(This post is in response to a query to Diane on Christmas Day 2016) Draft cards are a great resource, and often provide descendants the only clues as to someone's height, hair color, and occupation. Without them, the number of GINGERS in our families would be lost! I know you have access to the printed family histories, but you may not have seen the draft cards.
Attached are two pages from Dewey Grady Gaston's World War I draft card dated September 12, 1918. Please note that 19 year old Grady answered questions from the Montgomery County, Arkansas draft board registrar, L. L. Wilhite, as follows:
1. His occupation is "B & B carpenter" for the "Mo.Pac.R.R. Co." and written near that is "A.C. Roberts Gang No. 4 - Monroe, LA." So he was working for the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. Specifically for the A.C. Roberts' Gang No. 4 out of Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. It implies he came home from working in Louisiana to register in Montgomery County. Or am I reading it wrong? It sure looks like "LA" is the state for the town of Monroe.
2. The back side of the draft card has his physical description. Grady was a ginger! RED hair, blue eyes, medium build and height.
3. I love his mom's nick name: Dollie. I find that her legal name at birth was: Mary Elizabeth Spriggs, born in Woodruff, Arkansas. I don't find a town by that name. Perhaps it was a local town that has since died? There is a Woodruff County in the Arkansas Delta region. Correct me if I'm wrong. (Hmmm, why is it southern folk have go-by names? It can be a challenge to locate records when they have many names with many spellings, grrrr.)
You just told me about her dad, Elijah. That was a BIG help because earlier today I could NOT make out his name from the 1900 Federal Census. Here's a snippet from that page. Well, TWO snipped pages below. Elijah Spriggs is living with his daughter, Dollie, and her husband, Charlie Gaston, in their South Fork, Montgomery County, Arkansas home. (Charlies is 22; Dollie is 25. And Baby Grady!) Elijah is widowed, and indicated his birth place was South Carolina. BUT WHAT I FOUND MOST INTERESTING? Note his answer to the census taker when asked his mother's birth place: Ireland. If this be true, then presumably J & Z's fourth-great-grandmother was Irish. Read the last lines in both these images, as they relate to "poor old Elijah." (I couldn't resist the Hank Williams' song reference)
Grady in his younger days, and a lovely photo of him and his wife Anna Edna (Fiddler) Gaston:
Gene Singleton enlisted on March 25, 1944 and mustered out of the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division on June 3, 1946 in World War II. Tell me, did he serve on the European or the Pacific front?
See J & Z's 2xG-Grandfather Charlie's draft card from 1942. This draft was called the "Old Man's Draft" as it required men of a certain age to register just in case the enemy made it to shore and extra hands would be needed to fight. It is one of my favorite databases. Again, it gives clues about people we might never have learned.
(working on this today.... to be updated shortly)