Grace Darling Seibold

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, George Vaughn Seibold, 23, volunteered, requesting assignment in aviation.  Deployed to England, he was assigned to the British Royal Flying Corps, 148th Aero Squadron. With his squadron, he left for combat duty in France.

 

With her son at war, Grace Darling Seibold, began performing community service by visiting returning servicemen in hospitals in Washington, DC.

Grace’s son corresponded with his family regularly. Suddenly, the mail from George stopped. 

On October 11, 1918, George's wife in Chicago received a box marked "Effects of deceased Officer 1st Lt. George Vaughn Seibold".  George's family also received a confirmation of George's death on November 4th through a family member in Paris.
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George's body was never identified.

When correspondence from George stopped, Grace continued to visit hospitalized veterans in the Washington DC area, clinging to the hope that her son might have been injured and returned to the United States without any identification.

While working through her sorrow, she helped ease the pain of the many servicemen who returned so war-damaged that they were incapable of ever reaching normalcy. 

During World War I, American women who had family members serving their country wore a blue star around their left arm.  As this conflict progressed and the number of deaths escalated, mothers wanted to express their loss, as well as the pride and honor they felt for their country.  A suggestion of sewing a gold star over the blue star was made by The Women’s Committee of the Council of National Defense.  This group presented the idea to President Woodrow Wilson and the practice was adopted in 1918. 

 

Grace, realizing that self-contained grief is self-destructive, devoted her time and efforts to not only working in the hospital but extending the hand of friendship to other mothers whose sons had lost their lives in military service.

 

Through her grief, Grace organized a group of these special mothers, with the purpose of not only comforting each other, but giving loving care to hospitalized veterans confined in government hospitals far from home.

 

The organization was named after the Gold Star that families hung in their windows in honor of the deceased veteran. 

After years of planning, on June 4, 1928, twenty-five mothers met in Washington, DC to establish the national organization, American Gold Star Mothers Inc.

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And on June 12, 1984, the Ninety-Eighth Congress of the United States granted our Charter.

 

 

 

 

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