This picture and article by Paul Thompson appeared in the Marietta Journal, Cobb County Times Section, on Thursday, April 21, 1949.
This portrait of Sgt. Horace Orr painted by Mrs. O. L. Dickerson will be unveiled at the Legion Home as a part of the dedicatory program. The lady in the picture is the Gold Star hero's mother, Mrs. A. E. Orr, who has died since the picture was made.
Charter Members, Graying Now, To Attend Legion Home Opening
History of Marietta Post Is Shot Through With Prominent Names
When they throw open the natty, late-model Legion Home in Marietta Saturday, the minds of old guard Legionnaires will be adrift in the shadowy past as they turn back the clock to the afternoon of Sept. 29, 1919.
That was the day the American Legion came to Marietta for the first time. It came in the form of a crisp new charter signed by 24 vets of World War I and issued to the "Black Jack Post" of the State of Georgia.
They were a hardy lot, those two dozen old timers. Hardy and patriotic and a little sentimental about the brotherhood they were forming among themselves.
George M. Cohan had just written "Over There," the song that was sweeping the nation. And in Marietta, buddies who had fought in the trenches and slogged through the muck "over there" were getting ready to march together in the ways of peace.
Yes, they were a rugged bunch - just as rugged as anything you see around today and a lot more idealistic. Sixteen of them are still alive, most still living in Marietta and still part of the fraternity they created 30 years ago.
The city knows them well: A. L. "Pat" Crowe, the first commander, L. M. "Rip" Blair, W. T. Holland, A.E. McCleskey, E. E. McNeel, J. Stanton Read, J. G. Giles, Guy H. Northcutt, J. G. Roberts, Leon T. McCollum, Norman Collins, F. C. Bunting, W. T. Read Camp., Jr., J. H. Griffith, H. N. Johnson, and A. D. Little, finance officer for more than a decade.
Eight of the original 24 are gone. Only the older people will remember them: Sam L. Rambo, Charlie Brown, Phil Holland, L. L. Blair, Claude W. Haynes, Warren E. Benson, Edgar A. Nichols, and L. W. Camp.
Charter members weren't the only ones helping Pat Crowe lay the foundations for a sound and enduring organization. Many leading veterans of this section got in on the ground floor, among them Dr. P. L. Knott, Col. Fred Morris, Steve White, Johnny Walker, and John Heck, curfrent county commissioner.
The Black Jack Post got its charter while the legion caucus was taking place in Paris. Signed by Henry D. Lindsley and Eric Fisher Wood, patron saints of Legionnaires everywhere, the parchment took on added significance in November of 1920, when the American Legion incorporated itself permanently at the historic St. Louis convention.
Such was the zeal of its founders that the Marietta post built up a membership roster of 280 veterans by 1924, just five years from its inception. After that, interest legged somewhat, but was revived in the late 30's and today the roll is at an all-time peak.
In late 1921 the name "Black Jack" which had been taken to signalize Black Jack Mountain and the light artillery maneuvers conducted there throughout World War I was dropped in favor of the present title, "Horace Orr Post No. 20."
The first Marietta boy to die in World War I, Sergt. Horace Orr, left for overseas duty Sept. 22, 1917. He was killed in November of the following year, exactly a month after Sergeant Davenport, of Acworth, became the first Cobb countian to lose his life in action.
A message forwarded by city council to Mr. and Mrs. Emmett Orr immediately after the death of their son, reads as follows:
"Reports received this week make Sergeant Orr the first Marietta boy to pay the great price of his life for his country in this war.
"It is yet too soon to attempt to write his record, or to accord to him the glory and honor due to his great loyalty and courage.
"Upon Marietta's service flag we lace in the center his star of gold, and to his sorrowing mother and father we extend our most sinccere and heartfelt sympathy."
The Horace Orr Post has been an active civic-minded body with many duties to perform. Perhaps the most outstanding of its accomplishments was the successful sponsoring in 1925 of a city-wide cleanup campaign.
Merchants, home-owners, civic groups, and the man on the street all cooperated with Legionnaires in turning the drive into a project of tremendous value to the community, which has never been quite as clean since.
The post always participates in Memorial and Armistice Day services. It sponsors the Armistice Day sale of poppies for the benefit of disabled vets.
In its 30-year history the post has played Santa Claus to a wide range of people, particularly the kids. Among the projects successfully backed were sandlot baseball clubs for boys under 18 years old; beauty contests for young ladies; swimming classes for the boys and girls; and rifle shooting near Black Jack Mountain who anyone who cared to participate.
From the viewpoint of strict chronology, it would perhaps be impossible to find a man who can give you an accurate list of post leaders since 1919. But here are the names of 14 past commanders with a note on what each is doing today:
A. L. "Pat" Crowe, owner of the Creatwood Farms Dairy in Smyrna; Fred Morris, Marietta attorney; Dr. P. L. Knot, chiropractor; Lucius Atherton, pharmacist; John Heck, county commissioner; Charles Plunkett, federal income bureau man; Grover Fennell, TIMES makeup man; Horace Bagwell, painting contractor; L. A. Van Woeart, retired Bayonne, N.J. policeman; James Upshaw, assistant manager of Marietta A & P food market, Warren Baker, retired post office employee, and the well-known A. E. "Dick" McCleskey, operator of Dick's Poolroom and Rogers Wheeler, of the Marietta post office staff.
In April 1949 the Marietta Journal again ran the picture of the portrait of Sgt Horace Orr and His Mother with the caption- He Never Knew An Armistice Day.
Sgt. Horace Orr, for whom the Marietta American Legion Post was named, never had a chance to celebrate an Armistice Day. He died in battle, as did thousands of young men like him, before that historic November 11, 1918. So did thousands of other Americans, the cream of a new generation, die on ETO [European Theatre of Operations] battlefields or on far Pacific beaches before they could know a day of final victory. On this the 28th anniversary of Armistice Day, let all Americans pray that "shall not have died in vain" become more than an empty promise to the Horace Orr who rest in eternal sleep 'neath white crosses around the world.
This portrait of Sergeant Orr, painted by Mrs. O. Dickerson, will be presented to the Hoiace Orr Post when the proposed Legion home is built.
In this photograph, seated at the table is Horace Orr's mother, Mrs. A. E. Orr, of 301 McDonald St., Marietta.
