Charley Will Limerick
Charley Will Limerick was born on 12 March 1913 at Edom, in Van Zandt County, in the piney woods of East Texas. His parents were William Richard Limerick (1881 to 1945) and Susie Lutisha Luce (1888 to 1982). His brothers and sisters were Richard Franklin Limerick, Hampton "Billy" Limerick, who died in 1943, and Violet Marie Limerick Freiley.
He went north to the wheat and cotton country of Kiowa County, Oklahoma, and married Nell Ellen "Nellie" Crocker of Gotebo. Their shared gravestone at Lawton gives the wedding date as 31 October 1936, cut on a ribbon beneath two linked rings. Zada Nell Limerick, named for her mother, was born at Gotebo on 7 September 1931, five years before that date, when Charley was eighteen and Nellie sixteen.
Charley made a career of the United States Army. His service number, RA-6259667, carries the prefix the Army gave to men who enlisted in the Regular Army as volunteers. In the Korean War he was a master sergeant in Battery A of the 15th Field Artillery Battalion, part of the 2nd Infantry Division.
On 12 February 1951 the battery was moving in a convoy along a narrow mountain road near Changbong-ni, in central Korea, when it was attacked from the rear. That week the Chinese army had launched a major offensive around Hoengsong, and the 2nd Division's artillery took some of the heaviest losses of the war on those roads. The men left their vehicles and took cover. Under fire, Charley went back to the battery's supply truck, which enemy bullets had set alight, and put the fire out. For this he received the Silver Star, the Army's third-highest award for gallantry in combat.
After the Army, Charley and Nellie lived at Lawton, next to the Army post at Fort Sill. Nellie died there on 17 December 1993, five months after their daughter Zada. Charley lived on another eighteen years. He died at Lawton on 14 April 2011, at the age of ninety-eight, and was buried beside Nellie in Highland Cemetery, Block 59, Lot 41.
Sources
Find a Grave, memorial 24431587, Zada Nell Limerick Taylor-Schantz (7 Sep 1931 - 19 Jul 1993), Gotebo Cemetery, Gotebo, Kiowa County, Oklahoma
Proves: Names Charley Will Limerick (1913-2011) as Zada's father, alongside her children Terri Lynn and William Samuel Taylor and her husband Willis Edward Schantz.
Find a Grave, memorial 76683922, Charley Will Limerick (12 Mar 1913 - 14 Apr 2011), Highland Cemetery, Lawton, Comanche County, Oklahoma
Proves: Lists Zada Nell Limerick Taylor-Schantz as his child and Nell Ellen Crocker Limerick as his wife; gives his birth at Edom, Texas, and his parents William Richard Limerick and Susie Lutisha Luce.
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Cite: Heirology, "Charley Will Limerick (1913-2011)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/charley-will-limerick-1913-2011-d8054a.