The Living Dead
The funeral services were held in the little Protestant Chapel five miles down the valley while the guns roared in a fierce battle raging for the possession of Hartmanns-Weilerkopf. At the conclusion of the ceremony Hall’s citation was read and the Croix de Guerre was pinned to a fold of the tri-color that wrapped his coffin. At the head of the grave was placed a wooden cross with the simple but all sufficient inscription, “Richard Hall, an American who died for France, December 25, 1915.” The Alsatian women heaped flowers on the grave, and after kept it decorated and cared for. When the United States formally entered the war there was a further ceremony, when a French General laid a palm on the grave in the presence of Louis Hall and the American Corps.
But Richard Hall was one of those fortunate servants whose service and humanity did not end with death. Very soon after he was killed, as a tribute to his memory a new ambulance car was sent to France to be driven by Louis Hall. It was the gift of a lady. Another followed, the gift of a New York gentleman, and a third ambulance was sent by Dr. and Mrs. Louis P. Hall, who also kept a memorial bed in the American Ambulance Hospital at Neuilly until the end of the war. In addition to that they established a Loan Fund of $2,000 in the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor was Dick’s birthplace, his father a professor in the University) and $500 was given to Dartmouth. In the same spirit of carrying on Dick’s work his parents’ efforts resulted in the sending of $18,000 to the “Fatherless Children of France” and ten thousand garments to the children of the Frontier.
An editorial in the Philadelphia Press had this to say of Richard Hall:
“Much more glorious is the death of this man than is that of the fighting soldier. His was a devotion, not to country and fireside and altar, but to an abstract conception of duty. There can be a selfishness, of a refined kind, to be sure, in even the greatest bravery shown by the soldier who is fighting for the preservation of his native land. Thoughts of his near and dear ones in that land inspire his actions and nerve his body and will for them. To the alien nurse, physician, hospital attendant there is no such inspiration. For them the inspiration must come from the depth of their humanity, and cannot be tinged with the slightest touch of self. German or Hun, Briton or Serb or Frenchman are all the same in their eyes if they are suffering from wounds or disease. Americans have a right to be proud of a fellow countryman like Richard Hall.”