Post History

VFW Post 425 was chartered on June 30th, 1920 and is named after George R. Wolff, the first man from Hopkins, MN to be killed in World War I. George was the second child and first son of eight children, and the first child born in America after his parents immigrated to Hopkins from Sweden in 1893.  A past Commander of our post (now deceased), George E. Jensen, was in the same outfit and sent the following account of the action that took George R. Wolff’s life to George’s brother Willie Wolff.

George R Wolff

George R Wolff

 


“We had been in action at Chateau Thierry, a town in northern France and were moving up in pursuit of the enemy to take a new position on the Orvig River. Shortly before we got into our new position, we were on a road alongside a woods known as Forest de Fere, about five kilometers south of Sergy, when a large shell came over and landed close to our battery. George was knocked off his horse and killed instantly. That was in August 1918.”


George R. Wolff is buried in Grandview Cemetery in Hopkins. Each year on Memorial Day George is remembered by our post with a flag being placed on his grave.