Private James "Jimmie" Edkar Chandler
United States Army - World War I – Died in Service
143rd Infantry Regiment – Machine Gun Company – 36th Division
August 13, 2026 - In the piney woods of Shelby County, Texas, Christmas Day of 1895 brought a son into the crowded farmhouse of John Edgar Chandler and David Lavinia “Teenie” Choate Chandler. They named him James Edkar—Jimmie to everyone who knew him. He was born into a large East Texas family rooted in the red dirt and timber country near Center and the community of Grigsby. His father, born in Louisiana in 1861, and his mother, a Texas woman born in 1863, raised a household of sons and daughters who worked the land together: older siblings Nannie, David Wesley, Willer, Robert Hampton, Thilda, and Delphina, and the younger ones who followed—Rittie, Rozeta, Leta, John Kirby, and Elvis Buford.
By the 1910 census, fourteen-year-old Jimmie was already a wage-earning laborer on the home farm in Justice Precinct 6. He spoke English but had not attended school that year and could neither read nor write. The census taker recorded a white farm boy of medium build who knew the weight of an axe, the rhythm of a plow, and the long days that defined rural Shelby County life. The Chandler place was a multigenerational working household, typical of the families who scratched a living from cotton, corn, and timber while the world beyond the county lines remained distant.
That distance closed in 1917. On June 5, as the United States prepared for war, twenty-one-year-old Jimmie Edker Chandler registered for the draft in Shelby County. The card listed him as single, Caucasian, of medium height and build, with light hair and blue eyes. He claimed no exemption and listed no prior military service. Given draft number 206, his call came four months later.
On September 19, 1917, eighty young men from Shelby County gathered in Center. The Champion newspaper captured the day in vivid detail: contrary to earlier plans, the War Department ordered all eighty to entrain that Wednesday morning. Ladies from Center, Shelbyville, Joaquin, Tenaha, and Timpson worked through the night sewing khaki comfort bags filled with soap, buttons, needles, thread, toothbrushes, paste, and shaving soap. Fathers, mothers, sisters, and sweethearts filled the town. Stores closed, schools dismissed, and nearly every citizen walked to the depot. At eight o’clock the evening before, Revs. Russell and Hall spoke at the courthouse, offering encouragement. At dawn the men formed ranks on the courthouse lawn under the captainship of J. F. Willis and marched to the station. Among them walked Jimmie Chandler of the Grigsby country.
He took the oath that day and became Private James E. Chandler, serial number 2228001. The men were sent first to Camp Travis near San Antonio and assigned to the 165th Depot Brigade for initial training—specifically 57th Company, 15th Battalion. On October 26, 1917, after roughly five weeks, Jimmie was transferred to the Machine Gun Company of the 143 Infantry Regiment at Camp Bowie near Fort Worth. The 143 Regiment, known as the “Third Texas,” had been organized only days earlier on October 15 from the old Third and Fifth Texas Infantry of the National Guard. It belonged to the 72 Infantry Brigade of the newly forming 36 Infantry Division, the “Texas Division.”
The regiment would eventually sail for France in the summer of 1918, train near Bar-sur-Aube, and fight in the Meuse-Argonne, entering the line near St. Étienne in October 1918 and advancing to the Aisne River. But Jimmie Chandler never saw those fields.
Disease moved faster than the trains. Pneumonia and measles swept through the crowded camps that autumn. On November 27, 1917—barely two months after he left Center and one month after joining the machine-gun company—Private Jimmie Chandler died of pneumonia at the Camp Bowie hospital. He was twenty-one years and eleven months old. The Army notified his father, J. E. Chandler, at Grigsby, Texas.
A week later the Champion reported the losses under the headline “Shelby County Boys Die in Camp Bowie.” The remains of Wilbur Taylor had arrived the previous Friday; a few days earlier, Jas. E. Chandler, son of Ed Chandler of the Grigsby country, had died of the same cause and been brought home for burial. Rumors of a German spy and meningitis circulated, but the official reports spoke of pneumonia and measles and a camp under quarantine. The paper noted that conditions were improving, yet two of the eighty who had marched to the depot on September 19 would never return.
Jimmie was laid to rest in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Shelby County, among the pines and red dirt of the country that had raised him. No overseas service. No combat. No wounds. Only the quiet, ordinary courage of a farm boy who answered the call, trained with his neighbors, and died in the same khaki he had worn for two short months.
His service record is brief and stark: inducted at Center, Texas, September 19, 1917; 57th Company, 15th Battalion, 165th Depot Brigade until October 26; Machine Gun Company, 143rd Infantry to death; Private; died of pneumonia, November 27, 1917. Person notified: J. E. Chandler, Grigsby, Texas.
Over one hundred years later the story still stands. A young East Texas soldier who never reached France still belongs to the long roll of the 143 Infantry and the 36 Division. He rests in Mount Pleasant Cemetery beneath a white marble upright headstone, a son of Shelby County who left the farm for the colors and never came home. Day is done. God is nigh.
This story was written with creative support from SuperGrok by xAI. While Grok contributed ideas, dialogue, and scene drafts, the final narrative, characters, themes, and all revisions are the work of the author, Larry E. Hume, VFW Post 8904, Center, Texas, August 9, 2026.
Sources:
1. Year: 1910; Census Place: Justice Precinct 6, Shelby, Texas; Roll: T624_1588; Page: 3B; Enumeration District: 0153; FHL microfilm: 1375601
URL:https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/7884/records/122093803?tid=90699282&pid=422137701733&ssrc=pt
2. Registration State: Texas; Registration County: Shelby County
URL: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6482/records/17106978
3. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Texas,_World_War_I_Records_-_FamilySearch_Historical_Records
4. Gilmore, R. M. The Champion. (Center, Tex.), Vol. 40, No. 37, Ed. 1 Wednesday, September 19, 1917, newspaper, September 19, 1917; Center, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1321350/: accessed August 7, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Fannie Brown Booth Memorial Library.
5. Gilmore, R. M. The Champion. (Center, Tex.), Vol. [40], No. 48, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 5, 1917, newspaper, December 5, 1917; Center, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1321361/: accessed August 7, 2026), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Fannie Brown Booth Memorial Library.
