PFC Cleveland Clanton

courtesy of Natalie Maynor

PFC Cleveland Clanton was born 20 Jun 1892 in Redding, Mississippi, the youngest of 8 children born to Theodore Robert and Sarah Alice (Gorrell) Clanton.  The family farmed in Grenada County, Mississippi. 

Ordered to report for the draft in February 1918, Cleveland went first to Camp Pike, Arkansas.  He was then sent to Camp McClellan, Alabama and assigned to K Company 116th Infantry.  In June 1918, Cleveland and his unit were sent to France aboard the USS Finland.  After training, K Company moved with the regiment into the trenches and sometime during the big push in October, PFC Clanton was wounded.  He died of his wound(s) on 5 Nov 1918. 

PFC Clanton was repatriated and re-interred in Chapel Hill Cemetery in Redding, Mississippi.

Paternal grandfather, James William Clanton, served in K Company 15 Mississippi Infantry. Maternal grandfather Ralph Washington Gorrell, served in K Company 13th North Carolina Infantry in the Civil War. Nephew, Guy E. Clanton, went missing in action and presumably died in the Philippines in 1942 while serving with 13th Bomber Squadron 3rd Bomber Group.