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Georgia Fern (Shaw) Kohl
4
April 1896 - 27 February 1977
(Click
on photos to enlarge)
Georgia
Fern Shaw, or "Fern" as she preferred to be called, was born 4 April
1896 at Weir, Cherokee County, Kansas. She was the daughter
of Isaac Walter and Jessie (Simkin) Shaw. By 1920,
Georgia working as an Assistant Nurse at Maude Norton Memorial
Hospital in Columbus, KS.
Fern met George Edgar Kohl and they
planned to be married. George was from Lisbon, Iowa
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having been born there 3 September 1896, to Samuel and Clarinda "Chloe"
(Mann) Kohl. During the 1920 U. S.
Census, he was working in Columbus, KS as a garage mechanic.
He
and Fern were married in Columbus on 1 December 1920. The
wedding
notice follows:
Shaw-Kohl
Wedding
The
wedding of Miss Fern Shaw and Mr. George E. Kohl occurred Wednesday
evening at the Christian church. Rev. Jones performed the ceremony.
After the ceremony Mr. and MRs. Kohl went to the home of the bride's
parents in Scammon. On Thanksgiving day a wedding dinner was served to
about twenty guests at the cabin on Neosho river.
Mrs. Kohl was
assistant nurse at the Maude Norton Memorial hospital for several years
and is well known in Columbus. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. I.
W. Shaw of Scammon. After a few weeks among relatives here Mr. and Mrs.
Kohl will go to Cedar Rapids, Iowa where they will make their future
home.
Those present at the wedding dinner wer: Mr. and Mrs. I.
W. Shaw, and son Charles, of Scammon, Mr. and Mrs. Mort Benham and son
Donald, Mrs. F. W. Simkin, Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Simkin, and family, Miss
Emma Louise Kurtz of Columbus, Mr. and Mrs. P. Cannon, Mr. and Mrs. C.
E. Ervin and daughter, Eleanor, all of Parsons.(Source: Modern Light,
Columbus, KS, 2 Dec 1920, Thu., pg. 1) |
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Following
their marriage, George and Fern lived in Lisbon, Iowa. At
that time, George
worked as a Masonry Helper on Bridge Construction. On 13 May
1929, Fern gave birth to their first and only child, Robert Trewin
Kohl, in Cedar Rapids, IA.
Robert married Eloise Anderson, a
native North Carolinian, and they had a son, Robert Trewin Kohl, Jr.
When the Korean Conflict arose, Robert was called to serve
his
country. He entered the Army in Iowa and was stationed at Ft. Bragg. He
served as a member of Battery D, 82nd anti-aircraft unit of the Second
Division. In December of 1951, Robert was shown on
the
Government's list as Missing in Action. Soon it was
discovered he
was one of 56 Iowans who had been taken as Communist Prisoners of War.
He was being held at Changsong's Camp # 1. In
August 1953,
Robert, age 24, was finally on a list of GI's who had been freed from
the Communist Reds. Robert described the circumstances in
which
he was captured in an article featured in The Des Moines Register on 17
Aug 1953:
Freedom
Village, Korea - It is almost a miracle that so many American prisoners
of war survived the ordeal of Communist barbarism, cruelty and
inhumanity.
Take the case of Pfc. Robert T. Kohl, 24, of Lisbon, Ia. He
was captured Feb. 13, 1951 in "Massacre Valley."
He
was in a convoy blocked on a road when a tank ahead of him was knocked
out. "It was at night," Kohl said, "when we went into the mountains. We
walked all night trying to go south. But next morning at 10 o'clock the
Chinese spotted us. They moved in from all directions. There were too
many of them. We could do nothing but surrender."
Four hundred
G.I.s in Kohl's group who started the march didn't make it. "They were
just too weak to keep going," said Kohl, who was released by the Reds
Sunday. "Chinese guards kept making us go faster. They beat us when we
couldn't, jabbering in Chinese at us all the time. They beat me with a
club three times. Three guys tried to escape. The Chinese tied their
hands together and hung them from a log so they had to stand on their
toes. They kept them that way all day. When it was over those poor guys
were almost dead. They accused us of all kinds of crazy
things,
like signaling our planes. They made us hold our hands out, palms up.
Then they beat our hands with heay boards.
Group of 700
Kohl
said if he had known that the worst was yet to come he wouldn't have
had the will to keep on. He was in a group of 700 G. I.s who started
the march Apr. 25 from oBean Camp 7 to Camp One at Chongson. Only 300
were left when the march was finished on May 17, and many of those 300
died later in camp.
Kohl said, "We just trudged along, always
wondering who would be next to die. I kept praying I'd live to see my
wife and kid again. One night I tried to escape. I never should have
tried it. But I tried...God, how I tried. I had no socks and got
terrible blisters from rubber shoepacks. Every step was torture."
Dark Cave
"I
only got 3 miles. The North Koreans spotted me. They threw me in a dark
cave. Once in a while they threw me a ball of rice. Sometimes Koreans
came by and stared at me kinda like a monkey looks at you. They saw me
tied with my arms behind me and they took me away."
I asked Kohl
what he thought about while miserably alone in the cave. "Nothing -
nothing at all." he said. "I was too low. I didn't care. I thought sure
I was going to die."
Kohl's misery continued at Camp One. He had
dysentery and "fever in my feet - don't know what it was. But the pain
was awful." He weighed 208 pounds when he came to Korea. He got down to
135. "We were all skin and bones," Kohl said. "They gave me size 32
shorts and they wouldn't stay up. They slid down my thighs. The Chinese
treated us like dogs. They called us warmongers, rapists and all that
stuff. Then when the truce talks started, things got better. They
made us go to lectures but we just sat there. Everything went
in
one ear and out the other, most of us, that is. Some guys fell for
their line."
Grew Stronger
Gradually, Kohl grew stronger in
body and spirit. And he longed for freedom. Rumors constantly swept
through the camp raising false hopes. "We heard Americans had started a
push and thought they might liberate us. When one of our planes would
fly over, for a few days afterwards we'd try to make ourselves think it
meant the truce was signed."
Kohl said he was a member of the
"KKK," an organization that tried to straighten out a few of the
progroeossives and wise them up a little." Prisoners called men they
considered too friendly with the Reds "progressives." In camp, Kohl
tried to keep up the morale of the prisoners, organizing social clubs
and leading the men in singing at dusk.
Wants to See Wife
As
Kohl became a free man he appeared surprisingly strong, bronzed from
the sun, clear eyed and steady. Now he's longing to see his
wife,
Eloise, and his 3 year old boy, who was only 3 months old when Kohl
last saw him. Kohl also is yearning to see his parents, Mr.
and
Mrs. George Kohl. Robert finally arrived home, in Cedar
Rapids,
IA, for the first time in two years, on Sunday, September 6,
1953.
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George Kohl
had served as Marshall for the town of Lisbon for a number of years
before he went to work as a county jailer. In November 1955, and at the
age of justu 59, he died suddenly while on duty at the
jail. Georgia
"Fern" (Shaw) Kohl passed away on 27 February 1977 in Manatee, Florida.
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Bette Shaw and Chase Shaw Jr
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My
name is Terri Sluder and I am looking for family members that are
related to Georgia Fern Shaw. She married George Kohl - they lived in
Lisbon, Iowa and had a son named Robert T Kohl and one grandson named
Robert Trevin Kohl Jr.
I would like to find relatives of Fern
Shaw (Kohl) so her family can have her pictures. I just feel these
things need to be with family that is left and I just don't have the
heart to toss them. I am sure she had sisters out there
somewhere
and they have family yet today. My Uncle was a prisoner of war and we
have some of his things that need to be placed in a Military
museum.
Georgia Fern Shaw (Kohl) was born 1897 to Isaac
Shaw and Jessie G. Simkin. Fern liked to be called by her middle name
because she didn’t like Georgia. Fern was well known and liked in that
town of Lisbon. She had joined several clubs while living in Lisbon,
IA.
My Uncle said, “I do hope u can get back to me on this I
hate to throw things away when others could have a chance to find out
more about their family tree”.
Terri Sluder
e-mail: classylass58@gmail.com
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