Joyce Kilmer Road

I live near M 18, one of Roscommon’s major east/west highways that separates Roscommon from Crawford, the first County to the north. I use M18 for travel to almost anywhere that I want to go. One of the first south-bound roads that I pass by while traveling M18 toward the village of Roscommon has the unlikely name of Joyce Kilmer Road. That name struck a long-ago memory of a poem about a tree, but no other clues surfaced in my mind despite the nagging feeling that there must be a story about the unlikely name.

After 20 or more years of passing by the tiny road with a woman’s first name, I decided to call local officials to ask about the origin of that name. A helpful employee of the Road Commission explored the Commission’s paperwork detailing the history of local roads and explained that he had no luck in finding the source of the unusual name. Undeterred, I turned to the internet for answers and was rewarded by the following clue.

“Joyce Kilmer was killed by a German sniper’s bullet [more than]100 years ago, on July 30, 1918, during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I. The celebrated writer is best known for his 1913 poem ‘Trees’.”

Here is the poem that was written by Kilmer in 1913 while he was yet a young man.

 

 

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree

1908 photo of Kilmer as he completed his university training

 

Born on Dec. 6, 1886, in New Brunswick, N.J., to parents Annie and Frederick Kilmer, he was named Alfred Joyce Kilmer. (His father was the inventor of Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder.) Kilmer became a well-known poet, literary critic, journalist, and editor. He started teaching Latin at Morristown High School in New Jersey and writing essays, poems and reviews for several publications including The Nation and The New York Times.

 Kilmer wrote several books, including The Circus and Other Essays (1916); Main Street and Other Poems (1917); and Literature in the Making (1917). In 1917, he also published Dreams and Images: An Anthology of Catholic Poets, which was dedicated to Father Daly and included the poems of four Jesuits. He was considered the leading American Catholic lecturer and poet of his time.

In April 1917, the United States entered World War I. Kilmer enlisted, joining New York City’s “Fighting 69th” infantry regiment: “I was Irish and Catholic and would go to France sooner,” he said. The 69th was led by Major “Wild Bill” Donovan, and the chaplain was the Rev. Francis P. Duffy. By the time the US entered the war, Kilmer was married with a young family including a baby girl they named Rose. Shortly before Kilmer left to go overseas, his daughter Rose died.

In France, Kilmer was a dedicated and courageous soldier, often undertaking dangerous reconnaissance missions. A fellow soldier, Sergeant Major Ester, described Kilmer:

“He would always be doing more than his orders called for, i.e., getting much nearer to the enemy’s positions than any officer would be inclined to send him. Night after night he would lie out in No Man’s Land, crawling through barbed wires in an effort to locate enemy positions and enemy guns, tearing his clothes to shreds.”

Kilmer’s popularity is evidenced by the many things named after him, including eight schools (four of which are in New Jersey), an Army camp, several parks and roads and the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, which is 3,800 acres of virgin forest in North Carolina. A plaque honoring him  stands in New York’s Central Park.

Apparently, Kilmer’s fame spread to the North Woods. If anyone reading this blog has additional information about the short road with his name, kindly let me know.