Meeting with Pauline DeCook

Pauline DeCook, daughter of Naldo Steenhoek

Last Friday, July 13, 2012, my brother, Mark Thompson, and I drove down to Byron, Minnesota (8 miles from Rochester).  We were meeting Pauline DeCook, daughter of Naldo Steenhoek.

Naldo was one of Walter's buddies in Company I.  We think he was part of Walter's machine gun crew.  Two or three soldiers carried pieces of the Lewis machine gun and advanced over the top with the purpose of setting it up at some point during the attack on the Germans.

Walter was shot that morning of October 7, 1918 and took shelter in a shallow bomb crater.  Naldo was with Walter as he lay dying that day.  We think they were both tied down by the withering German machine gun fire, coming from their left flank and from in front of them.  No medics could get to Walter; and he died that evening. In 1921, Martin Schadeck, Walter's closest buddy during the war, wrote to Naldo to ask the circumstances in which Walter had died.  Naldo wrote the following letter back to Martin.

First page of original letter from 1921. Below is a transcription of the entire letter.

Private Naldo Steenhoek, Company I, 117th Regiment 30th Division

Naldo's daughter, Pauline, was so gracious to us when we stopped by to spend an afternoon talking about her father and our great-uncle during the Great War. Thanks so much to Pauline.  We intend to stay in touch with her and other members of her family to let them know developments on our film project.