CITY WELDING

Our history reads like this: My maternal grandfather was a gentleman named John C. Ardagah, John was Born in Chicago, IL in 1900 to parents that immigrated from Ireland by way of Ontario, Canada. By age 13 he already had his first job in the metal working trades doing various jobs as an iron worker helper, including bucking hot rivets, when that was the method of building metal infrastructures. Soon thereafter, he was interrupted by World War I, "the war to end all wars" (that axiom didn't quite work out, did it?). At age 16 he enlisted in the U.S. Army. I have a panoramic photo that was snapped of him with his training platoon at Ft. Hood Texas in the late fall of 1916. By June of 1918 he was shipped off to northern France and out to the German front. Near immediately, he was caught up in a mustard gas attack. He made his way to a military hospital and then back home to The States. For years my mom had his army training photo, his army helmet and his purple heart. It only took a..