Honoring Veterans
According to the United States Flag Code, flags are not to be left on veteran's graves all year because they could get soiled, torn, or faded. But it is appropriate to display them on Veterans Day, Armed Forces Day, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, and from Memorial Day through to Flag Day.
At Western Heights Cemetery we plan to place flags on the known veterans’ graves and conduct cemetery tours on both Memorial Day (May 27) and Veterans Day (November 11) this year.
Below - photos from Veterans Day 2023 at Western Heights:
VETERANS' BIOGRAPHIES
The 17 currently known veterans at Western Heights Cemetery:
1. World War II era veteran Pvt. Louis Lee Looney was born in 1919 at Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, the 3rd of six children. He joined the National Guard in 1940 and died in 1943 in the US Navy Hospital at Parris Island, South Carolina when he was 24 years old. The cause of death on his death certificate was listed as "to be determined."
2. Civil War veteran Larkin Manes Jr was born in 1843 in Tennessee, the 6th of 9 children. He joined the Union forces, enlisting in the Arkansas 2nd Cavalry at age 20 on July 20, 1863. After the war, he married Henrietta Josephine Chenowth in Arkansas in 1868, and they had 4 children. He is the third oldest of the 17 known veterans buried here, dying in Dallas in 1930 at the age of 87. His wife died 2 years later at age 79 and is buried nearby, as is her mother.
3. Unfortunately, we have no information regarding veteran Fred Calvin other than his broken and partially missing stone indicates he belonged to a Kansas unit. The stone was already broken as of the 1992 DGS survey. However, the back of this marker says N 558. There is a Fred Calvin WWI in Fort Leavenworth military cemetery and it is shows at plot N 558!! What can this mean? Is one of them a cenotaph? Neither one says "In Memory of" at the top which is the usual indication of a military cenotaph.
4. World War II veteran Thomas Leatherman Jr was born in 1925 and joined the US Naval Reserve at age seventeen and a half in November 1942 and served until December 1945, achieving rank of Aviation Machinist's Mate 3rd Class. He died in a car accident in 1946 at the age of 21. Both his parents are also buried here as is his mother Flora Bell Thewlis Leatherman's father, Albert Thewlis. Her mother however, is buried at La Reunion. Many members of the Leatherman family are buried here.
5. Civil War Confederate veteran William Thomas Tuggle was a member of Walker's Division and Young's regiment. He was born in Missouri in 1843 and lived in Dallas for 78 years until passing in 1925 at age 82. His wife, Mary Ellen Cole Tuggle was the first surviving non-native girl born in Dallas County according to her marker. They lived at 1210 Fort Worth Pike and had 7 children, 3 of whom are also buried here.
6. Veteran Henry Elam Mills was born in Texas in 1872 and served as an Army Field Clerk. He died at 50 years old in 1933. According to his death certificate, he was a postal clerk at the time of his death. His parents Robert Joseph Mills and Elfleda Ellis Coombes Mills are buried here along with brother Robert Allen Mills, sister Florence Ruby Mills, and grandfather William Holmes Mills who was also a veteran.
7. Civil War Confederate Captain Zachariah Coombes was born in Kentucky in 1833 and came to Dallas at age 9 in 1842. He was county clerk in Dallas County and later county judge for many years. About 1870 he began active law practice and at one time represented Dallas County in the State Legislature. He died in 1895 at age 62
As Grand Master of the Masons in Texas, Zachariah laid the 12,000 pound cornerstone of the Texas State Capitol in Austin on March 2nd 1885, the 49th anniversary of Texas independence.
His son William Nelson Coombes is buried here as is his first wife, Rebecca Finch Bedford Coombes. His second wife, Louise Harriett Coleman Coombes is buried in Austin.
8. World War II era veteran Raymond Griffith was born in Pennsylvania in 1928. He served as Private, First Class in the Marines just after World War II from Feb 1946 to Nov 1947, enlisting one month before his 18th birthday. In 1950, he was working as a postman in Dallas and married Gloria Mae “Doddie” Sanford-Bassett in Dallas. They had one son, Stephen, in 1951. Raymond died in 1960 at the age of 31. His mother Donna Floreine Walton Griffith is buried here also as are her parents and her brother.
NEW
9. William Holmes Mills was born in 1809 in Kentucky. He served in the Civil War, Union, infantry unit from Kentucky's 27th Regiment, Company C. He died in 1903 at the age of 94, the oldest of the 17 known veterans buried here. His son Robert Joseph Mills is also buried here as is three of Robert's five children -- Robert Allen Mills, Florence Ruby mills, and Henry Elam mills, himself a veteran
10. Robert James Lowry, was born 1836 in Franklin County Mississippi. He was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War serving in Company G of the Arkansas 3rd Regiment, Hood's Brigade. <<<< SOURCE?? He died in 1921 at the age of 85 and is buried next to his second wife Mary Smith Lowry.
MARKERS MISSING
11. Addison Pate was born in Weakly County, Tennessee in 1834. According to Compiled Service Records for Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Texas, he was Union -- a private in the First Regiment, Texas Cavalry, Company C. According to his obituary he was Confederate. He died in 1927 at age 92, the second oldest of the 17 known veterans buried here. His wife Melissa Jane Hudspeth Pate is also buried here
12. Williams M. Bullock was born in Chambers County Alabama in 1843. He was a Confederate infantryman serving in Clark's Regiment until it disbanded and then served in the First Texas Partisan Rangers. He was severely wounded in Arkansas and after recovering served in the Quartermasters Department. At the end of the war he was an orderly to General Kirby Smith and delivered the papers of surrender to the Federal commander. He died in 1901 at age 58 and his wife Martha Jane is also buried here.
13. Civil War Confederate soldier George Routh's marker, now missing, indicated at the time of the 1992 inventory he was a Colonel on General Robert E. Lee's staff. (If that's what was written on his marker I'm sure that made it tempting for theft which is why we no longer have it. -- Van)
14. Richard Braxton Woods, born 1840 Clay County Missouri married Nancie Francis Proffit (buried here as is her father Pleasant W. Proffitt). They had five children one of whom, Ora Myrtle Woods Morris, is also buried here. He served in the Civil War and died in 1925 at 84 years of age.
15. Enos W Walker is supposed by most researchers to be synonymous with the Enos Walker born in England in 1845.
He served in the Civil War in the NY 76th Regiment. He married Mary Margaret Berry in 1871 and they had three children before she passed away in 1882. Enos also outlived all three of their children.
Enos next married Emma Catherine Bates around 1886 and had Roy Willington Walker. Enos died 1912 of fractured ribs at age 66 and is buried in Western Heights Cemetery with no known marker or burial location. His son Julian P, daughter-in-law Sadie Ruth and grandchildren Ruth and Enos M Walker are all buried in a north-south line in the central left section of the cemetery, and Enos W Walker may be buried nearby.
16. Rev. James Benjamin Bennett, Civil War Veteran and Methodist Circuit Rider, was born in Mississippi in 1831. He married Sarah Jane Huffman (buried here) and they had 8 children, one of whom is also buried here -- Mary Jane Bennett Blackburn and her husband Russell P. Blackburn. James died in 1914 at the age of 83.
17. Andrew Ezekiel Williams was born in Philadelphia in 1847 to German immigrants and had two brothers. He worked as a button maker before serving in Company A of the 2nd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery. He was living in Galveston according to the 1870 census and Lampasas County according to the 1880 census. He married America Sidney Dial in 1873 and they had 10 children in 20 years before divorcing in 1893. He died in 1914 at 66 years.
His daughter Andrew Mable "May" Williams English and her daughter Dorothy English are also buried here as well as another of his daughters, Margaret E “Maggie” Williams Lytle and her daughter Sadie Ruth Lytle Walker and Sadie's daughter "Baby Ruth" Walker.
PENDING VERIFICATION
18. World War I veteran (?) Henry Carl Struck Sr (1890 - 1955) married Hazel Heist and had 4 children, 3 of whom are buried here near their parents and Hazel's parents. (The 4th child, the only boy, was named after his father and served in the Korean War and was cremated but several individuals of the LaBelle family, the surname of his wife's 5 children, "who he raised as his own" are buried nearby.) There is a Henry Carl Struck who served in World War I, I'm just not sure if it's this guy. Our Henry's obituary mentions nothing about being a veteran.