Fire Station

1917: For many years the northeast corner of the intersection of Texas and San Jacinto was Houston's Fire Station with its multiple bay doors and ample accommodation for horses and those caring for them. The residential structure to the right at 1211 Texas was a series of boarding houses, Mrs. D. E. Morgan in 1913, and the Wright Hotel in 1917. 

3 March 2012: The corner where the fire once sat is now the John S Dunn Outreach Cneter for the Homeless, a charitable agency of. the Episcopal Christ Church Cathedral one block to the west. The domed building that now recapitulates the vanished dome of the Fire Station is The Harris County Civil Justice Center at 201 Caroline, an 18 story public courts building built in 2005. At far right, Harris County Courthouse Annex #44, the Anderson Clayton Building, 16 floors built in 1924 at the Cotton Exchange. 

To: Mrs Elenor Baur
Downers Grove
Illinois
Box 400

Postmarked: Nov 18 [year to faint to read; 1917 from the message]
Logan Branch Flag Cancel
Stamp: 2c Carmine George Washington

Message: Camp Logan, Nov 7-17
Dear Hilda, I am feeling fine and dandy, and chuming around with your hubby, he’s tickled to be near me, too, we certainly have glorious weather down here and feel much better than I did in Grant. will write you a letter shortly, so dont think your forotten girlie - have not heard from anybody in 2 weeks, so dont forget to write,
S. E. W.

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Samples of handwriting from the postcard

Sigurd's signature on WWI draft registration

Sigurd's signature in WWII draft registration

Although the author of the postcard does not sign his full name or relation to the recipient, a comparison of "S.E.W." initials on the postcard with Sigurd Westman's signatures on WWI and WWII draft registrations show a marked similarity, especially with regard to the "E" drawn with great precision, and the flag on the capital "W" in 1917 carried out with flourish. It would be highly improbable that "S.E.W" is not Sigurd Emanuel Westman.  

   “S.E.W.” he signs himself, knowing that Mrs. Eleanor Bauer will know who is writing. He was Sigurd Emanuel Westman, her older brother, soldiering with her husband Martin Anthony Bauer at Camp Logan just outside Houston. After registering for the draft in 1917, Martin and Sigurd joined the 108th Engineers, 33D Division, Sigurd Westman as a Corporal in Company C, and Martin Bauer as a wagoneer in Company B. 
   They must have gone to Fort Grant near Rockford, Winnebago County, IL before proceeding to Camp Logan in Houston to train for war. Camp Grant had been established 18 July 1917 near Rockford, Winnebago County, IL and Camp Logan was a training camp built just outside Houston in what is now the Memorial Park area. In 1917 the mostly flat area was a mixed prairie with riparian forest in the bayou watercourses. Over the summer of 1917 troops cleared the land and erected a few permanent structures such as a hospital and dining hall, as well as a the foundation for the many rows of tents that would house the 18,000 troops to be stationed there. Most of the soldiers were from Illinois, including many men from small towns such as Downers Grove in DuPage County. 
   Bauer and Westman both shipped out to Europe from Hoboken, NJ aboard the George Washington May 8, 1918. Sigurd returned to the US on the S. S. Harrisburg 23 May 1919 to Hoboken, N.J. and Martin must have come back about the same time. Both picked up their lives where they left off, lives of fairly ordinary pleasures. 
   The Westman Family had come from Orebro, Sweden, about 125 miles (200 km) west of Stockholm, fourteen years before. Their father Alfred preceding the family in 1903, followed in 1904 by Anna and the children: Eres (13), Sigurd (11), Hilda (9), Thura (7), Alfred (4), Carrie (3), Lilly (1). They settled in Chicago, taking up residence at 1413 Farragut where Alfred worked as a stone cutter. Soon two more children were added to the family, Essie (1904) and Elvira (1906) making a total of 9 children. It was a big family, and as oldest boy, Sigurd went to work early as an office boy, and soon thereafter a draftsman. 
   Martin Anthony Bauer had a less secure family history. His father, William Albert Bauer died in 1896 when Martin was barely three years old. His widowed mother, Josephine Sackstedder Bauer, was left with the care of 4 orphans: Anna (b. 1889), Martha (1891), Martin (1893), and Nettie (1895). Within a year she married Charles Marvel, and by 1900 they had moved to Chippewa County, WS, then by 1902 to Jennings, Crawford County, IN a few miles from where Martin Bauer had been born at Milltown, IN. Their family grew with the addition of Dorsey (1898), Emerson (1901), Celia (1903), Elizabeth (1904), Charles (1907) and Louisa (1909), 
   At age 17 Martin returned to Downers Grove to live with his namesake Uncle Martin A. Sackstedder, a farmer there. He signed his daft record in  Downers Grove on June 5, 1917 as a single man, but not quite three months later he married Elenora Westman on 2 September 1917 in Chicago. After WWI Martin and Hilda lived in Downers Grove where he worked as a railroad freight hauler (1920), plasterer (1930), interior decorator (1940), and church janitor (1950). They parented only a single child, Virginia born 4 June 1911, Martin’s stepdaughter. She married Myron Thomas Steffy from Downers Grove, and they moved to Richmond, VA where he worked for General Electric and she for IBM. 
   Sigurd never married, living generally in the Andersonville District of Northern Chicago, a largely Swedish enclave in a city known for its ethnic neighborhoods. There he lived in the Westman family home in 1920 at 1413 Farragut, then at Hotel Leland, 1201 Leland Avenue near Racine Street in 1930, then in a boarding house on Berwyn not far from his childhood address on Farragut in 1940, always working as a draftsman or building materials estimator. 
   Sigurd died in February 1964 and is buried in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago where his father Alfred E. Westman (1865-1943) is also interred. Martin Bauer died 12 November 1968 in Joliet, Will County, IL; Hilda died 11 September 1976 in Miles City, Custer County, Montana just a few months after her widowed sister Carrie Mathilda Bergerson had died there 26 June 1976. Martin and Hilda are buried in Clarendon Hills Cemetery in DuPage County, IL. Virginia and Myron Thomas Steffy are buried in Sunland Memorial Park in Maricopa County, AZ.