Gold Star Families

In June 1930 the SS President Roosevelt & in June 1931 the SS President Harding docked in Plymouth where Gold Star Mothers disembarked to travel to the American Cemetery in Brookwood & beyond. These Gold Star Mothers, the widows and mothers of lost and fallen Americans, are representative of those 6,693 women who made the journey to European cemeteries in a series of pilgrimages wholly financed by the US Government. These ended on the 31st October 1933. The majority of family members visited by the women were men. However, the last resting places of sisters and daughters usually serving as Army Nurses were also visited as at Brookwood.


This story, hardly known in the UK, continues. American Gold Star Mothers was founded on the 4th June 1928 when it received a federal charter from Congress. On 24th September 2010 US President Obama proclaimed: 'As we pay tribute to the valiant men and women in uniform lost in battle, we also recognize the deep loss and great strength of those who share in that ultimate sacrifice:

America’s Gold Star Mothers and Families'