May Wing and Harriet Wing in Snow on the Village Green

This black-and-white photograph shows May Alice Wing and her mother, Harriet Elizabeth Putman Wing, in snow on the northwest quadrant of the Village Green. The photograph might have been taken on or around Christmas Day, 1925. Both are dressed in winter overcoats and have hats on. May, who is about four years old in the picture, is shown standing and facing her mother, who is kneeled next to her and smiling at her. Visible directly over May's head are the windows of the original Worthington Presbyterian Church; during the construction of a new church in 1926, this building was moved to the back of the new building.

May Alice Wing Caldwell was born in Worthington in 1921 to Charles and Harriet Putman Wing, both U.S. Army veterans of World War I. Harriet was an Army Nurse at Camp Sherman, Ohio and Charles was in Company I, 4th Infantry, 3rd Division, U.S. Army. The family lived at 699 High Street, then moved to a farm on Smoky Row Road after a doctor advised Charles, who had suffered a chlorine gas attack during the war, to move out of coal-heated Worthington to where the air was cleaner. Charles and Harriet bought the home at 621 Morning Street in 1933, and it remained their home until Charles' death.

May's early years centered in Worthington, where she played organ for St. John's Episcopal Church. She graduated from Worthington High School in 1939, and attended The Ohio State University starting her junior year of high school, with the goal of becoming a neurosurgeon. At OSU, she met her husband, Elmer Caldwell. From January 1944 through January 1946, while Elmer served in World War II, she lived with her parents and infant son, and Elmer joined them when he returned from the war in November, 1945. For two years following the war, she and Elmer lived near The Ohio State University and ran the Village Restaurant in Columbus, until Elmer was recalled for active duty in 1948, when May again moved in with her parents and her sons Harold and Curtis. From May 1951 to March 1952, May and her sons lived at 51 Selby Boulevard in Worthington, while Elmer served in the Korean War. After the war, she and her children followed Elmer to his deployments around the world, including Japan, Germany and Hawaii. She was known for her generosity and interest in connecting with other cultures; her obituary states, "May took seriously her role to represent America and to bridge cultures by learning languages, studying local culture and history, and making friends off-post."

Harriet Elizabeth Putman Wing was a 1914 graduate of Worthington High School and served as a U.S. Army Nurse stationed at Camp Sherman, where she met Charles Dignan Wing. While the exact dates of her service are not known, according to research by Putman’s grandson, Curtis I. Caldwell, Harriet was positively known to have been stationed at the camp in October, 1918, and was there for a period of at least 12 months but less than 18 months. As a “charge nurse” on her ward, she held a supervisory role. Her documented time at Camp Sherman coincided with one of the most deadly months of the war. Alongside the slaughter in the trenches in western Europe, a frightening virus killed soldiers and civilians alike across the globe. More U.S. soldiers died of the new "Spanish flu" than perished in the actual fighting. All told, an estimated 43,000 American troops died in the deadly pandemic.

Harriet married Charles Wing on July 7, 1920, in Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Cleveland, spelling the end of her military career, as married women were not allowed to serve. In Worthington, she cared for Charles, who in addition to his health problems as a result of the chlorine gas attack, had had a leg amputated as a result of injuries sustained in Battle of Château-Thierry in Aisne, France, as a private in the American Expeditionary Force. Harriet also served Worthington as an on-call nurse for the schools, as well as for Dr. George Bonnell and his son, also Dr. George Bonnell, who took care of generations of Worthington families