Imagine sitting on a bus next to General Pershing - it happened
If you had the opportunity, what might you ask the late General John J. Pershing, commander of all American forces in World War I?
You probably never considered the option because it was never on the table. Recently this website posted a feature titled something like Bluffton’s brush with history. It involved brief accounts of Bluffton residents and their 15 minutes of fame, so to speak.
Always on the lookout for more famous Bluffton encounters with the rich and famous, here’s a new one. It’s from the April 8, 1943, Bluffton News. Here goes:
Meeting an internationally famous general most unexpectedly was the experience last week of Willard Lee, residing northwest of town, while on a bus between Toledo and Detroit.
Lee took a seat in the bus beside an elderly looking gentlemen and the two struck up a conversation touching on such topics as the weather, crops and the war.
Finally, the stranger asked Lee if he knew to whom he was talking. Lee indicated that he did not and caught his breath in astonishment when informed that his travel-partner was none other than General John J. Pershing, commander of the American forces in the first World War and a prominent figure in the peace talks following it.
Note: Some of our own research found that the General was 83 years old during the bus trip, as he was born in 1860 and died in 1948.
