By T.S. Akers
In 1917 the
US Army established sixteen training camps across the country to train and
integrate National Guard units for service overseas. One of those camps, Camp
Doniphan, was established adjacent to Fort Sill on a 2,000 acre plot. The camp
grew to have a capacity of 46,183 troops and consisted of 1,267 buildings, most
of which were tents.[i]
A young Harry S. Truman passed through Camp Doniphan with the 129th
Field Artillery.[ii]
The Great
War saw an increased interest in fraternalism as so many men came together. In
December of 1917, over two-hundred soldiers from Camp Doniphan were given
passes to journey to Guthrie for a special Scottish Rite Reunion; it was the
first time Oklahoma Consistory No. 1 conferred all twenty-nine degrees. Due to
the number of soldiers interested in being made 32° Masons, the number of
passes that could be issued at any one time was limited. With this restriction
on the number of troops that could leave camp, the Guthrie Scottish Rite Bodies
erected a Masonic "club house" at Camp Doniphan for the purpose of
communicating the degrees to soldiers.[iii]
Guthrie Scottish Rite "Victory Class" of 1917
The Scottish
Rite was not the only branch of Freemasonry that responded to the needs of men
in pursuit of Masonic light. In 1918, the Grand Lodge of the State of Oklahoma
appointed a Special Deputy for Camp Doniphan. Lawton Lodge No. 183 had received
more than three hundred requests for the degrees of Ancient Craft Masonry.
While soldiers were passing through Camp Doniphan, Lawton Lodge No. 183 would
confer 143 Entered Apprentice degrees, 214 Fellowcraft degrees, and 207 Master
Mason degrees.[iv]
Other Lodges across Oklahoma, seeing an increase in petitions for the Degrees
of Freemasonry, were granted dispensation for one day degree conferrals for
those men who would be entering the service.
It was at a
one day degree conferral held in Muskogee Lodge No. 28 on March 1, 1918, that
William Patton Fite would become a Freemason.[v]
Dr. William P. Fite and Mary E. Smith on their wedding day in 1940.
William P.
Fite was the son of Dr. Francis B. Fite, who served as mayor of Muskogee in
1905 and 1919. Francis B. Fite was also a Freemason and a member of Muskogee
Commandery No. 2 Knights Templar.[vi] The younger Fite was born
August 31, 1890, and graduated from the University of Virginia with a medical
degree in 1916.[vii]
Fite was no
stranger to military life, having entered the Shattuck Military School at age
fourteen. He joined the US Army Medical Corps at Fort Sill on June 1, 1917 as a
first lieutenant. During the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918,
Fite was assigned to the hospital at Camp Bowie. He would go overseas with the
36th Infantry Division in July of 1918 as a captain and serve on the
front lines for eighteen days in October during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
While at the front, Fite would oversee treatment for gas attacks suffered
by the 36th Infantry Division.[viii]
Before his
departure for France, the Brethren of Muskogee Lodge No. 28 presented Fite with
a pocket sized Masonic patent which he carried throughout the Great War. The
document, which was composed in English, French, and German, vouched for Fite
as a Brother and read in part:
…commends him for brotherly care and
lawful aid to any Mason who may find him in distress or need – incident to his
service as an American soldier…
The patent
is a stunning example of how Masonic charity and relief can transcend borders.
(From the collections of the McAlester Scottish Rite)
A total of
4,743,826 Americans served during the Great War. Around 84,000 Oklahomans
comprised the American Expeditionary Force, of whom 1,317 never returned. Fite
survived the trenches and was discharged from service on July 22, 1919. Coming
back to Muskogee, he became Vice President of the Physicians and Surgeons
Hospital, as well as surgeon for the MKT and Frisco Railroads.[ix] Fite would live until
March 5, 1978.[x]
[i] “Camp Doniphan,” US Army Center of Military History, accessed April 30, 2018, https://history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/resmat/wwi/pt02/ch10/pt02-ch10-sec06.html.
[ii] “World War I,” Fort Sill History, accessed April 30, 2018, http://sill-www.army.mil/History/_wars/ww1.htm.
[iii] The Oklahoma
Consistory (January 1918), Vol. 3, No. 1.
[iv] Proceedings of the M.: W.: Grand Lodge A.F
& A.M. of the State of Oklahoma: Tenth Annual Communication (Oklahoma, 1918),
47-48.
[v] “Fite, William Patton” (member profile, Grand
Lodge of the State of Oklahoma).
[vi] Liz McMahan, “Fite Family’s Legacy Remains
Alive Here Today,” Muskogee Phoenix
(Muskogee, OK), June 5, 2007.
[vii] John D. Benedict, Muskogee and Northeastern Oklahoma (Oklahoma: S.J. Clarke
Publishing Company, 1922), 389.
[viii] Benedict, 390.
[ix] Ibid., 390.
[x] “Fite, William Patton.”
No comments:
Post a Comment