Samuel Arthur Hewitt
Samuel Arthur Hewitt was born on 4 August 1898 in Buffalo County, Wisconsin, on the Mississippi River. He was the fifth child of Walter G. Hewitt and Jennett Mattson. In 1900 the family lived in Maxville township, Buffalo County: Walter, 37, Jennett, 24, and their children Mamie, Bessie, Ralph, Lois and Samuel, who was one. By 1905 they had moved up the Chippewa River to Sampson township in Chippewa County, and by 1910 Samuel was living in the city of Chippewa Falls with his mother and his brothers and sisters.
He served as a private in the United States Army in the First World War. His government headstone carries the letters PH, for the Purple Heart, the medal given to soldiers wounded in action.
He married Dolly May James, a Wisconsin woman three years younger. In 1930 the census found them in Flambeau township, Rusk County, in the logging country of northern Wisconsin. Samuel was 31. Dolly was 29, and they had six children: Dorcas, 10, Jessie, 8, Alzada, 6, Beatrice, 4, Samuel Jr., 2, who had been born at Joplin, Missouri, and Geraldine, a baby. More sons followed, Rudolph about 1932 and later Clinton John and Eugene Carl, born in Missouri and Arkansas.
In the spring of 1942 every man born between 1877 and 1897 and many born just after had to register for the draft, the registration later called the old man's draft. Samuel registered in Arkansas at 43. He gave his date of birth as 4 August 1898 and his birthplace as "Pipen", Wisconsin, most likely Pepin. Asked where he lived, he wrote "uncertain". His mail went in care of Thomas T. Wilson at 319 West Second Street, Little Rock, and his employer was "own", with no place of business. A clerk later added an address on Route 1, Box 63, at Ravenden, in the Ozark hills of northeast Arkansas.
By 1950 Dolly was living in Kansas City and gave her status as separated. Samuel ended his life in Arizona. He died at Phoenix on 9 August 1963, five days after his sixty fifth birthday, and was buried in Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery there under a flat bronze government marker: "SAMUEL A HEWITT, WISCONSIN, PVT US ARMY, WORLD WAR I PH, AUG 4 1898, AUG 9 1963".
Sources
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Cite: Heirology, "Samuel Arthur Hewitt (1898-1963)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/samuel-arthur-hewitt-1898-1963-257653.