William Lester Haston, Sr. - Victim of WWI Poison Gas Warfare
Part 2 - Post-War Death
The Story of a WWI (Haston) Veteran Who Ultimately Gave His Life for Our Country
We were told he was gassed while in the military and it damaged his heart. He had some hogs get lost during a big snowstorm and went looking for them. His heart was too bad to walk so far but he got lost in the snowstorm. A search party went looking for him. When they found him he was dead. He was 31 years old. Mary (his wife) was 7 months pregnant with his 2nd son at the time.
1820 - Lester Was Back at Home in His Father's Home
Grandpa's property (and where he grew up on his father's farm) was what was once owned by Sam Gamble and is located across the road from [what was] the James Robert Haston (Bluebird Lane) place. My brother said they had a lot of land.
Bluebird Lane – Van Buren County, TN
1821 - August 22 Marriage to Mary Miller
The "Killer Snowstorm" - December 4, 1923
We were told he was gassed while in the military and it damaged his heart. He had some hogs get lost during a big snowstorm and went looking for them. His heart was too bad to walk so far but he got lost in the snowstorm. A search party went looking for him. When they found him he was dead. He was 31 years old. Mary (his wife) was 7 months pregnant with his 2nd son at the time.
Intersection of the Spencer-Herbert Domain and Sparta-Pikeville Roads
The Herbert Domain was located in the Lonewood Community of Van Buren County, TN where the Taft Youth Center (formerly, the so-called State Farm) now is. It was such a prominent estate that the portion of Route 30 that goes from Spencer to Pikeville was known locally as the Herbert Domain Road. The Sparta-Pikeville Road is Highway 285, known informally as the Cane Creek Road. So, Lester Haston was found at or near the intersection of Route 30 and Route 285, very near what we know as the M.G. Haston (Century Farm) farm.
Daddy told my brother he was found about a mile from where he and grandma lived. There was another man with him. Grandpa was dead but the other man was not though he was frozen. The ones that found him [the other man] carried him to the cabin (called the Felton place) and placed him in a tub of water by the fireplace to warm his body. They had used all their matches trying to start a fire but the storm was so bad it wouldn't start up. They were trying to find their way back to the cabin.
I was unable to locate a death record for William Lester Haston. While Tennessee started keeping death records in 1908, it was not unusual to not have a death record during these early years, especially in rural areas. It is viewed that it was not until the mid-1930s that Tennessee was in compliance with its own law. As an example, for the year 1930, 30,000 death certificates were filed in Tennessee. Estimates are there were an additional 3,000 people who died that year that should have received a death certificate but did not. If the person died at home, the funeral home may have taken the body directly to the funeral home rather than to the hospital since the individual was already deceased. It’s possible that since no doctor was involved, no death certificate was issued.
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One thought on “William Lester Haston, Sr. – Part 2”
Thank you Wayne for your diligence over many months on searching for info on grandpa. YOUR GRATEFUL COUSIN Margie
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