"I WAS THERE" (WORLD WAR I) C. LEROY BALDRIDGE***1ST***1919

"I WAS THERE"
WITH THE YANKS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 1917-1919

BY C. LEROY BALDRIDGE.
TOGETHER WITH VERSES BY HILMAR R. BAUKHAGE

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 1919.
NEW YORK AND LONDON. THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS.
FIRST EDITION.

8 1/2 X 11 5/8. PICTORIAL COVER. WEAR TO CORNERS. SMALL STAIN AT TOP AND BOTTOM CORNER OF FRONT
COVER - OTHERWISE GOOD CONDITION. FILLED WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, SOME IN COLOR. FORMER OWNERS BOOKPLATE.

Cyrus Leroy Baldridge was an artist, illustrator, author and adventurer. He was born to a wealthy ne’er-do-well and
Eliza Burgdorf Baldridge, in Alton, New York in 1889. When very young, his mother left his abusive father and began
a nomadic life as a traveling sales person, selling kitchen equipment from town to town. Devoted to this strong
and independent woman, Baldridge’s personality absorbed from her a spirit of quite exceptional individualism.

Baldridge's career in art began when the 10-year-old Cyrus was accepted as the youngest student Frank Holme's
Chicago School of Illustration. Holme became his second father. In his studio, Baldridge sat with students three times
his age to do life drawings, and under Holme's direction went into the streets to make the detailed sketches meant
to become newspaper illustrations. He learned to count and remember the number of buttons on a policeman’s jacket,
and the sad faces of tenement children, and then return to the studio to include them in finished illustrations.

Baldridge was admitted to the University of Chicago in 1907 and graduated in 1911 and was evermore devoted to that
institution. He was poor boy with no scholarship in an elite college. During his whole life lack of money never stopped
him from anything, and at the University of Chicago he paid his way by drawing signs for campus events. He became
a campus leader, most likely to succeed, Grand Marshall of the University and a model for students who remembered
him long afterwards. According to Harry Hansen, "Men who knew him then will talk to you about him by the hour – but
not necessarily about his drawings. They will tell you about his honesty, his candor, his sense of democracy, his
unfailing good humor and his faith in his fellow man."

When World War I began, Baldridge traveled through Belgium and France as a war correspondent and illustrator. Using
a German letter of passage he interacted with the conquered and their conquerors. He traveled through war zones
on bicycle, horse cart and horseback until his money ran out and he returned to Chicago.

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