Frederick Funston - World War I and Death

World War I and Death

Shortly before the U.S. entry into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson favored Funston to head any American Expeditionary Force (AEF). His intense focus on work would lead to health problems, first with a case of indigestion in January 1917, followed by a fatal heart attack at the age of 51 years in San Antonio, Texas.

In the moments leading up to his death, Funston was relaxing in the lobby of a San Antonio, Texas hotel, listening to an orchestra play The Blue Danube Waltz. After commenting, "How beautiful it all is," he collapsed from a massive painful heart attack (myocardial infarction) and died.

Douglas MacArthur, then a major, had the unpleasant duty of breaking the news to President Wilson and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. As MacArthur explained in his memoirs, "had the voice of doom spoken, the result could not have been different. The silence seemed like that of death itself. You could hear your own breathing."

Funston lay in state at both the Alamo and the City Hall Rotunda in San Francisco. The latter honor gave him the distinction of being the first person to be recognized with this tribute, with his subsequent burial taking place in San Francisco National Cemetery. After his death, his position of AEF commander went to General John Pershing. The Lake Merced military reservation (part of San Francisco's coastal defenses) was renamed Fort Funston in his honor, while the training camp built in 1917 next to Fort Riley in Kansas (which became the second-largest World War I camp) was named Camp Funston. San Francisco's Funston Avenue is named for him as is Funston Avenue in his hometown of New Carlisle, Ohio as well as Funston Avenue near Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX. Funston Road at Fort Shafter, Hawaii is named after him. Funston's daughter, son and grandson, both of whom served in the United States Air Force, were later interred with him.