Waldo James Rodgers
World War I
Waldo Rodgers is not only one of the original Osmond American Legion members, but he is also a member of one of the oldest families in Osmond, whose parents settled here in 1890, when the town was established. At the time his parents arrived, there were just two buildings in the town and no railroad.
Waldo was born Dec. 27, 1895, to Edwin Blake, or E. B., and Elizabeth Rodgers. Edwin had a child from a previous marriage named Alberta, and he and Elizabeth had seven children, the last of whom died shortly after birth. Waldo was the fifth of those seven. His mother, who was bedridden for months after the birth of her last child, died of complications in 1900, when Waldo was 4½ years old. Apparently his father, left with six young children, tried a third marriage, but it did not work out. His older brother Clarence, also a World War I veteran, was the person who donated the building which was the Osmond library before the current one was built. He was a doctor who promoted establishment of the hospital. His father, E. B., owned two drug stores and with a friend brought the first telephones to northeast Nebraska. So you see, the Rodgers name is an important one in the history of Osmond.
Waldo was born in Osmond and graduated from Osmond High School in 1915. After graduation, he became manager of the Osmond Telephone Company which his father organized.
Waldo served from Aug. 15, 1918, to Jan. 18, 1919, in the U.S. Army. He was a private in the 163rd Depot Brigade, a unit whose job was to receive and organize recruits, provide them with uniforms, equipment and initial military training, and then send them to France to fight on the front lines. The depot brigades also received soldiers returning home at the end of the war and completed their out processing and discharges.
A couple days after he was drafted, on Aug. 17, 1918, Waldo married Florence Smith, a telephone operator at Randolph. He was 22 years old, and she was 18. After he returned from the service in January of 1919, they lived in Osmond and he returned to his role as manager of Osmond Telephone Company.
Waldo and Florence had three children: Wayne, Jack, Jean Marie and Donald, the latter dying before age 1. Jack ended up serving in the Navy during World War II, and did Jean Marie’s husband.
In 1927, a year after the death of his father, Waldo and Florence moved to Orchard to the family homestead his father had built in 1876. Waldo was a member of the Masonic Lodge and the American Legion in Orchard.
On June 12, 1968, Waldo was critically injured in a fall from a haystack and died three days later at a Sioux City hospital. His cause of death was reported to be quadriplegia, caused by a fall to the ground, with immediate paralysis.
Waldo is buried in the Orchard cemetery next to his wife, Florence. Their infant son, Donald, is buried in the Osmond cemetery with other members of the Rodgers family.
