John Morrison Michener WWI correspondence

John Morrison Michener (1894-1986) was a Quaker high school chemistry teacher from Wichita, Kansas, who served as a medic in France during WWI. He was the son of Homer Michener and Susanna May Morrison, members of University Friends Church, Wichita. Drafted in February 1918, he was assigned to a non-combatant company, Ambulance Company 353 of the 314th Sanitary Train, 89th Division, which trained at Camp Funston, a U.S. Army training camp located on Fort Riley, The camp also served as a detention center for conscientious objects and was the location of some of the first recorded influenza cases in the United States later that year. The United States Army Ambulance Service (USAAS) was a unit of the United States Army during World War I, established by the War Department in May 1917 to provide medical services to the Allied Armies.

Before being shipped overseas to serve in France in July 1918, he married fellow teacher Anna Jane Baker in Wichita. John Michener was honorably discharged June 3, 1919. A younger brother, R. Bryan Michener (1898-1992) served with Friends Relief Service in 1919 and subsequently with Friends Mission in Kenya Africa, 1930-1938. John and Anna Jane Michener were members of University Monthly Meeting; Anna Jane Michener was a community and civil rights activist in Wichita.