Alvin C. York - Homecoming and Fame

Homecoming and Fame

York's heroism went unnoticed in the United States press, even in Tennessee, until the publication of the April 26, 1919 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, which had a circulation in excess of 2 million. In an article titled "The Second Elder Gives Battle", journalist George Patullo, who had learned of York's story while touring battlefields earlier in the year, laid out the themes that have dominated York's story ever since: the mountaineer, his religious faith and skill with firearms, patriotic, plainspoken and unsophisticated, an uneducated man who "seems to do everything correctly by intuition." In response, the Tennessee Society, a group of Tennesseans living in New York City, arranged celebrations to greet York upon his return to the United States, including a 5-day furlough to allow for visits to New York City and Washington, D.C. York arrived in Hoboken, N.J. on May 22, stayed at the Waldorf Astoria, and attended a formal banquet in his honor. He toured the subway system in a special car before continuing to Washington, where the House of Representatives gave him a standing ovation and he met Secretary of War Baker and the President's secretary Joe Tumulty, as President Wilson was still in Paris.

York proceeded to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, where he was discharged from the service, and then to Tennessee for more celebrations. He had been home for barely a week when, on June 7, 1919, York and Gracie Loretta Williams (February 7, 1900 - September 27, 1984) were married by Tennessee Governor Albert H. Roberts in Pall Mall. More celebrations followed the wedding, including a week-long trip to Nashville where York accepted a special medal awarded by the state.

York refused many offers to profit from his fame, including thousands of dollars offered for appearances, newspaper articles, and movie rights to his life story. Companies wanted him to appear in advertisements or to pose with their products. Instead he lent his name to various charitable and civic causes. To support economic development, he campaigned to get Tennessee to build a road to service his native region, succeeding when a highway through the mountains was completed in the mid-1920s and named Alvin C. York Highway. The Nashville Rotary organized the purchase by public subscription of a 400-acre (1.6 km2) farm, the one gift that York accepted. It proved not to be the fully equipped farm he was promised, and he had to borrow money to stock it. He subsequently lost money in the farming depression that followed the war. Then the Rotary, which was purchasing the property in instalments, failed to make the payments, leaving York to pay himself. In 1921 he had to ask for help, resulting in an extended discussion of his finances in the press, some of it sharply critical. Debt in itself was a trial: "I could get used to most any kind of hardship, but I'm not fitted for the hardship of owing money." Only an appeal to Rotary Clubs nationwide and an account of York's plight in the New York World brought in the required contributions by Christmas 1921.