THE WORLD WAR I PICTURES OF MY GRANDFATHER Ray Bailey in training at Camp Casey My grandfather, Ray Bailey was born around 1895 in Minnesota and died in 1948 in Spokane, Washington. He died a year before I was born so I never knew him. My father only rarely talked about him. I learned about him in the early 1980, when I went traveling with his brother Guy. Since I had served in a war I was interested in learning about his activities in World War I

Ray Bailey in battle gear Here is a story Guy told me; One time my grandfather was on a truck with a bunch of soldiers. Someone wanted to smoke a cigerett but didn't have any matches. They came upon another truck full of soldiers and they asked them if they had any. Someone did and threw them over but missed, and they fell on the ground. My grandfather jumped off the truck, and just as he did the truck was hit by a missle and everyone was either killed or wounded but him. He was also wounded. A piece of shrapnal became lodged near his heart.

Two soldiers My grandfather served with the 91st Division in the United States Army. He trained in artillery. He liked the Army and ended up serving for 30 years.

Explosion in a field During the war he witnessed many terrible things that effected him for many years after he came back to the States. He saw tanks run over dead bodies and other things. Since he had a piece of shrapnal lodged near his heart he couldn't do any manual labor, so he became an ROTC instructor at the University of Washington in Seattle. He helped train officier candidates for 17 years.

Two girls While working at the University of Washington my grandfather met his future wife, Alice Bentley who was living on University Avenue with her mother and two sisters. At that time her mother was running The Fairbanks Hotel while her sisters were attending the University. They eventually got married and had six kids. My father was their first born.

Soldiers in the field My grandfather spent most of the time in France, but he also went to England for a short time. He said they were treated real well by the English soldiers.

Neighborhood in France These pictures seem to be all taken in France. That was where most of the fighting was done.

When he was raising a family years later he often told them about France and wanted to take them there to show them the country side.

Muslim prayer tower in background These pictures have been sitting in a metal box for many years. I thought I would bring them out and put them over the internet and share them with the world. I hope somebody gets something out of them.