 |
| World War I Overseas Duty Chevrons (rotated), 1918 CFM 1976.045.0006 Gift of Mrs. Morris G. Seigler |
Every man on the monument has his own story, but not all of their stories are accessible to us today.
My research found most of the dead, but not all of them. I could not find James H. Collings or Edward James Fox. And I am not sure that I found the right Loren/Lorn Mason.
Still, we can recover some information about a lot of the men who died while in the armed services in World War I.
Some seem to have left just a traces of their military lives:
Harry Alderman Potter was a mill hand, and registered for the draft on June 15, 1917. He was born in Columbus county, and died on September 29, 1918. He is buried at Union Grove Freewill Baptist Church Cemetery in Delco. But the records of how he died and what he did in the war are elusive.
Lewis Philip Vann is also on the monument, but I haven't found his death date. He was born in 1892, he registered for the draft on June 5, 1917. At the time he was a clerk with the Hilton Lumber Company.
 |
| Book, 1917 CFM 1981.023.0008 Gifr of Stephen C. Wallace |
DISEASE
A number of the men on the monument died of disease stateside.
Arthur Beach
Arthur
A. Beach, who was listed on the Memorial as "Archie," was a private in the 119th infantry, 30th division
NC. He died May 9, 1918 in Camp Servier in Greenville SC. According to the notice in the paper, “He
enlisted in Company C of the National Guard last May and went to camp early in
the summer. He was 22 years old and a
young man of the highest integrity and uprightness of character.” He is buried in Bellview Cemetery.
William McDuffie Bunting
Bunting was just 18 years old and still in College when he died of influenza in Chapel Hill. His name seems to have made it onto the monument beause he was a member of the Student Army Training Corps.
 |
| Wilmington Morning Star, October 10, 1918, p. 2 |
Arthur C. Hewlett died of pneumonia at Fort Oglethorpe in October, 1918. He has been drafted in June, 1918, and inducted in August. Arthur's parents, John and Rosa, held a service for him at their family home on Masonboro Sound. They both outlived him by more than 30 years.
George Willie Summerlin died of influenza on October 12, 1918. Summerlin registered for the draft in June 1917, he was a "huckster" and he became a private in the engineer corps. He was drafted on April 25, 1918, and sent to Camp Jackson on April 26, 1918. He is buried in Wilmington's Bellvue Cemetery.
 |
| Army Corps of Engineers patch, 1918 CFM 1976.045.0008 |
Joseph Holland died in a military hospital in New York on October 10, 1918. He had influenza-pneumonia for a week. He was 29 years old and had been drafted into the miliary in July of 1918.
Archie Haywood Melton also died of pneumonia He died at the base hospital at Fort Wadsworth on November 30, 1918, a few weeks after the armistice had been signed. He was 21 years old.
Hugh Tate Moore died at Camp Kearney in San Diego on April 8, 1918. Ten days after the war broke out Dr. Moore became "...the first Wilmington physician to enter the army service in the medical corps." The Wilmington Dispatch reported in August, 16, 1917 “One of
Wilmington’s prominent and most popular physicians has been ordered to report
for army service and this means that he will prepare to go to the war front in Europe.”
Lieutenant Moore first went to Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia. He then was promoted to the rank of captain, and sent to California. He died on April 8,
1918 at Camp Kearney in San Diego. According
to the notice in the Wilmington Morning Star of April 10, 1918, “Captain Moore
came to Wilmington from New Orleans in 1912.
From that time until last August, he practiced medicine in this city,
specializing on diseases of the ear, nose and throat.”
Dr. Moore was born in Tennessee and is buried there.
 |
| Recruiting poster Courtesy of Library of Congress |
And then there was poor Harry Orrell, who didn't die of an illnesss. His skull was fractured when he was hit by a train while on sentry duty. Harry was seventeen when he died. His parents Elijah and Mamie Orrell buried him at Masonboro Baptist Church's cemetery.
 |
| Wlmington Morning Star, May 21, 1917 |
**************
No comments:
Post a Comment