Twenty bronze plaques on a chunk of concrete.

It seemed a simple enough assignment for researcher Elisabeth Demmon as she copied the names of 11 soldiers, five sailors and four Marines off a memorial for those who “fought and died” in World War I at Bremerton’s Evergreen-Rotary Park.

Her mission: learn who these men were.

“I thought it was going to be a straightforward project,” said Demmon, a library research associate at Kitsap Regional Library working on her master’s degree in genealogical studies. “I had no idea what I was in for.”

Close to 100 years after the conflict ended, Demmon’s many months dredging the early 20th century for clues about the 20 men led to some perplexing discoveries and startling inaccuracies. She found not every man from Bremerton who died in the “war to end all wars” is actually listed. And some of those who were immortalized there didn’t die in the war at all. There was even one who would make it through the war and come home only to be murdered by his wife.

“I never knew what I was going to find from one man to the next,” Demmon said. “They were each very unique in so many ways.”

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Demmon examined birth certificates, obituaries and stories from the newspapers of the day. Slowly, as she verified and vivified each man’s story, other questions about the memorial itself began to pop up. Who picked these names for the memorial, when did they decide to create the memorial and why?

“To this day, I do not know the criteria used for choosing these men,” she said.

For Demming, three men out of the 20 remain a mystery. But not Hugh Plumlee.

Rather tragically, the sensationalism surrounding his death meant there was far more reference material for Demmon. She was shocked by the results.

The newspaper clippings begin innocently enough: Plumlee, a private cook, first class in the Marines’ 20th K company’s third battalion, participated in at least three battles in 1918. After returning home, he married Ruth Kress, settled in Charleston and got a job as a pipe fitter in the Puget Sound Navy Yard.

In March 1922, he was dead. He collapsed after arriving at a Charleston club one evening.

Initial reports indicated his death was a result of having been “gassed” at the Battle of Belleau Wood during the war, according to the Bremerton Evening Searchlight, and having “never recovered from injuries received in active fighting.”

Further investigation revealed he had consumed a bottle of rat poison his wife admitted to pouring on his salad. Authorities questioned, but never arrested, another man who may have been involved.

Blow-by-blow coverage continued from the local papers until the “confessed murderer of her war hero husband” pleaded guilty. She was sent to the penitentiary in Walla Walla.

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“Mrs. Plumlee declared an intention of being a model prisoner at Walla Walla,” the Daily News Searchlight declared, “and willing to exert every influence and effort to bring for her every prison leniency granted a convict, which in her case is the remainder of her natural life.”

She did get released once to a group home, only to try to burn it down, earning her a trip back to prison, Demmon said.

The case proved that her best ally in finding stories on the 20 men was the newspapers of record of those early times in the city. Their stories are sometimes the only fine details of a person’s life, she said.

“Newspapers fill the blanks between birth dates and death dates,” she noted.

Plumlee’s life — and more specifically, his death — was documented more than about any other man found on the memorial at Evergreen. Most were slim pickings.

“I had very little to work with,” she said.

Still, there were histories to the seven men she’s found on the memorial who died in the war, either from fighting or disease. The most recognizable name on the memorial is probably Wesley E. Harris, a Marine killed during the Battle of St. Mihiel in September 1918. A military firing range off Seabeck Highway is named for him.

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There was also “Jimmie” Papavasil, a Greek immigrant and popular shoe-shining proprietor on Front Street in Bremerton who joined the Army and fought in a critical counteroffensive at Aisne-Marne that repelled the Germans away from Paris but cost him his life. He was the first Kitsap soldier to die, according to local newspapers.

There was George Buchanan, a wharfinger at the Manette Wharf when he joined the Army. He was killed with more than 50 other soldiers aboard the British merchant ship SS Moldavia in May 1918 when a German U-boat torpedoed the ship. He remains buried at sea.

Demmon found stories of heroics, too. Soldiers Peter R. Anderson and Paul Horsey, both involved in the crucial battle at the Forest of Argonne, are both on the memorial. Horsey was mortally wounded in the battle; Anderson heard his dying message and relayed it to Horsey’s family once he returned to Kitsap, where he died in 1924 after a brief career as a pipe fitter in the Puget Sound Navy Yard.

Anderson’s shortened life is one thing shared among most of the names on the memorial. Only two of the 20 lived past 1928, a likely sign that the wounds of war — physical and psychological — led to premature mortality.

“It could have been what they called shell shock,” she said. “Although that is a supposition on my part.”

Demmon, 66, is the daughter of a Canadian army veteran and she served in the Royal Navy. She met her husband, Bill, a U.S. Navy veteran, in Naples, Italy, while both were serving with NATO. The pair, who moved to Kitsap County with Bill’s orders in 1987, have been married 37 years.

Demmon’s passion for genealogy began with a family myth in 1991. She’d been told of a family ancestor who’d fought the British during the American Revolution. After conducting her own investigation, she found the family member was a Hessian mercenary — a German paid by the Brits to fight against the Americans, not with them.

“He was actually fighting for the other side,” she said with a laugh.

In 2001, she was hired at the Kitsap Regional Library and is currently a library research associate. She’s working toward her master’s degree at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, specifically in “genealogical, paleographic and heraldic studies.” She pursued the degree so she could conduct other historical investigations like the one involving the Evergreen-Rotary Park memorial.

“And to prove to my kids I could do it,” she added.

Tahitia McCabe, one of Demmons' tutors at the university, said a number of students there had pursued projects about World War I. She could find little online about the memorial at Evergreen-Rotary Park and suggested it to her.

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"We feel it’s important for our students to do projects which are useful to the local community and to the genealogical and historical community," McCabe said in an email. "And this project has really proved this point!"

Though she completed the initial Evergreen memorial project in 2017, she admits it might never end — there are simply too many rabbit holes. One question answered leads to too many others.

“And there are always new records available,” she said.

But the mystery she cannot get past is the backgrounds of the remaining three men she cannot find. It’s what’s known as a “brick wall” in genealogical circles, and one she keeps working to bust through.

“Those men’s names are on that memorial for a reason,” she said. “And I’ve yet to figure out what it is.”

Her biggest breakthroughs were when she decided to search outside of the 20 names on the memorial. Sure enough, she found at least two Bremerton men who fought in World War I were not listed on it.

John Gengler was a Luxembourg immigrant who was killed in action in October 1918. She found his name by simply checking names at Bremerton High School’s veterans memorial.

Demmon was able to surface one other name, Paul Heskett, who she found searching for “Bremerton” in a database of war dead. Heskett, who lived on Fourth Street, wasn’t found because he’d been erroneously listed as from “Bremerton, Michigan.”

“I’m a very stubborn researcher,” she said.

Instead of being a reflection of the people and the times they commemorate, memorials often tell a story of the people who built them in the era they were constructed. Examples can be found in ongoing controversies over memorials to Confederate veterans, often built long after the Civil War and coinciding with the era of Jim Crow segregation.

It’s still a puzzle as to why Bremerton’s Veterans of Foreign Wars posts chose 20 names and dedicated the memorial in honor of Veterans Day 1962, pictures of which were published in the Bremerton Sun. At the time, it would have been located not far from the city’s outdoor swimming pool at Evergreen, which existed for three decades starting in the early 1950s.

For now, we can only speculate. There were more recent wars when it was installed, to be sure, but perhaps some of Bremerton’s leaders worried the first world war could be forgotten — after all, its last remaining veteran of the war had died in 1959, about three years before the memorial’s dedication.

City parks department records show the memorial’s twin 40 mm guns were leased from the Navy; they’re relics of the USS West Virginia battleship that saw action starting after World War I and through World War II before it was scrapped in 1959. (Weaponry from the same ship can be found at Illahee State Park and the corner of Wheaton Way and Sheridan Road in Bremerton)

By 2002, the memorial had fallen into disrepair. It got spruced up by a Leadership Kitsap group of volunteers during Evergreen-Rotary Park’s expansion. But the group was unaware it was even a memorial to those who died in World War I until they got help researching it from staff at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. The guns were repainted, flowers planted and the site rededicated on Memorial Day 2002.

Volunteers also installed a plaque of their own in front of the original concrete block: "In memory of the local men who bravely fought and died in World War I to preserve freedom."

Demmon notes that “local men” isn’t true either, as many of them had recently emigrated here from other countries.

“The research shows the conundrum of this War Memorial: upon examination of the collected evidence, it became apparent that the War Memorial's statement plaque does not accurately describe the men who appear on it; they may have been living locally but most were from other places with foreign-born parents, and not all of them died during the war. Thus the question remains of how the men were chosen for, or (in two cases), omitted from the Bremerton War Memorial,” she wrote in her final project paper. “This research project does not end here.”

Demmon would like to see the memorial modernized to add the missing names.

“They served their country in a very dangerous time,” Demmon said. “They deserve to be remembered and honored.”

Here are the 20 names on Bremerton's World War I memorial and what is known about them.

Peter R. Anderson, Army

A native of Bremerton, Anderson lived in 1910 with his widowed mother and five brothers, working as a farm laborer. In a battle at the Forest of Argonne, France, Paul Horsey, a fellow Bremerton soldier, was mortally wounded and Anderson carried home with a Horsey's dying message to his family. Anderson survived the war but died in 1924 at the Bremerton hospital on Clifton Road and had been employed as pipe fitter for the Puget Sound Navy Yard. He is buried at Ivy Green Cemetery in Bremerton.

George L. Bailey, Marines

The only reference to Bailey that Elisabeth Demmon could find was on a Marines’ muster roll in Sitka, Alaska, in 1911. She could not be confident it was the same man as mentioned on the Bremerton memorial.

George Buchanan, Army

Born in Snohomish, Buchanan was working for his stepfather as a wharfinger at the Manette Wharf when he was called to service. A German U-boat struck the SS Moldavia, a British merchant ship in May 1918 and he was killed along with more than 50 other American soldiers. His remains were never recovered though he is memorialized on a plaque where his mother is buried in Seattle.

John Crowley, Navy

The Idaho-born Crowley was a plumber living on Fourth Street in 1917. He served on the USS Philadelphia, and while the cruiser was in Bremerton in March 1918, Crowley accidentally shot himself with a revolver. He was buried in Idaho.

J.H. Hamel, Army

Wisconsin-born Hamel was a farmer in Gill, Montana in 1917. He left for the war in August 1918 and died while serving, suffering a gunshot wound in his right arm. His connection to Bremerton? He’s still here. He died in 1928 in Walla Walla but his body was brought to Ivy Green Cemetery to be buried. Later, his mother and brother were buried there, too.

Wesley E. Harris, Marines

Washington-born Harris entered the Marine Corps in 1916 and served in World War I in France with the 13th Regiment, 43rd Company. He was wounded in the Battle of St. Mihiel during September 1918 and died a few days later. Camp Wesley Harris, a military firing range off Seabeck Highway, is named for him.

Paul Horsey, Army

Born in Iowa, Horsey was a laborer at the Puget Sound Navy Yard before joining the Army. He was a private with the L company in the 162nd infantry, which joined what at the time was the largest ever-build up of U.S. troops for the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He was killed in combat after an artillery barrage in October 1918 failed to scatter the Germans. He’s buried at the cemetery there, but a dying message was relayed to a fellow Kitsap soldier (see Anderson above).

Henry Johnson, Army

The son of Swedish immigrants, Henry R. Johnson was “Silverdale’s only casualty of World War I” and was memorialized by the American Legion in 1922 at a monument at Silverdale Waterfront Park. A member of the company C of the 101st infantry, he was killed in action at the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in October 1919 and is buried there.

George L. Jorden, Army

There was no information found about Jorden.

J.C. Kelley, Army

Kelley, born in Nebraska, was a watchman in the Puget Sound Navy Yard in 1920; he married and lived near Kitsap Lake. His time in the armed forces is a mystery; He died in 1922 in Denver; his occupation listed as “X service man” denoting his military service. He is buried at Ivy Green Cemetery in Bremerton.

Peter Mason, Navy

The Wisconsin-born Mason joined the Navy and served aboard the USS Chippewa as an apprentice mariner before joining the U.S. Fleet Corporation in 1918. He married in 1926 and lived to 1959 — notably only one of two men so far on the memorial to live past 1928. He’s buried at Ivy Green Cemetery in Bremerton.

George T. McLaine, Army

The closest Demmon came to finding information about McLaine was a listing for a fireman in Tacoma in 1910. No other records were found.

W.E. Odgers, Navy

Odgers, born in Illinois, was a ship’s cook first class onboard the USS Charleston at Kobe, Japan in 1910. Records indicate he got married in Kitsap County in 1912 and returned to war for the Navy, where he developed an illness in France and died the same day he was admitted to a hospital in Brest. Buried in San Francisco.

Jim Papavasil, Army

“Jimmie” was a Greek immigrant who ran a shoe-shining parlor on Front Street in Bremerton. Papavasil joined the war effort and was part of company K of the 47th Infantry fourth division. In July 1918, he was part of a successful counteroffensive at Aisne-Marne that pushed the Germans away from Paris, but he was killed in action that August. His death was the first for a Kitsap soldier. He is buried in France near the place of battle.

Anders Paulsen, Navy

An immigrant from Norway, Paulsen was listed as a Chief Boatswain on the USS Pompey in the 1920 census. He may have lived in Charleston. Otherwise, not much has been confirmed about his World War I service, and his location and time of death are uncertain.

Hugh Plumlee, Marines

Arkansas-born Plumlee was a private cook, first class in the 20th K company’s third battalion, fifth regiment. He participated in at least three battles in 1918. After returning home he married Ruth Kress in April 1920 and died in March 1922. His wife was arrested and ultimately convicted of murdering him, serving most of the rest of her life in prison. Plumlee was buried in Idaho.

Christ Rainier, Army

Little is known about Rainier, believed to be born in Russia, but Demmon found in her research there could have been a spelling error. A woman’s 1965 obituary in the Bremerton Sun says her husband Christian Reiner died of pneumonia in 1919 on the transport ship St. Louis on his way home from France. It’s unknown where he’s buried.

John M. Shearer, Army

Shearer is either from Canada or Washington, depending on the record, but went to France in spring 1918 and returned the next March as listed on the “sick and wounded” list. He married and had a son in 1921 and ultimately died in 1950. He’s buried in Gig Harbor.

S.R. Temple, Marines

Born in Colorado, “Sidney” enlisted in the Marines in 1917 but it’s unknown the extent of his service. He was a pipe fitter at the Puget Sound Navy Yard at the time of his death in 1928 at a Naval Hospital in Bremerton.

George Winslow, Navy

The Wisconsin-born Winslow filled out a draft card in 1917 that stated he was “unable to walk much owing to a fall suffered several years ago.” A Charleston resident who graduated from nearby Union High School, he and his wife lived with his parents. He died at age 30 in December 1921 in Oregon, “where he had gone to recover from sickness developed during the war,” a local paper reported. He was buried in Seattle.

Additionally, two Bremerton men who fought in World War I aren’t on the memorial. They are:

John Gengler

A Luxembourg immigrant who was killed in action in October 1918 and is listed at the Bremerton High School’s veterans memorial.

Paul R. Heskett

Born in Missouri, who was killed in action in September 1918 and who Demmon found had a listed address on Fourth Street.