Irwin's first World War I casualty remembered

J. Howard Snyder was described as a man who was too young and softhearted for military combat.

But the war did not discriminate.

The dark-haired young man, who worked as a clerk at Westinghouse and rode the streetcar from Irwin to Larimer to visit his high school sweetheart, became the first World War I casualty of the Irwin area.

He died in the trenches of Arras, France, three days after his 22nd birthday.

'I really didn't know much about him for many years,' said nephew William N. Snyder of the William Snyder Funeral Home in Irwin. 'But a friend of his told me if there ever was a person, ever, ever a person who should not have been in military combat, he was one.'

But at the age of 21, J. Howard Snyder began training at Camp Lee in Virginia. He was soon shipped to France where he entered into battle.

The young man was killed three months before the truce was made to end the war. Three months and he would have been home.

J. Howard Snyder was the older brother of William Snyder Sr., who was 13 when his brother died.

William N. Snyder said his father lived in the shadow of his older brother.

'I think (J. Howard) was definitely the favored one in the family, and I'm sure that my dad felt kind of shut out when he died,' William N. Snyder said. 'After he died, it really destroyed my grandma. She never got over the death of her son.'

Mary Elizabeth Null and her husband, J.W. Snyder, raised their sons along Walnut Street in Irwin. When the family learned of J. Howard's death, they were so grief-stricken, they sold their family home and moved to Pennsylvania Avenue.

J.W. learned of his son's death while he was working as a gasoline attendant at a station that was once located near the present funeral home along Main Street.

'He was giving a gentleman gas when he looked down the street and saw the telegraph operator coming down,' said William N. Snyder. 'He said he just knew.'

The messenger delivered the note to J.W. He read it immediately.

'His boss came out then and said to him, 'You'd think you'd finish waiting on customers before you read your mail,'' said William N. Snyder. '(The boss) felt terrible when he found out what it was.'

The note informed J.W. that his son was killed on the battle front Aug. 13, 1918. He was killed by a revolver fired by a member of a German raiding party. The party made a surprise advance on the American trench.

During the Americans' retreat, three doughboys were killed. Pvt. J. Howard Snyder of Company L, 320th Infantry, 80th Division, was buried in Blairville, France, for three years.

He was later brought home to Irwin on April 3, 1921. A day later, his funeral service was documented in the Republican Standard and Westmoreland Journal.

'Unusual honors were shown to the memory of the late Private J. Howard Snyder,' the article read. 'There was only a short time to pay homage to the first Irwin boy to meet death in France ... the only one from this vicinity to be killed on the battle front.'

Merchants observed Snyder's death by closing their stores from 1 to 4 p.m., the time of services at the United Presbyterian Church, where the Snyders were members.

The body of J. Howard Snyder was shipped from France to New York and then brought to Irwin. A vigil was held by members of the Irwin Post of the American Legion who assembled in uniform at city hall and marched to the church with the Capitol Fire Company band.

The body was placed in a hearse that was escorted to the Snyder family plot in Irwin Union Cemetery by marching color bearers, musicians, a firing squad and a company of soldiers.

'Just before the Legion services were started, Lieutenant Jack Grow swooped down in the airplane and dropped a bouquet of flowers on the grave,' reads the article. 'After the taps had been sounded the host which had assembled at the cemetery lingered a while at the graveside and then disbanded.'

Time has passed, and while some memories of the people who knew J. Howard Snyder have faded, Gladys Sensenich of Greensburg can still recall how the tall and slender boy took the time to dote on her, the 5-year-old younger sister of his sweetheart, Ruth.

'It was a long time ago and I was very young,' she said. 'He was gentle and always nice to me, and I'm sure I was kind of brattish. ... I know there was great sorrow when he was killed. I think I was a little too young to comprehend' what had happened.

The spirit of J. Howard Snyder will be memorialized in the area for years to come. Founders of the VFW Post 781 established the post in his honor in 1921.

'My grandparents were very honored when the VFW used their son's name for the post up there,' said William N. Snyder, an Air Force veteran of World War II who served in the Asiatic-Pacific theater and is now the second-oldest living former commander of post 781.

'I feel very humbled by it.'
May 23, 2021: The publication date on this archived story is updated to May 26, 2001, a change from May 14, 2012 that was the result of an archive transfer error.