Goodbye Cleveland, Hello France
Video tells the story of an Ohio Major who fell in France
By Claude Humbert, film maker
February 4, 2019
I could say the film is about the life of Arthur Samuel Houts (1880-1918), but it goes way beyond his individual destiny. It covers many pre-WWI events that prepared the U.S. troops to their arrival in the trenches of north-eastern France in the last year of WWI.
Houts served in the U.S. Army in 1898, during the Spanish-American war. In 1901, he enlisted in the Ohio National Guard. As a National Guardsman, he went to Washington for the inauguration of President Roosevelt, he assisted the population during the Great Dayton Flood, and dealt with the violent strikes of the early 20th century. In 1916, after the attack of Columbus, NM, by Pancho Villa, he was sent, with the whole National Guard, to the Mexican Border.
In 1917, the Ohio National Guard was called under federal service as the 37th U.S. Division. Major Houts trained the troops at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama, then at Camp Lee, Virginia, and Bourmont, France. He was leading his men during the Meuse-
Argonne offensive when he was killed in action. He was survived by his wife Georgina (born 1884), and his son Kenneth (1903-1985).
I did not choose Major Houts, I would rather say he chose me. I was fifteen when I discovered an old trunk in the attic, at my great-aunt’s, in a small French village. That was a few days after my aunt’s death. I had never been allowed to enter the attic before. That trunk bore a red disc, inside a larger white disc. I learned years later that it was a buckeye, the symbol of both Ohio state and the 37th U.S. Division. The trunk also bore the name of Maj. A. S. Houts, 145th Inf.
Major Houts's trunk, discovered by Claude Humbert in his aunt's attic
That was 40 years ago. Finding information proved difficult then. So, for almost two decades, nothing much happened. Then, the Internet happened, and, little by little, I found pieces of information. The heavy death-toll during the Meuse-Argonne offensive decided me to look into the lists of casualties. The American Battle Monuments Commission had the answer: Houts was killed in action on Sept. 29, 1918, and was buried at the Meuse-Argonne cemetery in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon. I visited his grave as soon as I could.
I promised myself that, some day, I would travel in Houts’s footsteps, from Ohio to the Meuse-Argonne battlefield. Valerie and I finally came to the U.S. in 2015, having decided to document our journey with photos and videos. We agreed that, if the videos and the story proved interesting enough, then I would make a film out of it. I already had some experience in filmmaking, but this was a true challenge, especially since the story meant so much to me.
I wanted to tell most of the story in the soldiers’ own words. I read all the diaries, letters, articles, and veterans’ books I could find. Unfortunately, I could find no personnel correspondence or diary of Houts or his family. But he had several articles published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, mostly expressing his concerns about how the U.S.A. was military unprepared.
We came back to the U.S. in 2018 to present our film. It was premiered in Hoboken, New Jersey, the last U.S. town Houts saw before leaving to France. Later, while in Cleveland, we went to the Western Reserve Historical Society. There, after hours of searching through the 37th Division archives, as we were just about to give up, we found… the last message written by Major Houts. I already had a transcription of it, but this was the actual message he sent to General Farnsworth, and, unlike most of the other messages in all those boxes, it was handwritten, and hand-signed! Except for his trunk, it was the only object that could physically connect me to Major Houts. One hundred years ago, he had held this small piece of paper in his hands, and now it was in my hands…
Note written by Major Houts. Courtesy of the Western Reserve Historical Society
Mr. Humbert's video on retracing Major Houts's footsteps can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/278220140/5500ab95b8