William Carlyle Kantner, M.D. (1884-1918)

William Carlyle Kantner
4 Nov 1884 - 18 Sep 1918

Early on the morning of September 18 Lieut. Kantner died very suddenly of heart trouble. This was a great shock to all of us, as the end came very suddenly and most unexpectedly. The following day we had another shock, when Ed. Nesser died after a brief illness. This was the third death in less than two weeks, and everyone was beginning to get a little worried. It was the overwork that caused the weakened condition of the men and made them susceptible to the different diseases.

The above quote from The History of Base Hospital Fifty provides some insight into the intense work conditions at the hospital during the final months of the Great War.¹ William Kantner was the only member of the medical staff to die in service and yet was one of the youngest physicians in the unit.

William Carlyle Kantner was born on November 4, 1884, in Terre Hill in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County.  His father, William Calvin Kantner, was a Congregational minister and his work took the family -- including his mother, Anna Susan White, and siblings; Clifford, LaBlanche, Anna LaVerne, Penryn and Constance -- across the United States from Oregon to Pennsylvania and back again. 

Kantner grew up in Salem, Oregon, and graduated from Salem High School. He received his medical degree from Willamette University's Medical Department in 1907 and then completed an internship at Minor Hospital in Seattle.² Afterwards he opened a private practice which was well established at the time he went overseas.

He also served as a member of the medical staff for the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition's Emergency Hospital in 1909. Dr. Edmund Rininger was the medical director and other staff included Dr. Mark McKinney and nurses Bertha F. Wiese and Mary Ethel Anderson.³

Kantner entered the Army with the rank of First Lieutenant with Base Hospital 50 on May 1, 1918. Together with other members of the unit, Kantner traveled from Seattle to Camp Kearny, near San Diego, and onto Camp Fremont, near Palo Alto, before leaving for France. He died of angina pectoris or heart failure at Mesves, France, 15 Sep 1918, exhausted after performing nine surgeries the previous day. He worked "strenuously, operating quickly and as continuously as human endurance would permit."⁴ 

In a letter of condolence from Dr. Eagleson, Base Hospital 50's medical director, he recounts Dr. Kantner had been in his usual good health, "full of fun and jokes"and goes on to say "we think his death was very sudden and was caused by a hardening of the arteries of the heart muscle. Eagleson described the funeral and how the French people brought offerings of flowers so numerous "the casket was covered over." An accompanying letter from the medical staff recalled Kantner's "thoughts were constantly of home" and that he had recently "purchased a little French apron which he hoped to send to his daughter for her birthday present."⁵

The Seattle Times (Seattle, Washington),
 7 October 1918, pg. 3.

William Kantner was survived by his wife, Nell Constance Thompson. The young couple were married by his father at his wife's family home at 1531 Rucker, in Everett. The wedding took place on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1913. Nell was a graduate of the University of Washington and a member of Chi Omega sorority. They were the parents of one daughter, Helen Constance. 

Following her husband's death, Nell returned to the University of Washington to earn two master's degrees and had a long career as a teacher, a principal, and eventually was appointed the Director of Vocational Education for the State of Washington. Nell never remarried and, as a Gold Star widow, accompanied Washington State's Gold Star Mother Pilgrimage contingent to Europe to visit her husband's burial site at St. Mihiel American Cemetery, located near the site of the hospital where he worked tirelessly to save the lives of so many others.

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1. United States. Army. Base Hospital No. 50. The history of Base Hospital Fifty : a portrayal of the work done by this unit while serving in the United States and with the American Expeditionary Forces in France. Seattle, Wash. : The Committee, 1922. 
2. Pastor's Son Dies in France: Lieutenant William C. Kantner Succumbs to Heart Failure Abroad. The Oregon Statesman (Salem, Oregon), 8 October 1918, pg. 3.
3. Health, Medicine and the AYPE Old Times. Museum of History and Industry.
4. Base Hospital 50 Honors Its Dead: Lieutenant Kantner and Four Enlisted Men Gave Lives in Nation's Service. Seattle Post-Intelliencer. no date.
5. Dr. Kantner is Mourned: Letters from Major and Medical Staff Received by Soldier's Wife. The Oregon Statesman (Salem, Oregon) Sunday, December 1918, pg 3.