Words of Encouragement
from John Tyler
November 12, 2020
Thanksgiving for the Example of Sacrifice
John R. Tyler

Yesterday, November 11, is not a date that will live in infamy. Instead, it is a date that will live in our memory, for it is the anniversary of the 1918 armistice that ended the Great War, known today as World War I. The date originally was called Armistice Day, but now is known as Veterans Day. So let us pause to express our thanks for two men in our church’s history who paid the ultimate sacrifice for us in the war: Capt. Alexander Rives Skinker and Cpl. Montgomery Schuyler Batdorf.
Capt. Skinker was the sixth child of Thomas Keith Skinker and his wife, Adela Bertha (née Rives). Thomas played an important role in the founding of The Church of St. Michael and All Angels in 1912 and served as the church’s first senior warden.

Capt. Skinker was in the 138th Infantry Regiment of the 35th Division during the Great War. The Regiment left for Europe in May 1918 and was deployed in late September to the region of the Argonne in northeastern France near its border with Belgium. Company I, commanded by Capt. Skinker, and Company M were assigned to lead the 35th Division’s attack in the Battle of the Argonne Forest. The battle would be the largest frontline commitment of troops by the American Expeditionary Forces in the Great War, and also the deadliest.

At 5:30 on the morning of September 26, Capt. Skinker gave Companies I and M the order to rise out of their trenches and “go over the top.” German machine gun nests quickly opened fire on the two advancing companies. Capt. Skinker told the men in his Company I to take cover and then spotted a machine gun nest firing on his men. He called an automatic rifleman and an ammunition carrier, explained his plan, took plenty of ammunition, and the three men started forward to breach the Hindenburg line and silence the machine gun nest that was to their immediate front. The loader was quickly felled by German machine gun fire. Capt. Skinker picked up his loader’s ammunition pans and continued toward the bridge with the automatic rifleman who was firing away. Capt. Skinker was soon cut down by machine gun fire, and his automatic rifleman was killed a few seconds later. All three men lay dead on the battlefield.

Capt. Skinker’s body was buried just off the road where he fell near the town of Cheppy. His grave was marked by a wooden cross that carried his aluminum ID tag. It would not be his final resting place.

Capt. Skinker’s father wrote of his son three years after the war:
In civil life, Alexander Skinker was a model son, brother, and husband—genial, kind, honorable, unselfish, energetic, judicious, temperate, and sure of himself, a Christian gentleman, a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In military life he was a diligent and intelligent instructor and careful protector of his men, thoroughly in sympathy with their needs, inspiring them with his own high ideals, and in the day of battle calmly resolute and absolutely fearless.
On December 19, 1918, Capt. Skinker was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. His body was returned home three years after his death for re-burial, arriving in St. Louis on September 4, 1921. On the day of his burial, thousands lined the streets of the city as his casket passed by on a caisson to Christ Church Cathedral where the rector of our church at that time presided at the service. Thousands more lined the streets to watch the caisson pass by on its way from the Cathedral to Bellerive Cemetery where the captain’s body was buried in the Skinker family plot.

A large plaque honoring Capt. Skinker was affixed to the back wall of the nave on November 27, 1921. The plaque can be seen there today.
Cpl. Batdorf was a gas officer in Company M of the 138th Infantry Regiment, the same regiment in which Capt. Skinker served. He was killed in action in the same battle on September 29, just three days after Capt. Skinker was killed. He was twenty-two years old. He is buried, along with 14,245 of his fallen comrades, in Plot E, Row 3, Grave 32 at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France. It is a stark reminder that many families did not have the emotional closure of a home burial for their loved ones lost in the war.

Before the war, Cpl. Batdorf lived with his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. H. C. O’Rear, in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood. Both he and Capt. Skinker had served at different times as assistant scoutmasters for our church’s Boy Scout Troop 28. A plaque honoring Cpl. Batdorf was affixed to the south wall of the nave shortly after his death and can be seen there today. The plaque notes that he fell at Exermont in northern France and that he was “a gallant soldier” and a “Christian gentleman.”

Cpl. Batdorf’s funeral was conducted in our church at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, December 1, 1918. One week earlier, at four o’clock on Sunday afternoon, November 24, a funeral service for Capt. Skinker had been conducted in the church. The two closely-spaced funerals must have added to the devastation felt at the simultaneous loss of these two men of the parish. Thanksgiving Day fell on the Thursday between the two funerals, adding to the heartache.
Today we remember these two gallant men of our church who gave their lives for us in the Great War. Let us offer our thanksgiving for the contributions they made to our church in its early years and for their enduring legacy. May their lives encourage us to make sacrifices in our own time so that justice may roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

No one has greater love than this,
  to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
— John 15:13

  • Please register to attend Sunday's 8:00 AM in-person, indoor worship service by 11 PM Saturday.

  • Please register to attend Sunday's 9:00 AM in-person, outdoor worship service by 11 PM Saturday.

  • Please register to attend Sunday's 10:00 AM in-person, indoor worship service by 11 PM Saturday.

  • Entry and exit for both the 8 AM and 10 AM indoor services are through the Ellenwood doors. Parking along Ellenwood Avenue is encouraged for these services.

  • Sunday outdoor services are on the playground and parking on Wydown is encouraged.

  • Those following the Sunday online service at 10 AM may download the Sunday Morning Prayer service leaflet posted on the web. We join with one voice in the Worship of the living God.