Benjamin Richmond Mulnix --ref: Rebecca Watson Walker- given to her by Donald B. Mulnix Your grandfather, my dad, was Benjamin Richmond Mulnix who was born in White City Kansas on September 21, 1887.  He was one of eleven children born to Lafe and Florence, six boys and five girls.  Three of the children died as infants and one as a teen aged girl  There were no hospitals in that part of Kansas during those years and many children died during birth or shortly there-after.  My dad's eldest brother was a premature baby which was so small at birth that they kept him wrapped in cotton inside a shoebox which they made into an incubator by packing hot water bottles around it.   Florence was said to be able to slip her wedding ring on the baby's arm all the way to the elbow. Benjamin R Mulnix left the farm as a young man and worked at various jobs in the manhatten Kansas area.  In one of these jobs he fell into a pit of hot water and was badly burned from the waist down.  When the first world war came, Ben enlisted in April of 1917 and served with the 137th Infantry 35th Division. He saw action in France and Germany and spent many months fighting the trench warfare on the western front.   This was a barren no mans land in which the German and allied armies faced each other in miles of trenches.  This hopeleses deadlock lasted over a year, a period during which there was so much shelling that not even a blade of grass survived.  The hell of this type war is told in the book, "All Quiet on the Western Front"