In Memoriam and Mushrooms - Honoring Family History and Finding New Mushrooms

Good morning, friends,

On Wednesday I got back from a week of travel with my brother, Clem, in the Alsace region of France. We were there to attend a memorial service and cairn dedication for my great-great uncle, Richard Nelville Hall. He died on Christmas morning, 1915, at the age of 21, when the ambulance he drove for the American Field Service was hit by a German shell in Moosch, France. I wouldn’t be able to talk about the mushrooms we found if I didn’t first tell his story.

The memorial service for Richard Hall at his memorial cairn on September 13th, 2025.

The Context

It was hard to leave the northeast, and especially pass up the North American Mycological Association annual foray in Vermont, which is only in the northeast once every five years or so, but I felt like this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Well, technically, it was a twice in a lifetime opportunity as there was a larger ceremony on the 100 year anniversary of his death in 2015, but my parents thought it was more important for me to participate in whatever undergraduate classes I was in at the time.

Earlier this year a couple dedicated locals, Jean-Michel Kuntz and Eric Kubler, discovered the location where Richard’s ambulance was shelled, and a memorial cairn and plaque were created at the location in his memory. There was to be a dedication ceremony scheduled for September 13th, and I didn’t want to miss this the second occurrence of what I guess is a twice-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

It took a persistent amount of coaxing, but I dragged my younger brother along as well. There are more lessons learned and perspective gained in travel than there is in PHYS-P 201 GENERAL PHYSICS I, I maintain that, and infinitely more than whatever the TikTok is feeding him.

He likes dogs, and he got to see a lot of them. I went through the country with mushroom eyes and he went through it with dog eyes, incredibly different from how our great-grandfather Louis Hall, and his brother Richard, experienced the area as we will see.

Richard Hall’s Story

The story is both inspiring and tragic.

Richard was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan and joined the American Field Service (AFS) in 1914 shortly after graduating college (Dartmouth, not too bad). The AFS was born out of the American Hospital of Paris which was established for Gilded Age American socialites that needed English-speaking doctors in Paris, but eventually grew to help the city and country of France as different wars started affecting Paris.

When Richard joined in 1914, the US was still years away from entering the war, but young Americans, particularly recent graduates of Ivy league schools, found themselves drawn to volunteer with the service as a way to provide foreign aid and help out the victims of war when their country wouldn’t. It’s a little different than the study abroad experience today.

Now the plan wasn’t always for Americans to be driving ambulances near the frontlines, but as the war left Paris in 1914 and shifted eastward, the AFS was left in the capital city and essentially their jobs became too boring. The AFS drivers, the majority in their late teens and early twenties, became unsatisfied with their lack of utility (there might’ve even been some ambulance racing involved, “boys will be boys” transcends generations and times of war and peace). There was real action going on and there were injured soldiers that they could help. Eventually, the French generals and American AFS leaders came together and decided to send a few sections of AFS ambulance drivers to the front lines.

The two women in traditional Alsatian dresses are the daughters of the two men who found the location, and they bookend my aunt, the Mayor of Moosch, and historian Tom Fife in this picture at the military cemetery. That’s also an operational Ford Model T ambulance from WWI.

Richard’s company, Section Three, got sent to the front lines in Alsace. He would drive injured soldiers from Camp Turenne, up near the peak of Hartmannswillerkopf in the Vosges mountains, down the valley to the field hospital in Moosch. One of the most surprising aspects to me during the visit was the topography — I always pictured WWI trench warfare on expansive plains, but here they were trenching and tunneling into either side of a mountain with no man’s land running essentially right over the peak. Both sides wanted to control Hartmannswillerkopf to be able to have expansive views down into the Alsace valley which would help them control the area.

While Richard was out there, his older brother and my great-grandfather, Louis Hall came to visit him. He saw the American drivers working side by side with the French soldiers and evidently felt the call to duty because he joined Section Three of the AFS to drive alongside his brother. Louis joined in the spring of 1915 and the plan was for him and Richard to serve through the end of the year before they would then go travel around Europe.

Their service was going to culminate with likely their most dangerous work, as the French planned an offensive on Christmas Day, 1915, to seize control of the peak — an engagement in what became known as the Battle of Hartmannswillerkopf.

Early Christmas morning, Richard left the field hospital in Moosch to embark on another arduous loop transporting soldiers from the front lines near the top of the 956 meter peak (3,136 ft) back down to the field hospital in Moosch. They had to drive without headlights so the Germans wouldn’t see them, and one loop took a few hours.

While my great-great uncle was making his way up the mountain, his Ford Model T ambulance was struck by a German shell and he was killed on impact. His ambulance flipped off the road, slid about fifteen feet down the ravine, and his body was ejected out of the vehicle.

Richard and the ambulance weren’t discovered until a few hours later when Robert Matter, another ambulance driver and Richard’s friend, noticed a glint in his rearview mirror. He stopped, as did the driver behind Robert, and the two clambered down the steep embankment where they discovered Richard’s lifeless body and the crumpled ambulance.

At one point while Robert and the other driver were stopped, Richard’s brother Louis, my great-grandfather, drove by in his ambulance and asked if everything was alright. Understandably, no one wanted to tell him his brother died, so they told him they were having car troubles but they had it sorted.

All the men in Section 3 were shaken. They made a cairn for Richard just uphill from where he lost life. Not only was Richard the first AFS driver to die, he was one of the first Americans to die in the war. There was a funeral and processional service for him and six other soldiers, and he was buried in the military cemetery in Moosch. He’s the only American buried in the cemetery.

After Richard’s death, my great-grandfather went back to Paris for a few months, before he returned to Moosch to resume his post with Section Three. When the US entered the war in 1917, Louis enlisted with the Army. He eventually fell in love in France, met his wife, the two moved to New Jersey, and my grandpa (my mom’s father) was born.

In 2015, there was a ceremony for Richard on the 100 year anniversary of his death at the military cemetery in Moosch. It took place at the cemetery because the exact location of his death had been lost with time. The road had been widened and the cairn had disappeared. There was an unsettled part of Richard’s story that spurred some to action.

With the collaboration and research of a lot of dedicated individuals, the exact location was found this past spring. The community, local government, and the American Field Service came together to create a memorial cairn (made by Jean-Michel and Eric, the two locals who found the exact location). At the ceremony there were reenactment soldiers, a working Model T ambulance from WWI, and a brass band to play both national anthems — the French really have an eye for pageantry and fanfare that I can appreciate.

Eric and Jean-Michel were able to find pieces of the ambulance in the area and confirm this was the location. They found the foundation of an old cairn and the two built a new cairn which was unveiled this past weekend.

We owe a huge thank you to a ton of folks, both from France and the US, who made the whole event happen:

Tom Fife, a historian from Georgia (the state, not the country), who compiled Richard’s story, including letters and photos of him and other men in Section Three; Eric Kubler and Jean-Michel Kuntz, who located the site and built the cairn; Claudine Becker with the Musée Serret who helped fund the project and memorial; Daniel Bastien, a retired French Air Force General, local historian, and the ceremony’s host; Bart Pocock, another local historian who gave us a tour of the Hartmannswillerkopf battlefield; and my aunt Julie, who organized the event on our family’s side.

It was surreal to think about what had happened on the land a little over a century ago, and to be there so comfortably that I could tour the battlefield in sandals and photograph the different mushrooms that grew in and around the trenches. That incredible fortune was not lost on me. I’m grateful I could attend and proud to share Richard’s story.

The plaque for Richard Nelville Hall that accompanies his memorial cairn.

La Boutique du Champignon

Now completely shifting gears, after the memorial my brother and I spent a few days in Colmar, a quaint town situated on the plain between the Vosges mountains and the Rhine river. In the neighboring village of Eguisheim, there is a boutique shop dedicated to mushrooms and mushroom products. It was the first place we went the first morning we woke up there.

Mushrooms dried, powdered, sauced, carved, printed — the store had all things mushroom.

I got a few good pictures in before I was told not to take pictures. These are the journalistic risks you just have to take to be a mushroom journalist. They sell baskets for foraging as well.

Les Champignons

After we left the store, we walked up through the vineyards just outside town and slipped into the mountains overlooking the valley. It was time to look for wild mushrooms, not the boutique kind.

It wasn’t hard to find them. The mushrooms were plentiful — I noticed that it rained at some point in the day almost everyday we were there (fortunately, it was mostly at night). The locals noted that we were just coming into the start of the peak season, and I managed to find 73 species across three hikes.

Now, without further ado, we have the mushrooms of the Vosges:

Cèpe (Boletus edulis group)

It wouldn’t be France without the cèpes. This was actually the only one we found, as we were at the end of the season for the Summer Bolete (Boletus reticulatus) seen above and a little early for the traditional Cèpe, (Boletus edulis).

European Lion’s Mane (Hericium cirrhatum)

One of the last mushrooms we found on our Vosges hike, and my favorite find from the trip. This seldom-seen, heavily-toothed fungus seems to form a cap or a shelf, but then grows teeth both on top and the bottom of the structure.

Rosy Bonnet (Mycena rosea)

A charming Mycena, large for the genus too.

Bonnet Mold (Spinellus fusiger)

I had only seen these before in pictures, but these little pins are a fungal parasite on bonnet mushrooms (Mycena).

Parasol (Macrolepiota procera)

We get these in the northeast, maybe two or three in a patch, but they were pretty prolific throughout our hike in the Vosges. A handsome mushroom and a nice edible.

Porcelain Mushroom (Oudemansiella mucida)

A visually compelling mushroom with a viscid cap and strikingly white gills.

Corn Smut or Huitlacoche (Mycosarcoma maydis)

This fungus infects corn plants and deforms the kernels into the large, edible galls that are considered a delicacy in Mexico.

Dinner

I made a blue cheese and mushroom cream sauce with five different mushroom species (parasol, cèpe, European lion's mane, puffball, and huitlacoche.

Well, we’re definitely a little late in the week for a Mushroom Monday — my boss is pretty upset with me, to be honest. In my defense, this has to be one of the longest newsletters I’ve written, and it certainly wasn’t one to be rushed. I guess it’s just a Fungal Friday this week.

I’m also writing this from one of the most peculiar places I’ve published the newsletter — the main lodge of a girl scout camp on the banks of Cayuga Lake where the Northeastern Mycological Federation is hosting their annual foray. No rest for the wicked, I went straight from France to a mushroom foray. I’ll recap this foray for next week’s newsletter and the mushroom activity will continue to roll strong into the fall.

One last thank you to all those who brought this story to life, and thank you for letting me share it with you. My deepest gratitude goes to Richard and all those who died helping others; let their spirits live forever.

Aubrey