Origins – Part 1

An Artist’s Inspiration…

Born in 1895 in Liffol-le-Grand in the Vosges Mountains of eastern France, Gaston Deblaize trained as a draftsman, painter, and sculptor. 

During the First World War, he was mobilized with the class of 1915, and spent forty months at the front, nearly half of them at Bois-le-Prêtre in the Saint-Mihiel salient.

A liaison officer for the 19th Company of the 356th Infantry Regiment, he was decorated for bravery, receiving the Military Medal and three citations – one of which was earned at the Battle of Verdun.

After the war, he was disturbed by the lack of memorials honoring missing soldiers without graves – “those whose burial ground is made of scarred earth.”  

While visiting the Bois-le-Prêtre after the war, he was inspired by an idea for a memorial – a stone marker containing earth from the battlefield.

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