My Grandfather Was A Polar Bear

Nines Simmons was born and raised in Kindred, North Dakota. It centers on my grandfather Nines Simmons, who worked on the farm, attended school in a one-room schoolhouse, graduated from the University of Minnesota with a dental degree, and practiced dentistry in Harvey, North Dakota. He was involved in helping the community in various ways and was elected mayor. When the call to duty came to help out in World War I, Nines passed the requirements and volunteered to be sent overseas. He was commissioned as a first lieutenant and was placed on the team of the first dentists who had ever served in a war. While serving in France, President Wilson sent a group of five thousand men to Russia. They became known as the Polar Bears. They ended up involved in the Russian war, and nobody understood why. The soldiers fought throughout the long sixty-degree-below cold winter. They wondered what they were doing there. After the armistice, the ports were frozen. The ships couldn't enter to bring them home, which caused them to stay almost another year.

This story follows his diary and is told by letters written between himself and his wife, Nana, his friends, and relatives. His role as a dentist included taking care of dental patients and traveling with the troops to battle, administering aid to the many soldiers who were injured fighting on the battlefield and in the trenches. The medical group was the final lifeline for the injured soldiers during the many battles. They worked in sixty-degrees-below-zero weather to save many lives so they would heal and could go home to their families.

The story follows his move to Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he was a well-known dentist and philanthropist. People still remember him there.