It was 11 a.m. Friday - 31 years to the minute after the ending of World War I. A small group gathered at a freshly dug grave in Crescent Cemetery. In the center was the flag draped casket. After brief services the casket was lowered into the grave and the group silently left. It had paid final respects to a stranger.

Employees of Woodring Funeral Home and the Crescent Cemetery made up the group. None of them personally knew the man in the casket - JARVIS C. STRUBE, 55, merchant seaman and veteran of two wars. Strube was found unconscious October 31 in a Missouri Valley Hotel. He died the following day in a Council Bluffs hospital. Coroner H. Stanley Woodring located relatives in Wisconsin, South Dakota and Oregon. They answered inquiries. One relative said he was in the regular army before World War I, served during the conflict and re-enlisted. During World War II, he was in the coastal marine service. His reason for being in Missouri Valley was never established, Coroner Woodring said. Relatives reported he frequently took cross country jaunts by bus or hitch hiked.

No one appeared to claim Strube's body. Thursday, the Woodring Funeral Home received authority from the Veterans' Administration to bury him at government expense. He was buried in a lot donated by E.P. Woodring, head of the funeral home and father of Coroner Woodring.