LIVING HISTORY
This monument to veterans who died or were killed in the World War I era went up at the St.
Lucie County Courthouse shortly after the war and still stands today. At the top right is the name
of Stephen N. Gladwin, the first World War I soldier whose funeral was held in Fort Pierce.
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The name Stephen N. Gladwin was
a familiar one to me growing up in
Fort Pierce.
I first saw the name etched in
the World War I memorial monument on the
grounds of the St. Lucie County Courthouse,
undoubtedly after seeing a movie at the Sunrise
Theatre across the street. My dad pointed
out the monument one day and though he
probably said exactly how he was related to
us, for years we just knew him as “one of our
relatives.’’ Whenever we congregated around
the monument after movies, I’d often boast
that I was related to the name on the top
right of the memorial.
The local American Legion Stephen N.
Gladwin Post 40 also carries his name, and
by extension the American Legion baseball
teams the post sponsored over the years.
At graduation from high school, I received
something called the American Legion School
Award from Stephen N. Gladwin Post 40, a
bronze medal that has been long since lost.
It wasn’t until I was older that I realized
exactly how Stephen Gladwin was connected
to me. He was the older brother of my grandmother,
Margaret Gladwin Enns, and of my
great uncle, Bob Gladwin, the leader of the local
Sea Scout ship with whom I’d grown close
over the years. Thus, Stephen Gladwin was
the great uncle whom I only knew by name
and who had died long before I was born.
We did not talk about Stephen Gladwin
much in our family. There were never any
tales of heroics on the field or a glorified
death in battle to share. But I know that he
had a special place in my grandmother’s
heart — he was six years her senior — because
she kept a photo of him on her bedroom
bureau.
But who he was and why the local
American Legion Post was named after him
became lost to time. It turns out that both
those who survive him by blood, including
me, and his brothers and sisters in arms who
socialize at the post named for him knew
nothing about him.
CLEARING UP MISCONCEPTIONS
In the course of reporting this story, I
reached out to Post 40 for any biographical
information they had about him. Nothing.
Then I contacted relatives far and wide to
find out who he was and why the post was
named after him, starting with my second
cousin, Stephen Horton of Hurst, Texas, who
at 91 is our oldest surviving relative.
“I do not have much on Uncle Stephen,’’
said Stephen, who was born eight years after
Stephen Gladwin’s death and was named
after the soldier. “Grandmother Gladwin
told me he died while in the Army. He was
stationed in El Paso Texas when he died.’’
Stephen’s recollection, though lacking in
detail, was more on the mark than the other
versions about him that had been passed
down.
• He had died in a wreck in Texas.
• He was the first person from Fort Pierce
to die in World War I, and that’s why the Post
was named after him.
• And, according to Post 40’s own Web
site, his family donated land for the post and
that’s why it was named after him.
All wrong.
It’s funny how an important piece of family
or local history can get distorted — like
the parlor game of telephone. You start out
with a phrase, whisper it around the room
and it’s totally changed by the time it comes
back around again. It wasn’t until I visited
Stephen Gladwin’s grave at Riverside Memorial
Park in Fort Pierce on Memorial Day a
few years back that I discovered how badly
his legacy in our family had become mixed
up. The date of death on his tombstone was
Feb. 12, 1919 — three months after the Armistice
and the end of World War I. There was
no way he could have died during the war.
That much was certain.
That cemetery visit led me on a long quest
to find out who Stephen Gladwin was and
how he had lived. I’d often thought that he
died some solitary death, away from the
small closely-knit community of Fort Pierce
he had grown up in and the family who
loved him. Except for the naming of the
American Legion post, had he died unheralded
and forgotten?
With the 100th anniversary of his death
coming up on Feb. 12, I set out to set the
record straight. In the process of searching
through newspaper articles, public records
and family archives, I not only learned about >>
A boat builder, Stephen Nelson
Gladwin arrived in Florida from
Connecticut in 1878, becoming one
of the state’s early citrus growers.
His grandson, also Stephen Nelson
Gladwin, would die from Spanish
influenza after serving in World
War I, with the local American
Legion post being named after him.
Robert Reed Gladwin, father of
World War I soldier Stephen Gladwin,
was a railway express agent
along the east coast of Florida for
12 years before giving up his job
and moving to Fort Pierce in 1901.