Eugene Preston, Post Commander 1926.

 

I can say I am the only 3% member of American Legion PFC Floyd K. Lindstrom Post 5

American Legion PFC Floyd K. Lindstrom Post 5 - Colorado Springs, CO

Post 5 commander of 1924 Eugene Preston passed in 1926. During that short time of being a Legion member he helped get the post newspaper started, in 1926. Eugene was a poet and he wrote many while over there. He kept writing poems after he mustered out and became an attorney for the city of Colorado Springs. During his year as commander of Post 5 Gold Star Families were able to plant trees in honor of the ones who died in service during the Great War, with Post 5 running the event.
Landell Bartlett wrote a Syfy booklet in the 1920s. Landell helped in the post newspaper and took Eugene’s ideas with 10-years and 20-years-ago sections so some of the newer members would know what had been going on before they came into The American Legion. Landell kept and had all his post newspapers bound. This has helped me as the current historian find facts that were nowhere else
Shortly after Eugene passed the Post 5 members wanted to pay special tribute to this Legionnaire who had so much foresight to get things set up to help make Post 5 into a great American Legion post with its history remembered. At a meeting where Hubert H. Humphrey became a member, the post voted to take the poems Eugene’s mother gave them and print a book in his honor. Only 100 copies would be printed. At that meeting over 50 were sold at $2 a copy. The book uses a title from one of Eugene’s poems, "I Shall Fare Forth and other poems."
Now to the 3% part. I know there are 3 copies still in the WORLD. Yes, there can be more, but I only have found 3. One is in the Penrose Public Library special collections section. The next 2 copies were found in Ireland. I decided I needed one and got it in July about a month before the Post 5 centennial. I just got a feeling there was another copy, which was the 2nd copy in Ireland. I received it this week. I can tell you that Landell owned this copy and even left some notes Eugene wrote to him about dues and other bills. Landell glued both envelopes to the inside, one from Jan 1921 and the other Jan 1926, with a poem that was not in the book but printed in the post newspaper: the one for Mother’s Day.
Humphrey was not the senator from Minnesota, but worked at the Broadmoor. Post items can be found in places that would surprise anybody. So I am telling everyone to keep an eye out. What makes me the only one of the 3%? I have held all 3 copies in my hands of Eugene’s book. 3 out of 100 makes 3%.


Landell Bartlett, charter member.

I shall Fare Forth


Landell Bartlett's way of keeping track of his book

Adjutants have seen this letter before. I paid my dues.
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