History
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. is given credit for suggesting the creation of the
American Legion. In Paris on February 16, 1919, some twenty members of the
American Expeditionary Forces met for dinner. At this meeting the American Legion
had its beginning.
The Spencer Post of the American Legion was organized on Wednesday, July 23, 1919, at a meeting held at Caucus Hall in the old Town Hall. Frank Schueler and Alexander Robertson formed a temporary organization that voted to apply for a charter.
Fifteen men signed the application. By mid-August the charter had arrived.
The post was formally organized on August 25, 1919, at a meeting held at G. A.
R. Hall on the third floor of the Bank Block. George Perreault was elected the first
commander. By September the post had been assigned the number 138.
On September 8, forty-five members voted to change the post's name from the Spencer Post to the Gaudette Kirk Post in honor of the first two Spencer men to die in World War I. The next week, on September 14, the legion's Ladies' Auxiliary was established. Mrs. Ralph B. Stone was elected president.
The following month, the Legion purchased the Arthur Monroe property on the west corner of Grove and Main Streets. This house had originally been the home of David Prouty, the donor of the old high school building.
On February 25, 1922, the Ladies Auxiliary observed “Daisy Day" in Spencer.
This was a predecessor to the selling of poppies. The money raised from the sale of the daisies was to benefit the disabled and the unemployed veterans of the First World War. Five hundred daisies were sold in Spencer, and $68.44 was raised. May 29 and 30 of 1922 were designated "Poppy Days," and poppies were sold to benefit the American Legion Welfare Fund. One of the services of the welfare fund was to provide flowers on Mother's Day for the Gold Star Mothers, those mothers who had lost sons in the World War. The selling of poppies by the Legion continues today.
During these early years of the post, Alexander S. Robertson was the commander.
In December of 1924 the mortgage on the Legion post was paid and ceremoniously burned.
The Legion auxiliary did a great deal to help the patients at the Rutland Veterans' Hospital during the 1920's. Entertainment at the hospital was organized, baskets of fruit and food were delivered at Thanksgiving, and valentines and May baskets were sent.
When the Town Hall burned in 1926, the Legion used its influence to see that the new building would be a "memorial" Town Hall, dedicated to those who had served the country and died in its wars. The ball dedicating the building was conducted by the Legion.
In 1930 the Legion officially took charge of the Memorial Day celebration. In the early thirties the Depression caused problems for the Legion. Jobless men passing through Spencer who indicated that they were veterans were sent by citizens to the Legion commander's home. Commander Raymond McMurdo finally had to announce in the local newspaper that the Legion had no funds to care for these people, and that they should be directed to the police and not to his door.
Memorial Day, 1932, saw the first appearance of the Gaudette-Kirk Drum and Bugle Corps. Not all the members of the corps were legionnaires. On July 4,1933, they entered a competitive drill in Whitinsville and won the second-place prize of fifty dollars.
The porch on the front of the Legion building was added in the summer of 1932
and enclosed in the spring of 1933. The work was done by R. B. Stone Lumber Company.
World War II swelled the ranks of the Legion. After the war the 105-mm Howitzer was acquired and placed on the lawn in front of the post. The Legion celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in June of 1969 with a military ball in the Town Hall. The ball, which took place on Saturday night, was followed by a parade on Sunday. The parade was one of Spencer's largest. Several military marching units, fire departments, rescue squads, scout troops, little league teams, floats, and other Legion outfits from surrounding towns were in the parade. Eleven bands and drum corps kept the marchers in step.
Through the years the Legion has played a leading role in Spencer. The group
has been responsible for most of the patriotic celebrations and parades in town, and has sponsored a range of activities from baby clinics to baseball teams, from declamation contests to blood drives, from scholarships to sports nights for Spencer's athletes. The Legion has even provided classroom space for Spencer schoolchildren in the Legion Hall. Except for the churches, it must be said that no other group has contributed so much for so many years to Spencer as the Gaudette-Kirk Post of the American Legion.