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This World War I “blue star” flag honors the military service of two young men from one family. Such a flag consisted of one or more five-pointed blue stars applied to the white center of a red rectangle. Upon a death in the service, that family member’s blue star was overlaid with a gold paper one. Such terms as “blue-star mother” or “gold-star wife” were born from these flags that were meant to be prominently hung in a window, in this case in the Brookeville home of John and Elizabeth Benson, whose daughter Gladys Benson donated it in 1992.

The first star on this flag represented Edwin Haines Chinn (1894-1917), Elizabeth’s nephew, who had lived with the Bensons since 1908. Edwin was part of the first round of local Army recruits in September 1917; according to the Washington Post on September 29, a “rousing send-off” was given by 2,000 county residents to the “60 young men of the county who left for Camp Meade [now Fort Meade, Maryland] this afternoon.” After serving briefly with the 307th Ammunition Train, Edwin never made it to France, dying of pneumonia at Fort McPherson in Atlanta on December 30, 1917, with his sister Eliza, a trained nurse, at his side. His tombstone in Rockville Cemetery reads “The first soldier from Montg. Co. Md. to give his life in the Great War.”

The second star represented Lewis Wilson Benson (1896-1968), John’s son with his first wife, who was inducted into the army in May 1918. He was discharged in September 1919, after having served overseas for eleven months with the 304th Sanitary Train and the 313th Ambulance Company, both in the 79^th “Cross of Lorraine” Division. Injured in service, he died in 1968 after spending many years at a VA Hospital in Cecil County Maryland; his Rockville Cemetery headstone reads simply “World War I.”

This 16” x 24” flag is made of treated cotton (“insect proof” according to a back stamp) with two blue stars on the face and two on the reverse. The design was patented on November 6, 1917, by Captain Robert L Quissner of the 5th Ohio Infantry, who had two military sons. The design was also used for wearable pins and buttons.

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