Senior Project Focuses on Local WWI Soldiers, Including Masters Employees

Julia Mathas ’19 has spent much of her senior year focusing on the past — from 1914 until 1920, to be exact.

Mathas has been studying World War I for her senior project, For the Fallen, which is named after Lawrence Binyon’s famous poem about the Great war. Her project follows an overarching timeline of the Great War, and places special emphasis on local soldiers and their perspectives. It will be displayed in Estherwood Mansion on Wednesday, May 22, at 6:00 PM. All are invited to attend.

For the project, Mathas researched 30 WWI soldiers from the Westchester area: 10 U.S.-born white soldiers, 10 immigrants and 10 African Americans. She learned about how their backgrounds impacted their experience serving in the war, and her fully interactive project takes visitors through those various experiences. The project “puts you in the shoes of the soldiers you are learning about,” said Mathas.

During her extensive research, Mathas discovered that two of the soldiers, Lemuel Thornhill and David Quattlebaum, both worked at The Masters School as a waiter and a cook, respectively. Mathas has also acquired an original uniform, service medals, and other historical items for the project. To learn more about Thornhill and Quattlebaum, as well as 28 other local soldiers, be sure to head down to Estherwood on Wednesday evening. 

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