August 29, 2017 -
Oscar Latimer
World War I Veteran
Died in the Service of His Country
Born in Shelby County Texas 45 years before Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1896, Oscar Latimer joined brother Arthur James and sister Adina as the youngest child of James Harrison (1867-1957) and Mary Jennie Fonville-Latimer (1870-1949). Early in his life the family moved first to San Augustine County and then to Houston, Texas where they made their home at 2102 Hardy Street.
UT Graduation 1918Oscar graduated from Houston High School in 1916 and enrolled at the University of Texas School of Pharmacy. He was the class president for the first and second terms of 1916-17 with a nickname of “Jelly. Beside his photo in the Cactus Yearbook of 1918 were the words “he wears a perpetual smile, for him life’s always worthwhile. He graduated on May 31, of that year, thirteen months after the United States joined the World War in France.
From his home in Houston Oscar joined the U.S. Navy four days after graduation on June 4, 1918. He was sent to boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center just north of Chicago, Illinois which had only been open seven years at that time. Completing basic training he remained there as a Navy Hospital Corpsman and attained the grade of Apprentice 2nd Class in short order. His pharmacy degree no doubt played a large part of his assignment.
The year 1918 was the start of the deadliest flu pandemic in modern history and more than 25 percent of the US population became sick and some 675,000 Americans died during 1918-1919. The military was not exempt by any means as it was reported that more military died from the 1918 flu than were killed in battle during the World War. Forty percent of the US Navy was hit with the flu and Corpsman Oscar Latimer died of influenza at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center Hospital on September 23, 1918, just 111 days after enlisting to serve his country.
His remains arrived by train in Center, Texas on Friday morning, September 27th, 1918 and he was interred in the Truitt Cemetery that is located six miles southwest of Joaquin just off highway 7 in Shelby County, Texas. His obituary did not say but I am confident he was given military honors by local veterans. The Houston Post reported that a night memorial service was held on Sunday, December 15, 1918 at the Trinity Baptist Church in Houston honoring Oscar Latimer, Grover C. Lambert and William Lee Simmons who lost their lives in the service.
Almost 99 years have come and gone since his passing and one can only wonder what might have been had he lived. I know I do.
(Sources: Ancestry.com Aug 2017; Family Search.org Aug 2017; Find A Grave Memorial 25084259; UT Cactus Yearbook, 1918; Obituary, The Champion, September 25, 1918, reprinted in Mildred Cariker Pinkston, Obituaries of Early Pioneers, Shelby County, Texas, Center: Center Printing Co., 1983; Houston Post Newspaper, Houston, Texas Sep 24, 1918, page 7; Houston Post Newspaper, Houston, Texas, Dec 15, 1918, page 9; Houston Post Newspaper, Houston, Texas Jun 1, 1918, page 5; History.com/topics/1918-flu-pandemic).
