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1889-1912 Farm Boy to Midshipman |
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An Orphaned Farm Boy from Tennessee Is Appointed to the United States Naval Academy
Philip Van Horn Weems was born in 1889 in Montgomery County, Tennessee, and orphaned at only 14. Instilled with a strong will to achieve by his supportive family, Weems always had the dream to attend West Point. Though he graduated at only an eighth grade level from the one-room Walnut Grove School, Weems obtained an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis and entered with the class of 1908.
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Weems soon became a standout athlete, playing football and earning his first "N" in wrestling in the fall of 1909.
Weems excelled academically, impressed his instructors, and worked hard to score high marks. One course he excelled in as a plebe - or a first year student at the Academy - was seamanship. When Weems entered the Academy, the Navy was shifting from sail to steam, a transition that brought a new way of thinking about going to sea. Steam vessels were faster and not reliant upon the wind, thus navigation began an early evolution. Weems' class was the last that would take its summer cruise aboard a sailing vessel, the Hartford, in 1909.
The young midshipman acquired the nickname "Mammy" in his plebe year at the academy, allegedly due to his propensity to use a drawn out "Ma'am" when addressing ladies.
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Classmate Captain R. A. Lavendar noted in a 1974 letter that "{t}he nickname Mammy was so out of place that it could be accepted only by Mammy himself. It was fitting because his athletic prowess and his strength of character. Van was aggressive, a fighter and was not afraid of the devil himself. Van accepted his nickname because he knew that he was not a mamby-pamby and everyone else know it to {sic}."
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Click Here to visit the Annapolis Maritime Museum
Please use the select box below to access additional Contributions of Captain Weems:
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