Iowa Private First Class US Army, WWI
Service Number 817606
Unit Company D, 52nd Ammunition Train, Coast Artillery Corps
Enlistment April 16, 1917
Departure June 28, 1918 at New York on the Saxon IV
Unit Replacement Detachment, Ft. Winfield Scott, San Francisco, California, Coast Artillery Corps 690 R
Rank Private
Service Number 817606
Discharge March 8, 1919
Departure January 14, 1918, at Brest, France
Arrival January 23, 1918, at Hoboken, New Jersey, on the U.S.S. Orizaba (ID-1536 AP-24)
Service Number 817606

May 10, 1917 Manning Monitor
HERBERT BLAIR WRITES
El Paso, Texas, April 30, 1917.
Dear Mr. Mantz:
I am located at El Paso, Texas, just six miles from the Mexican border and we are receiving very good drill.
The five of us boys that left were certainly scattered out right. Don Branson had to stay at Ft. Logan in the hospital corps. Arnold Foster and Ed Gronert were shipped to California and Roy Lawbaugh and myself are in Texas.
I am glad that the boys of Manning turned out so well. It ranks first at Ft. Logan, for the number of recruits from a town of its size.
My main reason for writing was to get you to send me the Monitor here. To have that would almost bring the town of Manning here into Texas.
We are now drilling too much to allow anyone to become lonesome, yet the paper would help out on some of these quiet evenings.
If anyone should ask you tell them that I am very glad I joined the army and that I have a very good chance for promotion.
Respectfully yours,
Herbert Blair, Fourth Field Artillery, El Paso, Texas.

Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Monday in Sacred Heart Church, Manning, with burial in the parish cemetery. The Rev. P.J. Nooney will officiate. Military rites will be conducted at the cemetery by the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars Posts. There will be rosaries at the Ohde Funeral Home at 8 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday.

Mr. Foster was born March 11, 1899, at Templeton, a son of John and Anna (Macke) Foster. He attended Manning Schools and was one of the first Manning men to enlist in World War I. He served overseas and following his discharge he worked for Priebe and Company in Manning. In 1943 he moved to Omaha, working for the Swanson Food Company. He had been in ill health for the past five years and had spent the last year here at the home of his sister, Mrs. Labert Stahl, Sr.

Surviving are two sisters, Mrs. Stahl (Hazel), and Mrs. Frank (Marie) Pierce, Bell Flower, California; a brother, Harold Foster, Crestline, California; a half-brother, Herbert Hoover of Hollywood, California; a half-sister, Mrs. Arthur (Helen) Longtin, Norfolk, Virginia; nieces and nephews.

Preceding him in death were a brother, Arthur Foster; and a sister, Mrs. William (Bernice) Crotte.