{"id":14952,"date":"2018-08-02T11:00:17","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T15:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=14952"},"modified":"2024-10-21T14:52:06","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T18:52:06","slug":"hidden-faces-of-ww1-maxillofacial-portraits-preserved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2018\/08\/02\/hidden-faces-of-ww1-maxillofacial-portraits-preserved\/","title":{"rendered":"Hidden Faces of WW1: Maxillofacial Portraits Preserved"},"content":{"rendered":"

Circulating Now welcomes guest blogger Katherine Akey<\/a>. Ms. Akey <\/em>is Adjunct Professor of Photography in the Corcoran School of the Arts at the George Washington University and Fellow in the Living Legacy of World War One project at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. She is also the line producer<\/a> for the United States World War One Centennial Commission weekly <\/em>WW1 Centennial News Podcast<\/a>. Today she employs her considerable expertise to give us insight into a private and profound photographic collection of an American surgeon in the Great War, now held in the public trust at the National Library of Medicine.<\/em><\/p>\n

Roy Bard Sheetz was born on October 31, 1892. He left his small hometown in Lancaster, Pennsylvania for Camp Meade after being called up in the draft in the summer of 1917; like so many other Americans at the time, he would have found himself thrown into an Army that was just starting to flex its muscles, expanding and growing to accommodate the world\u2019s first modern, global war.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Roy Bard Sheetz at the American Red Cross Military Hospital #1 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, 1918-19
National Library of Medicine<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And like so many other Americans of his time, Sheetz was trained, he was shipped out across the Atlantic, and he served\u2014and upon returning home, he did his best to return to his previous life, taking over the family business and raising a family of his own. Like most veterans of the era, he spoke little of his experiences and kept what physical evidence he had of it tucked away.<\/p>\n

His stripes, his tourist map of Paris, his photo albums and ticket stubs lay in the dark of his bedroom closet decade after decade. Like so many other collections of life during wartime, these odds and ends gathered dust and could very easily have ended up in the local antiques store, the trash, or continued to languish in an attic. Instead, thanks to his family, Sheetz\u2019s belongings were donated to the National Library of Medicine.<\/p>\n

The Roy Bard Sheetz collection<\/a> traces his service during World War One from his training at Camp Meade, Maryland to his tour around the fighting front of France and his service at the American Red Cross Hospital #1 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris. Through additional research, I was able to piece together a patchy timeline of his service in France. After undergoing officer training at Camp Meade in the winter of 1917, Roy Sheetz was assigned as an assistant to First Lieutenant Frank Leonard of Indianapolis, who had spent the previous nine months training as a dentist for the Dental Reserve Corps. They arrived in France in May, 1918 and went on to serve together at the American Red Cross Hospital #1 in Neuilly-sur-Seine from then until January, 1919.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/a>
A group photo including Roy Sheetz (center front row) <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A group photo of medical staff and patients of the Jaw Ward at the American Red Cross Military Hospital #1 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris <\/div> <\/div>
\"Seven <\/a>
A group photo of the dentists working in the Jaw Ward at the American Red Cross Military Hospital #1 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Sheetz served near the front at the Aisne Marne in July and at Chateau Thierry in August, 1918\u2014and looking at images in Sheetz\u2019s photo albums, we can trace his movements as he traveled around the St. Mihiel salient that summer. One image in particular features the town of Flirey, the town name worn but legible on a sign aloft in a building\u2019s ruins. There is also a photograph of a destroyed railway bridge that was well documented in Flirey. Another snapshot of Sheetz\u2019s features what is likely the Hotel in Chateau Thierry, and yet another the damaged but regal Cathedral at Reims.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Ruins in the town of Flirey, 1918
Roy Bard Sheetz Collection, National Library of Medicine<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His albums then turn into an intimate and beautiful documentation of life in Neuilly-sur-Seine: shots of sunlight streaming into the wards of the American Red Cross Military Hospital #1; group photos of the officers, the surgeons, and the patients; snapshots of the sights to see in Paris during wartime, including a foggy, magical trip to Versaille; and my personal favorites, images of the maxillofacial patients sitting together, reading the newspaper. The end of Sheetz\u2019s time in France was marked with some loss and sadness; the dentist he was assisting, First Lieutenant Frank Leonard<\/span><\/span>, died of influenza and pneumonia in January, 1919, and shortly thereafter the hospital was quickly shut down. Sheetz soon shipped back to the U.S., photographing boxing matches and smiling nurses aboard his transport ship as he headed home.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
One Jaw Ward patient reads to another at the American Red Cross Military Hospital #1 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, 1918-19
Roy Bard Sheetz Collection, National Library of Medicine<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every collection of photographs, especially those made in wartime, is remarkable. But Sheetz\u2019s has something particularly remarkable for an American sergeant<\/span>\u2014official medical photographs of maxillofacial surgical patients, displaying in vivid clarity their wounds and their progress towards recovery. In the Sheetz collection are thirty-five portraits, stark images of maxillofacial patients like those that he and the team of dentists and surgeons in Neuilly-sur-Seine would have been treating. Whether or not the men in the images are in fact patients of Sheetz and Dr. Leonard remains unclear\u2014but it is very likely they were treated at the American Red Cross Military Hospital #1 and were photographed there for medical reference.<\/p>\n