COURTSHIP

Roscoe Clark Lynn is pictured here in his uniform at Kemper Military School, which he attended as a senior during the 19I6-1917 year. It’s easy to believe Gladys’ comment that this good-looking son of a prominent local banker was much in demand by the Fort Scott mothers of eligible daughters. She added, much too modestly, that she didn’t think she had much of a chance herself. Shortly after our country entered the War in April, 1917, his older brother, Clay, enlisted as an Army bandsman–he too was a trombonist–and was in the front row when General Pershing’s Sixteenth Infantry marched through the streets of Paris on the Fourth of July. With Clay in the Army, Roscoe was needed at the bank, but he was clearly torn between family loyalty and a desire to see military action. Kemper’s position at West Point was offered to him after the first cadet turned it down. “I made a mistake by passing up that opportunity, but Clay was in France, I wanted to get over there, and I feared that if I entered West Point the War would be over before I could get into active service.” Ultimately he attended the Coast Artillery School in Fort Monroe, Virginia, and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Coast Artillery Officers’ Reserve Corps on February 1, 1919. I assume that the picture of Roscoe in uniform with an unidentified companion is from this period. He considered a two-year assignment in the Philippine Constabulary that would have led to a regular Army commission, but “urgent letters from home requesting that I return to help Dad at the bank caused me to pass up the opportunity to remain in the Army as a career.” After spending a few months at the bank in Redfield, he accepted a position at the Fort Scott State Bank in December, 1919. Whether he knew it or not, Gladys was then working for the Kearns Realty Co., located right next door. One of his roommates during the following two years was Kinley Culbertson, who moved out to marry Florence Boring. “I then had no more than an acquaintance with his bride’s younger sister.” A year or two later, he and the ubiquitous George Cassel made a canoe trip down the Neosha River. “Gladys was then in the crowd of young folks that my sisters mingled with, and she went along to see George and me off at Iola.” After Helen and Ruth Lynn both moved to Fort Scott, Gladys became one of their best friends, “and she and I were often together on parties which my sisters arranged.” “During the last two years before I left Fort Scott, Gladys and I were together very much, as my sisters were always interested in arranging for a picnic, camping trip or home party, and she was my favorite dancing partner.” In the summer of 1925, Gladys, Inez and their mother left Fort Scott to join Dad Boring in Elgin, Texas. In September of that same year Roscoe left Fort Scott to join the National Bank Examining Department. The two kept up regular correspondence, and when he was home in Redfield on annual leave, “she would usually manage to be visiting in Kansas.” In December, 1927, he visited the Boring home in Elgin, “and while there gave her an engagement ring.” The two portraits of the couple, although evidently not made at the same time, were mounted side by side in a metal frame; just when they were taken, I don’t know.