Remembering the Rain Day Boys 100 years later

Trista Thurston
Trista Thurston/Observer-Reporter
Glenn Toothman and Candice Buchanan flanked by photos of the Rain Day Boys.

Greene County residents know the history of Rain Day, precipitated by one farmer’s passing comment that it always seemed to rain on his birthday, July 29.
Fewer are probably familiar with the Greene County World War I veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice on July 29, 1918, in France, so far from home and life on the lush Pennsylvania countryside.
But even those that know the “Rain Day Boys,” as they’ve been dubbed by local historians, the connection between those Greene County boys – who ultimately became men with their service – and the community’s annual celebration may not be as apparent.
Rain Day dates back to 1874, which is when rainfall tracking began in the southwestern-most corner of Pennsylvania. As the day pulled at the public’s consciousness, it slowly became an event. The year 1944 saw the formation of a club of watchmen, set to look out for drops. In the 1950s, it became a recognized festival and has been celebrated ever since.
It did rain on July 29, 1918, but much more than water fell. Greene County residents were unaware that day the loss their community would face until much later.
A new book detailing the history of the Rain Day Boys, “The Rain Day Boys: The Greene That Lay Near Grimpettes Woods,” is available now, just in time to mark the 100-year anniversary of their untimely deaths. Written by former district attorney Glenn Toothman and genealogist Candice Buchanan, the book details their personal histories and the community impact of their loss. Toothman describes the work as a true labor of love.
Who were the Rain Day Boys?
There were 17 Rain Day Boys, with an additional death on July 28, 1918. They were all members of Company K, 110th Infantry, 28th Division, American Expeditionary Forces based in Waynesburg. Company K was formed in 1874, that same year rainfall started to be recorded for Rain Day.
“These boys were Rain Day Boys from the get-go,” Toothman says.
The group left together from the Armory just off the university’s campus, as classmates in high school and as teammates on the same football team.
Company K left Waynesburg on Sept. 7, 1917, for a seven-month training in Augusta, Ga. A community-wide parade from the Armory, just off of Waynesburg University’s campus to the train station saw them off. Civil War veterans led the rally and the community members said their goodbyes. After digging trenches and learning how to shoot a machine gun, the company received its marching orders. They left for Germany on April 24, 1918.
Pennsylvania, particularly, sent a lot of men to WWI, Buchanan says. Greene County alone sent more than 1,000 and the Rain Day boys are part of a total of 58 Greene Countians who eventually lost their lives in WWI.
“Rain Day highlighted these boys because of our local holiday,” Buchanan says. “It’s just kind of incredible that that was the day of this great loss, and it affected people for years. There were WWI veterans who were there that day, who survived this horrible battle and saw their friends fall, who were then part of a community that celebrated (that day).”
Their letters remark how similar things were overseas to their homes in Greene County. The fallen include family names that will ring familiar to most Greene County natives, making the history tangible.
“The army comes together soldier by soldier, so it’s these individual stories that ultimately made history happen,” Buchanan says. “This is how our community is a part of this bigger story, and suddenly, WWI is a lot easier to feel connected to. That battlefield in France isn’t so far away.”
“This is the largest loss of life to Greene County military that happened in one day,” Toothman says.
WWI was supposed to be the war to end all wars, and because of this, communities sent their best and brightest to fight.
“It had such an aggressive vetting of physical fitness and mental fitness to be able to go to this war, and therefore, it sucked the life out of your community,” Toothman explains. “It took your brightest young men, and they were happy to go.”
On the night of July 27, 1918, Company K was called to the frontline trenches to relieve the 156th French regiment. In the early hours of July 28, 1918, they, along with other companies in the 110th Infantry, crossed the Ourcq River into German territory. Their mission was to get the Germans away from their nests – which were on top of a 700-yard slope, giving them a tactical advantage.
It was a slow attack, and in the wee hours of the morning of July 29, 1918, Company K initiated an assault on the Germans – and they were met with such fury and fire that within just the next two hours, 17 fell dead or wounded, eventually succumbing to their injuries.
Finding the boys and telling their stories
Buchanan says that their goal is not to make the Rain Day celebration sad, but to use that holiday to remember that great loss and highlight their sacrifice.
As Toothman was growing his company, Memory Medallion, which provides multimedia remembrances for physical memorials, he realized he might need some collections that could display the capabilities of his product.
Meanwhile, Buchanan was discovering a personal connection to the Rain Day boys: Albert “Bert” Buchanan was her great-grandfather’s first cousin. That began the start of their research partnership. Toothman also had his own relative among the fallen. The threads began to untangle as the two started to look at the men’s relations to Greene County natives.
“It’s easy to get connected to these guys,” Buchanan says.
“All the sudden, these guys were talking to us. They wanted to be found,” Toothman adds. “We quickly found this project to be very appealing for all the right reasons: family connections, history to the community.”
Even 16 years after first taking on this project, Toothman still tears up thinking about these men. Counting the hours that went into this project over the years would be impossible.
“We always, from the beginning, felt that it would become a book,” Toothman says of the project. “We’ve been doing this for 16 years, researching and we visited every one of these graves multiple times over, that are local. Then, ultimately, it came down to where we had done everything we could, but we had not yet been to France.”

Courtesy Candice Buchanan
Candice Buchanan and Glenn Toothman at the grave of Rain Day Boy John Milton Paden in Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in France, taken during a research trip last year.
Buchanan and Toothman, in the culmination of their work, made the trek to that final battlefield last September during a 10-day trip.
“It’s hardly different from how they described it. It was an open farmland and hill and they were so exposed,” Buchanan says. “It’s beautiful and it’s quiet.”
“It’s serene and it reminds you of Greene County,” Toothman adds.
The field itself is not particularly historically significant in the grand scheme of the war. Toothman and Buchanan, along with a guide, had military maps with the general location and were lucky to find a local to help lead them. He stayed with them with them most of the day, taking them to the camps and headquarters.
“It is, in a small way, memorialized, and that’s what helped us to get there. But that put the final information together, then, for us to be able to write the book. We came back in September from the trip in France, and we had the book published by December because we were ready,” Toothman says.
Now, with the 100-year anniversary, it seemed fitting to publish a never-ending research project.
“I don’t think the story is over, by any means,” Toothman says.
For more on the Rain Day Boys, visit raindayboys.com. Each of the soldiers’ profiles is online. They hope to have profiles of all of the 58 Greene County residents lost in WWI finished by July to mark the 100-year anniversary of each loss, spanning from 1918 to February 1919.
Glenn Toothman and Candice Buchanan began their partnership in 2001. After Toothman began his Memory Medalian work, he saw he would need the expertise of a genealogist. So he attended conferences around the nation looking for someone with the right background, not knowing that the right fit was already in Greene County.
Toothman would visit the Cornerstone Genealogical Society looking for information, and often, volunteers there would tell him that Buchanan had already done that research. When they finally met, it was the beginning of a long, fruitful collaboration.
As for anyone else hoping to take a deep dive in their family history, Buchanan warns that not everything will be pleasant.
“These people were human. People want to deify the ancestors and make them like they were proper and upright,” Buchanan says. “We have burst a few bubbles.”
Go in with an open mind. Start with what’s known and work backward. Talk to everyone while they’re still around. To Buchanan, those small, intimate details make people easier to relate to.
“You have to enjoy these people as the individuals they were and the roles they played in history,” she says.
Even working on another project can bring a relevant revelation, which Buchanan says is part of the beauty of doing research in Greene County: families have roots that run deep in southwestern Pensylvania. Cornerstone is the best place to start locally to begin a project.
The small community made this research almost easier: hometown newspapers focused on intricate details that the metros may have missed.
A plaque dedication at the Armory in 1920 for the community’s great loss just two years prior had each of the Rain Day boys’ photos and a description of their death, a valuable resource in starting their research.
“We know more about these boys than some of the larger cities know about their soldiers,” Buchanan says. “They don’t have the kind of records we do, so there is a benefit to small-town newspapers and the activities of the community.”
Buchanan and Toothman have also written other books, including on historical images of Waynesburg and other genealogies. All of their books are available on Amazon.