Jacob Volz
Medal of Honor Recipient
Jacob Volz Jr. won the Medal of Honor based on his actions in the 1911 Philippine Insurrection, when on September 24, 1911, he fiercely attacked an enemy ambush team that had mowed down an American scouting party.
Volz was born in the Volga German colony of Balzer, Russia on June 23, 1889, the eldest of seven children. The family emigrated to the United States (settling in Sutton, Nebraska) on November 16, 1891. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1908 attached to the USS Pampang. He married Mattie Alice McCarty in Lewiston, Montana in 1914. They had two children Charles Jacob and Shirley Ann. Volz homesteaded a ranch in Montana for some time and then returned to Nebraska to work as a carpenter.
In 1924, Volz and his family moved to Portland, Oregon to work in construction of the Bonneville Dam. At the time of his retirement, he worked for the Portland Housing Authority.
He died in Portland in July 22, 1965. Volz's grave at the Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery is modest and makes no mention of the medal. Volz is listed in the Nebraska Hall of Fame. Much of the information above was obtained from a letter from Senator Theodore C. Wenzlaff, a Nebraska State Senator, written on January 16, 1970 and printed in the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia Workpaper No. 3.
The information below is from the Medal of Honor Recipients web site:
Rank and organization: Carpenter's Mate Third Class, U.S. Navy. Place and date: Island of Basilan, Philippine Islands, 24 September 1911. Entered service at: Nebraska. Birth: Sutton, Nebr. G.O. No.: 138, 13 December 1911. Citation: While attached to the U.S.S. Pampang, Volz was one of a shore party moving in to capture Mundang, on the island of Basilan, Philippine Islands, on 24 September 1911. Investigating a group of nipa huts close to the trail, the advance scout party was suddenly taken under point-blank fire and rushed by approximately 20 enemy Moros attacking from inside the huts and other concealed positions. Volz responded instantly to calls for help and, finding all members of the scout party writhing on the ground but still fighting, he blazed his rifle into the outlaws with telling effect, destroying several of the Moros and assisting in the rout of the remainder. By his aggressive charging of the enemy under heavy fire and in the face of great odds, Volz contributed materially to the success of the engagement.
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Below is an article from The Oregonian that mentions this Volga German-American hero:
Oregonian seeks graves to honor heroes
The Oregonian, Sunday, August 08, 2004
The world is full of hobbyists. Some folks collect stamps, others climb mountains. A few months ago Portlander Roy Vanderhoof decided he needed a new hobby. After all, he'd completed his last personal quest: visiting every town in Oregon with a post office. "I'm such a restless guy," Roy says.
A few months ago, a documentary on the Discovery Channel about Medal of Honor winners caught his eye. His curiosity piqued, Roy hit the Internet. "I wondered where they are in Oregon, or where they are buried and who they were." Roy learned that 3,450 men have earned the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award, since it was created at the end of the Civil War. Half went to soldiers in that war. "When you think 41 million people have been in the service," Roy says, "you realize it's a very rare medal."
Only 13 recipients have been "accredited" to the state of Oregon, and just one of those, Arthur Junior Jackson, is still alive. "He lives in Boise," Roy says.
As Roy cruised Web sites for information about Oregon recipients, he noticed many states had honored their heroes with memorials or other special attention. What had Oregon done, he wondered?
Nothing. Even the authoritative Web site (www.homeofheroes.com) had little information about Oregon's medal recipients. The page for photographs of their grave sites was empty.
Roy had a new hobby. He would go to the grave sites of all 11 men who had earned a Medal of Honor and were buried in Oregon, he decided, and take a photo of each gravestone for the Home of Heroes Web site. "I thought it would be easy," Roy says. "I'd just take a nice drive to these cemeteries and find these guys." He thought he'd be photographing monuments, decorated headstones, patriotic plaques.
He never figured he'd end up looking at an unmarked patch of dirt in an ancient cemetery on a Southwest Portland hillside.
"This guy's been lying here 99 years in an unmarked grave," Roy said last week, standing by grave site 136A. "And nobody cares."
At first Roy thought this would be a quick exercise. He contacted the Veterans Administration and got a list of the 11 burial locations. For good measure, he also noted the grave sites of four men buried in Vancouver. Roy thought briefly about finding the Washington State recipients. "But there's a whole bunch up there because they had an old soldiers' home," he says. "Unless I'm an old man with a motor home, I can't do that." Roy is 59 and works at a mortgage company in Portland. "Besides, I'm having enough trouble with just these guys."
It's not easy, he discovered, playing amateur history detective. He's spent long hours finding obscure cemeteries, tracking down missing medals and e-mailing family genealogists. And somewhere along the line his casual quest morphed into a fascination. "My friends and my wife don't want to hear anymore about Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. But I get so excited."
He started at Willamette National Cemetery in Southeast Portland a few months ago. There he found four recipients had been buried side-by-side in a place of honor. "What a great day," Roy says. " I thought the rest of them would be like that."
He walked across the street to the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery and found the grave of Jacob Volz, who'd won his medal in the 1911 Philippine Insurrection, when he fiercely attacked an enemy ambush team that had mowed down an American scouting party. Volz's grave was modest and made no mention of the medal. Roy wondered why. His curiosity led him to a German-Russian historical society, then to Volz's family. Roy learned Volz had been refused treatment at the old Portland Veterans Administration Medical Center in the 1960s, when he was dying of cancer, because the 1911 insurrection was not classified as a war. "Senator Wayne Morse even introduced a bill to give him benefits, but it never passed," Roy says. Roy was disheartened to hear the medal eventually had been sold for $400 by a descendant.
(Note: According to Kari Miller, a granddaughter of Jacob Volz, he did not sell his medal. A grandson of Jacob Volz has the medal in his possession.)
This was no way to treat a hero, Roy thought, as he continued his quest. It took him to Corvallis, where he saw a loving memorial to the man for whom Oregon State University's student union is named, Edward Allworth, Oregon's only recipient from World War I. "He was the manager for 38 years," Roy says. "Students called him 'The Major.' "
Roy will soon go to sites in Eugene and Medford, and he plans a Labor Day trip to see several in Eastern Oregon. But there's one grave site in tiny Agness, Oregon, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society would particularly like him to find. "Nathan Edgerton was a black soldier in the Civil War," Roy says. Edgerton served with the 6th U.S. Colored Troops Regiment at the Battle of New Market Heights in 1864, near Richmond, Va., where he took up the flag under heavy fire, even though wounded, after three other bearers had been killed.
Roy called the general store in Agness and learned Edgerton's grave was on top of a mountain. "You have to have a guide to get up there," Roy says. He'll climb in September.
There have been other challenges. One recipient was cremated half a century ago; "I'll find him, even if he's on a shelf somewhere," Roy says.
Roy has found himself with more questions, each grave he finds. But no site has moved him more than Hartwell Benton Compson's unmarked grave on that lonely hillside in Southwest Portland. Compson was a Civil War veteran, as is nearly everyone buried in the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery on Southwest Boones Ferry Road. It was hard even to find the cemetery. When Roy finally saw the grave, "I was upset," he says. "How could someone do such heroic things and just disappear in the wind? Did he have a wife? He entered service in New York; how did he end up in Portland? What happened to his medal?"
Roy's not done searching for answers. But he'd like to see Hartwell Compson get a headstone. The U.S. government will provide one for free, but Roy could use some help doing research and putting together required documents. "He's been lying there 99 years. It would be great if we could get the headstone before it's been 100."
Meanwhile, he'll continue his quest to photograph each medal recipient's grave site. He's not doing it because he's a military buff, although he was in the Army reserves for six years. He's not doing it because he's a proponent of war; in fact, he opposed the war in Iraq.
He's doing it because he admires the sacrifice of those who earned our nation's highest military honor, and he thinks they should all be accorded recognition. "And besides, I love this stuff. It's so frustrating and you stomp around and you just have to find it -- and then you do. And it's thrilling."