~ The Advocate Asks ~

Carol Nadeau says she knows who “the unknown” was who was buried in the Civil War plot at Riverside Cemetery

  Editor’s Note: For this week’s column, we sat down with Carol Nadeau, a Saugus native who recalled being troubled when she read an article in The Saugus Advocate that mentioned the possibility of an “unknown soldier” being buried in the Civil War Plot at Riverside Cemetery. Not long after reading the article, Nadeau bought an old press photo from eBay that depicted a military funeral of an aviator from Saugus who was killed in a training accident in Texas during World War I. Once she received the photo and inspected it closely, she discovered that the graveside services for Sergeant Willard Frederick Swan took place in the Civil War Plot, in the same location where space was reserved for the “unknown soldier.” That prompted Nadeau to embark on an intense research project to find out all she could about the aviator who grew up in Saugus whose remains were later moved to his family’s burial plot in Camden, Maine. Nadeau is the longtime secretary at St. Margaret’s Church in Saugus – since 1985. She grew up on Route 1 in the last house on Broadway near Felton Street. She is a 1964 graduate of Saugus High School. She got married out of High School to Ronald Nadeau, who is a 1962 Saugus High graduate. The Nadeaus have two sons: David, of Saugus, and Michael, of Amesbury. Michael’s son, Kyle, who lives in Amesbury, recently graduated from UMass Lowell with a master’s degree. Carol Nadeau loves to collect old postcards and photographs relating to Saugus. Highlights of this week’s interview follow.

Nadeau contacted The Saugus Advocate last week with the following email:

My name is Carol Nadeau and I am the secretary of St. Margaret’s Church in Saugus. I have been meaning to get in touch with you to thank you for the article of a while ago that was in the Advocate about Gordon Shepard’s renovation of the Veterans graves here in Saugus. He has done a wonderful job and each section is stunning. During his interview he was asked about an unknown grave. I do not think anyone should be unknown and it bothered me to know that. I also collect Saugus “stuff” including Press Photos. I do a lot of searching on Ebay to find things of interest about Saugus. A month or so after your article appeared, I came across an Ebay auction with no picture, just a brief write up that it is a picture of a veteran being buried in Riverside. I bought the photo and when it arrived (it is stunning) when I turned it over, I was shocked to read that it is Willard Swan’s burial. The more I looked at the picture, something was wrong with it. Apparently, Willard who is from World War 1 was buried in the Civil War section exactly where the marker for the unknown person stood. Williard wanted to be a flier. He would fly planes (Wilbur and Orville vintage) from Marblehead to the race track on the Saugus marsh. He enlisted when World War 1 broke out even though he wasn’t old enough to do that. Flight training took him to Texas where he died in a plane crash. Through Ancestry we found his death certificate. There was an inquest and the body was shipped to Saugus for burial. This happened in February 1918. His parents were from Maine and they took his body back to Maine for family burial in the spring of 1918. I also found a two volume set of New England flyers which had a write up and full page picture of him. Sorry this is so long, but without your article, we would never know who the “unknown “ was. Since then, the unknown marker has been removed and another one put in its place. Thank you again for the article.

Carol.

  Q: It really bothered you to read that there might be an “unknown soldier” buried in the Civil War plot.

  A: Yes. I hate anything “unknown.” I don’t think veterans should be “unknown.” I was so upset that I couldn’t find out anything. This really bugged the hell out of me – that this couldn’t be solved. There was no record to be found in Saugus. If it weren’t for the photo showing up, I would still be sitting here wondering. How can you bury somebody and not know who it is? It just boggled my mind.

  Q: So when you went online and went shopping for the photo, you weren’t trying to solve this?

  A: No. I call it dumb luck. When the photo showed up, everything fell into place. I like to collect Saugus photos. I was on eBay and there was an auction for an old press photo. All it said was it was a veteran’s burial at Riverside. And it mentioned the name of the man being buried. I bought the picture about a year and a half ago, after the article had appeared in The Advocate.

  Q: Okay, so what happened next?

  A: When I received the photo, I thought something was wrong. Here’s a World War I aviator and he was buried in the Civil War section of the cemetery. I could recognize it was the Civil War Plot. I could see the cannonballs and I could see the words “Our fallen” on the steps.

  Q: Isn’t it odd that they would be having the funeral right in the Civil War Plot?

  A: It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know. They put him where “the fallen heroes” were. He was going to be buried in Saugus. It was winter. They had to put him somewhere.

Really, I can understand why he was put there. They didn’t have much choice. The people come from Texas with the body and they see “Our Fallen Heroes” inscribed on the steps. What more do you need?

  Q: And then you embarked on a lot of research to find out about Willard Swan.

  A: Yes. I love history. That was my favorite subject in school, and I happen to collect Saugus stuff. I got albums of old postcards.

  Q: How much time did you spend on your research? How many hours?

  A: Too much time. Off and on, I would go online to find out who Willard Swan was. I can be like a dog with a bone – persistent – I just couldn’t let it go.

Q: So, what are some of the things you learned from your research?

  A: He wasn’t old enough to be drafted. He enlisted. Willard grew up in Cliftondale. He grew up on Western Avenue. His name is on two monuments – one in front of Town Hall – and his name is also on a stone in the rotary at Cliftondale Square. He’s one of 300 men from Saugus to serve during World War I, and he was the first person from Saugus to die during World War I.

  Q: What else did you learn about Willard?

  A: He attended public schools in Saugus and at the Hawley School of Electrical Engineering. He worked at the Burgess Company in Marblehead as a foreman of mechanics at the flying squad. He left the company to enter the U.S. Aviation Branch of the Army.

  Q: But Willard Swan is no longer buried at the Riverside Cemetery in Saugus.

  A: I found out online that his body was moved to Camden, Maine, after his parents had moved out of Saugus and back to Maine. As a parent, I think they would bring him to where they were going to be. And even if he was moved, he did spend several months in Saugus. It’s funny – they had nothing in the cemetery office about him being buried here, but the lady in the cemetery office looked in the 1918 book and found a record that his body was removed.

  Q: Do you think there is “an unknown soldier” buried in that Civil War Plot along with the 26 Civil War soldiers from Saugus?

  A: I don’t think so. I think that once the body of Willard Swan was moved, nobody else was put there. Finally, we can put this thing to rest after all of these years.

  Q: Anything else that you would like to share?

  A: I’m glad I pursued this, because I had to have some answers. This would have tormented me, because I had to know. But without the photo, I would never be able to find out. And also, I had a name to go by on that photo. I guess you could say Willard Swan was a “known unknown.” There aren’t too many press photos in Saugus that you can buy, so when they show up, I have to check them out. Thank God for press photos.

I wish I had known him. But that’s not going to happen.