CPL Samuel W Temple

CPL Samuel W Temple was born in July 1893 the son of Thomas B. and Annie Jane (Orgain) Temple of Dinwiddie County, Virginia. Samuel's father died when he was 4 and his mother never remarried. The family farmed in Dinwiddie and then moved to Norfolk where 3 of the children worked to support the family, including Samuel who worked in a grocery (at age 16). Samuel looks a bit disheveled in this photo but he must have been pretty sharp to have made Corporal by the time of his death. He had been enlisted in A Company 4th Virginia Infantry of the Virginia Army National Guard but due to the need to meet Virginia's quota he was transferred to the new 116th Infantry Regiment.  He was serving with D Company 116th Infantry when he died 12 Oct 1918. Buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, his mother was one of many mothers who made the pilgrimage to France to visit their sons' graves. Annie made the trip in 1930 at the age of 70. By this time she had already lost 4 of her 8 children.