready for training school. There is no way to tell where, when, or how we will go." As for the accommodations, Haynes described his new quarters as "no more or less than the hog and sheep pens of the fairgrounds" and added that "They are going to be fine. Cement floors with both sides wide open."
The Ellerton Evening Record, Monday, December 9, 1918, summarized the role of Camp Dick as follows, "The Dallas camp, while neither a ground school nor a flying school was the neck of the bottle through which practically all aviators who have entered the service since its establishment, January 30, 1918, have passed. It was designed as a place in which the morale of the aviators could be maintained while the men were in transition from one stage of development to another." Even nearly a month after the Armistice, readers were still very curious about such matters because articles like this probably would have been considered a security risk while the war was still being fought.
On the same page as the Camp Dick article, the Ellerton Evening News Personals column makes it plain that war deaths may have ended but the influenza pandemic was still claiming lives, both civilian and military. An item in that Personals column reads, "George Meade left this morning for Seattle because of the death of his sister Mary, who passed away as the result of the influenza." Men in uniform continued dying as well, including men like Ralph Harrison Prettyman, Belton native, who died of influenza in France on December 14, 1918. Boyer, however, would be released from service on 27 November 1918 while still at Camp Dick, and would return home to his wife of little more than a year, Mildred G. Sackett. He would live in the Kansas City area, earning his living in the laundry business, until his death in 1974.
Boyer's first assignment was to an Aero school in Austin, Texas. (The training received by Boyer in Austin is not known for certain but it is known that there was a pilot's ground school there.) When he finished his school in Austin, Texas, Boyer was stationed at Camp Dick, near Dallas, Texas. Although we have no photographs or letters from Lon Boyer himself, we can read about Camp Dick through a letter by aviator Stanley Louis Haynes published on MaxAir2Air.com, Stanley Louis Haynes wrote to his wife that Camp Dick was "merely a concentration camp for aviators. There are 1300 new men here. Several hundred who have finished training school and also as many commissioned flyers. We get our military drill here and will be held here until there is room for us in the training schools. The best squadrons are sent out first. It will take about three weeks before we are ready for training school. There is no way to tell where, when, or how we will go." As for the accommodations, Haynes described his new quarters as "no more or less than the hog and sheep pens of the fairgrounds" and added that "They are going to be fine. Cement floors with both sides wide open."
The Ellerton Evening Record, Monday, December 9, 1918, summarized the role of Camp Dick as follows, "The Dallas camp, while neither a ground school nor a flying school was the neck of the bottle through which practically all aviators who have entered the service since its establishment, January 30, 1918, have passed. It was designed as a place in which the morale of the aviators could be maintained while the men were in transition from one stage of development to another." Even nearly a month after the Armistice, readers were still very curious about such matters because articles like this probably would have been considered a security risk while the war was still being fought.
On the same page as the Camp Dick article, the Ellerton Evening News Personals column makes it plain that war deaths may have ended but the influenza pandemic was still claiming lives, both civilian and military. An item in that Personals column reads, "George Meade left this morning for Seattle because of the death of his sister Mary, who passed away as the result of the influenza." Men in uniform continued dying as well, including men like Ralph Harrison Prettyman, Belton native, who died of influenza in France on December 14, 1918. Boyer, however, would be released from service on 27 November 1918 while still at Camp Dick, and would return home to his wife of little more than a year, Mildred G. Sackett. He would live in the Kansas City area, earning his living in the laundry business, until his death in 1974.
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