Francis (Mayo) Lind was born on March 9, 1879, in Betts Cove, Newfoundland. He enlisted with the Newfoundland Regiment on September 16, 1914, in St John’s. On September 26, Lind sent the first of 32 letters that appeared in the St. John’s Daily News. In his fourth letter from Stobs Camp on May 20, 1915, he complained about English tobacco. The Imperial Tobacco Company Limited of St. John’s (maker of Mayo brand tobacco) launched an appeal for donations to buy tobacco and in July, 1,700 pounds of Mayo arrived at Stobs. Lind wrote: “It is needless to say I am now called Mayo Lind.”
After training in Egypt, his regiment was dispatched to the Dardanelles in September. Hospitalized that winter, first for jaundice and then for frostbite in his feet, Lind rejoined his unit in March, in France, but suffered from influenza and continued problems with his right foot until the end of May. While north of the Somme River, the regiment received a second shipment of Christmas Mayo-Linds, which had been following them for more than six months.
On July 1, 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, Lind and his comrades were in a trench known as St. John’s Road. After most of the regiment went over the top, they had to advance over 250 yards, including belts of barbed wire. Lind was killed advancing towards the Danger Tree. The next day only 68 out of 778 Newfoundlanders answered the roll-call. In November, the Lind family was still trying to confirm Frank’s death.
The Mayo-Lind Tobacco Fund continued for the duration of the war. Afterwards the publisher of the Daily News, John Alexander Robinson, produced a small volume of The letters of Mayo Lind “in memory of the cheerful soldier.”