Military Monday

Ok. It's been a minute, as the youngsters say today, since I posted anything new. Finally rectifying that.

I had wandered through Comer Memorial Cemetery several weeks back and noted a couple of military markers. They tweaked my curiosity enough that I flagged them for additional research.

A moment of regression and explanation is warranted here before proceeding.

First, I am somewhat ergophobic. That is a fancy way of saying 'lazy'. One of my mantras is, "Don't make it harder than it has to be."

Second, my thoughts are often faster than my hands so I have to use shortcuts to try and keep the two in synch.

Third, for any number of reasons I tend to not take new photos of graves if there is already a good on on Find A Grave. They just make for additional work later, and, frankly, I tend to forget that I took them and where. For these reasons I usually just steal a photo from Find A Grave when needed. Today is just such a case.

So! My basic approach on graves such as these that I want to follow-up on is to add them to a Virtual Cemetery in Find A Grave. This essentially creates a To-Do list I can access from almost anywhere. I have virtual cemeteries for any number of specific follow-up needs: Family to visit, Potential Family to Research, Updates to be Submitted, etc.

That said, on to the good stuff.

John's marker jumped out at me because I simply do not encounter many graves for Spanish American War veterans. They may be more common elsewhere, but not in these parts. Seeing that there are no dates on the marker, I pulled him up in Find A Grave to see if they were recorded.

What I found offended my sensibilities. Not only no dates, but no family either. This is not good. So I flagged him for later research.

Howard's marker also jumped out at me, though in his case the date was what grabbed my attention. 1943. Almost certainly a wat casualty, but without a birth date who could say for certain? Howard was flagged as well.

I finally got around to the research.

I swear that both men appeared fully formed from nowhere! Sheesh! Talk about a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Not to be completely daunted, I kept pushing and managed to find death certificates for both along with a little additional documentation.

Turns out John William Cooper was born in 1880 somewhere in Georgia. I would speculate he was from Madison, Clarke, Oglethorpe, Oconee, or Elbert County, but I see nothing confirming it. Just that he was born in Georgia. Sadly he died relatively young at age 46 at a Naval Hospital in Atlanta of Apoplexy and Heart issues.

Whoever provided the details for his death certificate had no knowledge of his family. Neither a father nor mother are listed.

But I did find his wife and managed to link her to him in Find A Grave as well as update his birth and death details.

Howard Stevens Chandler is an even more tragic case than John. He was born in 1921 and was killed in a airplane crash near the Marine Corps Base at Cherry Point, North Carolina. He was only 22 at the time. As sad as every death is during a war, it is worse, in my book, when the death accomplishes nothing. A combat death can at least be argued to have achieved something. A death outside combat is simply a waste of a life.

Nothing much about his parents. The death certificate has conflicting data on them. It was initially filled out listing both as Unknown. There are handwritten entries added later, but they are indecipherable and make no sense. Nothing much on a spouse, either, if he had one.

Neither man appeared to have fathered any children.