VIENNA — The family of late Vienna resident and World War II veteran Ellis Barnhart gathered in the Historical Society of Maries County’s (HSMC) Latham House last month for a special program to commemorate the veteran.

Sharon Wulff, Barnhart’s niece and a volunteer with HSMC, organized the program, in remembrance of her uncle. She got the idea after the family decided to donate his WWII uniform to the museum. During the gathering, she delivered a presentation about Barnhart’s military service and how the uniform ended up in the museum’s possession.

The family found Barnhart’s uniform in 2012 while going through belongings on his farm in preparation for an auction. It was in a moth-infested closet. The family valued the uniform, but they were unsure of what to do with it. They decided to donate it to HSMC.

Wulff said she took the uniform home and filled it with mothballs to prevent further wear. She put it in her basement where it stayed for many years until she recently began preparing it for display in the HSMC museum.

“I thought ‘It’s dirty,’” she said. “Do we dare try to get it cleaned?”

Wulff took the uniform to the Museum of Missouri Military History in Jefferson City for advice about how to get the garments ready for display. The person she talked to at the museum told her the uniform had a few dirty spots, but it was not in bad shape otherwise. They recommended a cleaner in Jefferson City, and Wulff took it there for cleaning.

“I was quite pleased with the way it turned out,” she said. “I was afraid it would just fall apart, but that wasn’t the case.”

After sharing the story of the uniform’s recent history, Wulff went back to the beginning. She shared information about Barnhart’s military service that she had learned from two sources.

The first was a 1949 publication by the Vienna American Legion Post compiled from questionnaires sent to local veterans. It included the veteran’s name, address, date of induction, branch of service, training date and station, date of invocation, theater of operation, medals earned, date returned to the United States, discharge station and date, rank, length of service, occupation and any other remarks the veterans wished to make. Barnhart included a photograph of himself along with the questionnaire.

The other source was a book about the history of the 94th Infantry Division, in which Barnhart served, found with other military memorabilia including his caps, flag and the notice that his widow Mildred received from President Jimmy Carter upon Barnhart’s death.

“Between the stations (Barnhart) identified and the paper from the American Legion, I tracked him all the way from Maries County to Germany and back,” Wulff said.

The Army inducted Barnahrt, born Feb. 22, 1915, on March 21, 1941, when he was 26 years old. At the time, the U.S. was several months away from suffering the attack on Pearl Harbor and the country’s subsequent entry into the war, which had been persisting in Europe for more than a year.

Wulff said she was unable to identify the exact location where Barnhart went immediately after his induction, but the first place he listed on his American Legion questionnaire was Camp Grant, an army facility that operated outside Rockford, Illinois from 1917 to 1946. It began as an infantry training site during World War I, and during the 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic, more than 1,000 men stationed at the camp died. The Illinois National Guard took over the camp in 1924 until the Army reactivated it as an induction center in February 1941. Camp Grant also served as an Army Medical Service training center. As a medic, Barnhart likely received his medical training during his stay there.

Barnhart’s next stop was Fort Crockett in Galveston, Texas, which also served as a prisoner-of-war camp. Wulff said she was unsure what Barnhart did during his stay at the fort, but it is possible he helped with POWs as a medic. During that time, he joined the 94th Infantry Division. After that, many of the camps he mentioned visiting in his questionnaire had ties to the unit.

At that point in the presentation, Wulff provided some background on the 94th Infantry Division. The unit began in World War I for Spanish-speaking soldiers in Puerto Rico. Upon the end of the war that same year, the unit disbanded. During the years between the wars, the unit reformed in Massachusetts for training as a reserve unit. In 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt called reserve troops into active duty for one year and the regular members of the division were divided among other units.

On Sept. 15, 1942, the unit was reactivated at Fort Custer Training Center in Battle Creek, Michigan, which lacked the space needed for training. About a month later, the division moved to Camp Phillips near Salina, Kansas, where it faced a terribly cold winter.

“It was one of the coldest winters on record in Kansas,” Wulff said. “A lot of their training was outdoors with zero or subzero temperatures, which was a real challenge.”

The winter eventually gave way to an especially rainy spring and hot summer. By August 1943, some in the division went to Camp Forrest near Tullahoma, Tennessee, which was one of the Army’s largest bases during the war. Others went to Camp McCain Training Center in Grenada, Mississippi. In March 1944, flooding in Mississippi led to members of the 94th Division rescuing 153 local people who had become marooned in the disaster.

Following the flooding, Mississippi’s then-governor and a group of honorary colonels visited the 94th Infantry Division at the camp. The unit performed a field artillery demonstration that had the men crawling through a muddy course. Someone had planted training charges in the water holes in the field, so when the men crawled across it, they hit many charges and showered the visitors in mud. Wulff said the incident sounded like the kind of prank Barnhart liked to pull, and the other family members agreed.

In May 1944, the members of the 94th Infantry Division received word that they should prepare for overseas duty. They left for Camp Shanks near Orangetown, New York, that July. The camp was the largest Army embarkation site during World War II. In early August, the troops boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth to sail across the ocean to an unknown destination.

During the voyage, the men ate two meals per day. The ship had so many passengers that the kitchen served meals in six shifts. Throwing food waste overboard was forbidden to keep enemy ships from tracking the vessel. Possible attacks posed such a threat that the approximately 18,000 men aboard had to wear or carry life jackets at all times, and the ship altered its course every few minutes to throw off any potential trackers. Each night, a blackout occurred when the troops had to fasten the porthole covers and no one was allowed to smoke on the deck.

On Aug. 11, 1944, the ship sailed into the North Channel between Ireland and Scotland. On the way to Greenock, Scotland, the vessel had to anchor midstream because the port could not handle its 85,000 tons of cargo. The troops debarked the next day and split into smaller groups for travel to temporary stations in southern England.

In early September 1944, the groups left England and went across the English Channel to Utah Beach on France’s northern coast, where only a few months earlier Allied troops had invaded during the D-Day operation. Within a week, the 301st Infantry, of which Barnhart was a member, was the 94th Infantry Division’s first regiment to see combat.

The division spent the next few months in France’s northwest peninsula before moving into German territory. In the 78 days from Jan. 7, 1945, to March 25, 1945, the 94th Infantry Division suffered the majority of its casualties. Barnhart was among the injured.

On Feb. 19, 1945, the division scouted a ridge under German control. They began their ascent around 2 a.m. When a platoon entered a minefield, the two sides engaged in combat. By morning, tanks had arrived to support the Allied troops, but fighting continued for two days with many casualties including Barnhart.

After the injury, Barnhart received treatment at hospitals in France, England and Scotland. He arrived back in the U.S. at Mitchel Field in Long Island, New York on March 27, 1945. His questionnaire also mentioned that he spent time at Buckley Field Hospital in Colorado and Bushnell Military Hospital in Utah. He also listed stops in the Azores Islands and Newfoundland, Canada, which Wulff suspected happened during his return home. They were popular stopping points for both ships and planes making overseas travel.

Barnhart received his discharge on June 6, 1946, after receiving the rank of technician fourth grade, which existed from 1942 to 1948 to recognize soldiers with special skills who were not trained combat leaders.

On Jan. 23, 1980, Barnhart died. His grave resides at Meta Southside Cemetery.

After the presentation, the family recalled memories of Barnhart, including rare war stories he had mentioned and the pranks he liked to pull, some of them on his many nieces and nephews who had gathered for the display. Wulff also read a letter from a family member who was unable to make the event but passed along well wishes and her own memories of Barnhart.

Although the presentation was in the Latham House, the building does not have temperature controls. The uniform will reside with the rest of HSMC’s military uniform collection in the Hollenbeck House across the yard from the Latham House.

The HSMC museums are open for special events or by appointment. The research room in the courthouse basement is open from 1 to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays. More information about upcoming events is available on the Historical Society of Maries County Facebook page.