Staff photo by Clay Schuldt Dick Kimmel is practicing a song called “My Soldier Daddy’s Coming Home” which he will perform at an event at Turner Hall tonight commemorating the 100th anniversary of an anti-draft rally.

NEW ULM — One hundred years ago New Ulm’s City Attorney Albert Pfaender participated in a rally at Turner Park protesting the military draft. As a result, he and then-mayor Louis Fritsche were removed from office by Governor James Burnquist

Tonight, Turner Hall remembers World War I by commemorating the 100th anniversary of the rally. The WWI remembrance event will include music from Dick Kimmel. During his performance Kimmel intends to pay special tribute to Pfaender by playing a song written by the former city attorney.

The song is called “My Soldier Daddy’s Coming Home.” Kimmel believed the subject matter fit perfect with the WWI remembrance.

Kimmel and his wife Sue live in Pfaender’s old home on Center Street. The couple has done extensive research on Pfaender and learned he was an accomplished musician and song writer. An obituary for Pfaender mentioned he could play violin, zither and piano. The article also mentioned he wrote a song called “My Soldier Daddy’s Coming Home.”

“When I heard about the song I just had to have the sheet music,” Kimmel said.

Unearthing the song was not easy. Pfaender had the song copyrighted in January 1946, a month before he died. No recordings of the song existed which required Kimmel to hunt down the sheet music.

“Finding the song took phone calls from Australia to North Carolina and around Minnesota,” Kimmel said. These calls were made to relatives of Pfaender who were scattered around the globe. He was finally able to recover the sheet music from Albert’s grandson, Jay Pfaender, who scanned and submitted a copy to Kimmel.

The song appears to be written from the perspective of a young girl whose dad is coming home from an unspecified war. The first verse mentions the father is bringing home medals.

Pfaender was a veteran of the Spanish-American War and received medals for bravery and had daughters suggested an autobiographical connection to the song.

Kimmel said the song does have a lot common with folk songs written in the early 20th century, but there are a few lines reminiscent of the 19th century.

Learning to play the song on the guitar has been a fun challenge for Kimmel. The song is not written in his typical style and arranging it for the guitar requires some additional work. Kimmel will also perform some regional folk music from the WWI era. He will be followed by Dan Chouinard who recently created a program for Minnesota Public Radio on popular WWI songs.

Tonight’s WWI Remembrance Day is free and picnicking is encouraged. Turner Hall will have a $1 beer and $1 bratwurst sale during the event. The event begins at 6 p.m. outside in Turner Park. The New Ulm Battery will fire the cannon in salute, followed by Kimmel’s performance.