Scarlet Fields: The Combat Memoir of a World War I Medal of Honor Hero

John Lewis Barkley--After the Great War

John Lewis Barkley—After the Great War Joan Barkley Wells After the Great War, my dad, John Lewis Barkley, returned to Missouri on August 27, 1919, a day before his twenty-fourth birthday. This was truly a happy birthday for him, his family, and friends. Returning to farm life gave him an inner peace and a sense of stability. Plowing the fields and tending to various daily chores helped to focus his mind and to dim memories of the horrific Great War. He did not allow his medals or the lure of potential fame to alter his common-sense perspective on life. His Barkley-Doggett ancestors were of Ulster Scotch, Dutch-English, and Native American ancestry. An adventurous lot, they settled the early frontier of colonial Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and finally Missouri. His parents, Frank and Leona Barkley, were unpretentious people who built a log house on Scalybark (or Scaly Bark) Creek. Years later they moved into a frame farmhouse on the brow of a hill overlooking the rolling countryside of Johnson County, Missouri, near the town of Holden. The Barkleys actively contributed to their church and community, and in 1917 and 1918 they raised and sold mules for the war effort. Frank and Leona believed in higher education for their eight children. Before entering the U.S. Army, John attended the Warrensburg Teachers College and played football. After his return from overseas duty, my dad received many invitations to speak to civic and military groups who wanted to hear of his war exploits.He wasn’t very comfortable with these situations.He did, however, enjoy working as an instructor at John Tarleton College in Stephenville, Texas, where he taught war tactics and marksmanship. While at Tarleton,he started to write down his memories of the Great War, and he met Captain Mike Mulcahy, the campus drill instructor, 254 john lewis barkley—after the great war who became my dad’s literary collaborator. Together, they worked on an account of my dad’s military service titled “Scarlet Fields.” King Features, a newspaper syndicate, became interested in the memoir in 1930 and arranged for publication through the Cosmopolitan Book Corporation. Several months before the book was published as No Hard Feelings!, King Features summoned my dad to New York City to work with a team of editors. While there, he took part in promotional tours—and attended chic New York cocktail parties in the homes of the very rich and famous such as the Harrimans and the Vanderbilts. For my dad this was all a bit much. After meeting my dad at one of these high-society gatherings, Howard Chandler Christy, a noted American illustrator and painter, stated that he wanted to paint a full-length portrait. This statement shocked my dad; he was a poor Missouri farm boy, and he didn’t have money to pay the artist. But there was no charge. Christy saw my dad as the quintessential American soldier of the Great War and wished to honor this veteran’s service and courage.He completed the painting in five days. It was exhibited in the window of the Scribner building in New York City and later at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. Today it hangs in the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial. Once the editing of No Hard Feelings ! was completed, my dad gladly returned to Missouri and shed his double-breasted suit for overalls. At a family picnic, my dad met Marguerite Mullen, a resident of Johnson County, Kansas. They married in 1936, and he moved there, where he helped my mother and my maternal grandmother operate their dairy farm until dad’s death in 1966.The couple had one child— me. I was born on July 30, 1938. Throughout his life after World War I, dad belonged to various veterans’ organizations such as the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Army and Navy League, the Regular Veterans Association , and the Medal of Honor Society. He believed strongly in preserving the memory of America’s fallen soldiers, and as a trustee of the Liberty Memorial Association he helped support one of the john lewis barkley—after the great war 255 largest and most important World War I memorials in the nation; he remained on the board of trustees until 1966. He corresponded with many of the commanders of the societies to which...