How Arthur Came to Join the Army As recorded by his daughter Sarah: Married men and farmers were not conscripted so Dad was exempt from the draft. But the war was going badly. Young boys of eighteen and nineteen were being called to arms, too briefly trained, and sent to the trenches in France. Dad couldn't stand it. He said "It is not their fight. It is the married men who should be fighting this war, to defend their homes and families, and their country. He was thinking like a true Englishman. It was said to be a war to end all wars. Dad thought that if he went to war his sons would never have to go. He couldn't bear the thought of all those young boys in the trenches. Finally mother gave her consent and Dad enlisted. His army training was brief, and he came home on embarkation leave. It was harvest time. Dad spent the daylight hours on the binder and stooked grain by moonlight. When mother remonstrated with him that he needed his sleep, he said he couldn't sleep anyway with the children all sick with the whooping cough. A Soldier’s Farewell (as recorded by Sarah Evelyn Teale Hippard) "My Father, Arthur Teale, was killed at Vimy Ridge in France in April 1917. My mother, Alice, was alone one day, sitting by a window, when she felt a presence in the room. She looked up and saw her husband standing before her in full military dress, handsome in his uniform. "Oh, you are home, Arthur" she said. He stood at military attention. He said, "I'm home on temporary leave, I must go back." He disappeared, but mother said he had looked as real as she ever saw him in life. She knew he was dead. She received letters from him after that but they had all been written beforehand. Mail was slow in wartime so it was three months before the telegram came. Neighbors were far apart in those early days and far from town. They used to pick up each other's mail and deliver it. So it happened that a friend and neighbor got the ominous yellow envelope for mother. So, at 4 o’clock one morning Billie DeLong knocked on Grandma's door. He held out the letter, saying, I'm afraid it's bad news, Mrs. Simpson. I got this last night but it was late so I thought I let Allie have a good night's sleep. If you don't mind I'll wait for the news." Grandma took the letter to mother, She opened it and read, "Pte. Arthur Teale, missing in action and presumed dead. Letter following." She made no outcry but she turned deathly sick at her stomach. Billie DeLong walked away, muttering about the destruction of war --All the fine young men -- When the following letter came it said, "He was last seen, with eleven others, going over the parapet, under the heaviest fire of the artillery bombardment and it was thought that he was struck by a shell and literally blown to pieces." Dad's sister, in England, had a vision of the battlefield. She saw her brother standing amid the smoke and shot and shell for a moment, before he disappeared. She, too, knew that he was dead."

William Buchanan