Certificate of Appreciation

This son of a wealthy Minnesota hardware merchant was a childhood friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who lived nearby. They were born months apart, hung out together along with Donald's sister Alida in the summers at the Bigelow's White Bear Lake home (the setting for Fitzgerald's 1922 story "Winter Dreams," a kind of blueprint for "The Great Gatsby"). Both graduated high school in 1914, both attended Princeton University and both departed in 1917 -- Bigelow to join the American Ambulance Corps of the American Field Service, Fitzgerald to join the U.S. Army, accepting a commission as a second lieutenant. After the war, Bigelow joined the foreign service and in the mid-1920s became a consular officer in the passport division at the U.S. Consul in Paris, while Fitzgerald became a literary sensation with "This Side of Paradise" and with Zelda lived in Paris around this same time, though whether the two childhood friends reconnected is not known. Large framed partly-printed certificate (entirely in French), 28" X 24", n.p., n.d. Near fine. Printed entirely in French on a creamy buff stock, this ornate certificate features at top the large bald eagle of the American Ambulance Corps and draped French and American flags, with partly-printed text running below this. At left are two standing colonial military figures (with dates "1776-1783" in red) and at right two standing military figures (an A.F.S. volunteer with arm around a French soldier) and the dates in red "1914-1917." Roughly translated, the text reads top to bottom, in a variety of type sizes, some in red: "For France / and the Absolute French Way / Mr. Donald Fairchild Bigelow / Served as a Volunteer in / The American Field Service / from 10 May 1917 to 19 November 1917 / Faithful to the Ancestral Friendship of France and the / United States, and preceding the American Army, / He Served the French Army in the / War for Rights / in a Fast Campaign in the Aisne Region, / on the Ladies' Path, Serving as a / Truck Driver in the Section / T.M.U. 133." Signing boldly below this is A. Piatt Andrew and below him Stephen Galatti. Below this is the French coat of arms and the A.F.S.'s early motto, "Acta Manent" (Deeds Remain). The printed artwork is all by Bernard Naudin (1876-1946), a French painter and caricaturist known for his wartime illustrations showing life in the trenches. Andrew (1873-1936) was the Harvard economics professor who founded the American Field Service and made it a force with hundreds of ambulances and drivers under the umbrella of the French military. Ivy League college students led the pack, eager for adventure and to support the war that America had not yet entered and, since a recruitment tour lasted six months, able to leave college for one semester and return the next. While some drove ambulances -- including future 1920s literary figures Ernest Hemingway, E.E. Cummings, Archibald MacLeish and John Dos Passos -- others such as Bigelow were assigned the dangerous task of driving munitions and supplies to the front. Galatti (1888-1964) was a Harvard star quarterback who became Andrew's second in command, later becoming the A.F.S.'s second director and greatly expanding its scope during World War Two. When James H.D. Seymour's 3-volume "History of the American field service in France, 1914-1917; told by its members" was published in 1920, selections from Bigelow's writings between June 11 and November 7, 1917, appear as "Camion Diaries" (Volume III, pp. 29-61.) Certificates of service were given to volunteer drivers who served in the ambulance corps during the war, but whether the certificate of appreciation here described was given to all volunteers is unclear -- in any case, this is an intriguing WW1 memento with interesting Fitzgerald connections.…