By Andrew West

DOVER — While reading post-World War II editions of the Delaware State News, this editor came across an editorial about Armistice Day.

“For the first time in a number of years, our nation will observe Armistice Day this year with none of our troops being engaged in fighting battles for the defense of our country,” it began.

The date was Nov. 8, 1945.

The writer was not listed. But we can assume that it was Harry C. McSherry — a World War I veteran and legendary newspaperman.

“During the period of the first Armistice Day, twenty-seven years ago, many of us began to look forward towards living in a world without war only to have this dream shattered twenty-three years by our participation in the most horrible war mankind has known.”

The writer’s message was one of “sober reflection” — hoping the world would never again come to this.

The promise of peace was what Armistice Day meant to him and other World War I veterans.

When President Dwight Eisenhower changed the observance’s name to Veterans Day in 1954, it was a betrayal.

That was the underlying message of his 1954 column, which is being reprinted in today’s edition.

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Mr. McSherry began his newspaper career in 1908 in York, Pennsylvania, but it was interrupted when he was called to serve with the 79th Infantry in World War I.

After the war, he returned to newspaper work in his home state and later found his way to Delaware, where he took a job as the manager of the Dover Index in 1920.

In 1931, Delaware State News owner and editor Col. James Wickes hired him.

Col. Wickes died in August 1945, but Mr. McSherry kept the newspaper going strong while his estate worked to find a new owner. During the latter half of that year, the pages were filled with stories about World War II veterans coming home and the changes, including development of the air base, coming to the city.

By 1953, he was working for his fourth owner and editor of the State News. Jack Smyth, founder of our company, kept Mr. McSherry in his newsroom as he boldly converted the publication into the first daily in the capital of the First State.

Mr. McSherry had been reporting news in Dover for more than 30 years, but his name never appeared with a column or story until the daily came along.

With pride, Mr. Smyth announced in 1954 that Mr. McSherry would write a “Seen and Heard” column.

The writer was a workhorse in Dover for decades. In addition to his newspaper jobs, he voiced a local radio news program. On the side, he was a scorekeeper for Dover’s minor league baseball team and a publicist for Delaware horse racing.

Friends say he loved to talk about seeing Jimmy Foxx and Jimmy Cochrane playing on the diamond in Dover and following Adios Harry, a Delaware pacer that held the fastest mile record for 18 years.

He was also activity in the community, as a member of the American Legion Fox Post and the Dover Rotary.

In his later years, Mr. McSherry — aka “Mr. Mac” and the “Dean of the Delaware Press Corps” — had a reserved seat in the front of the state Senate chamber. “He sat there with his pipe and looked like he was asleep,” Gov. Sherman Tribbitt said. “But he heard everything going on. He never missed a thing.”

On Feb. 6, 1978, Mr. McSherry suffered a heart attack during a blizzard. Robbins Hose Co. volunteers loaded him on a fire truck and rushed him from his home on South Governors Avenue to Kent General Hospital that night.

“Harry C. McSherry died the other day, at 84, much too young, a working newspaperman until his last breath,” the Delaware State News’ Jim Miller wrote.

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Scanning the archives, it appeared that Mr. McSherry chose not to use the newspaper to tell stories of his years in the Army. He was a sergeant major in France when armistice was declared.

It does seem clear that he held dear “Armistice Day” his whole life.

And, in May each year, the American Legion member would share poppies with newsroom colleagues and friends as a matter of remembrance.

Perhaps his 1974 column offers as much insight as anything he wrote.

“Today being ‘Veterans Day,’ or rather to me and some veterans ‘Armistice Day,’ it is well to note there are still some veterans living in the area who can vividly recall their experiences on Nov. 11, 1918.

“When you were in the hills in northern France, it was a rather fine feeling to realize the trouble was coming to an end and once more we might be able to see a clear sky, which we did a few hours after the armistice became effective.

“While sitting on a hillside endeavoring to get something to eat from the field rations we carried with us, a sudden rumor arrived that we would be back home by Christmas. What a glorious feeling!

“But within a few days, we were on the move to a back-up spot along the Rhine and those hills is where we spent Christmas that year.”

He turned his thoughts to families who had endured World War II and the Korean and Southeast Asia conflicts.

“Perhaps today will be an excellent time for the veterans of all wars to reflect on the days when they were serving their country, and some of them making outstanding sacrifices to do so,” he wrote.

“For my part as a veteran of World War I, I have seen enough of America endeavoring to salvage other nations at the expense of American lives.”