World War I Veteran Gets Grave Marker at Greenwood Cemetery in Wheeling
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WHEELING -- West Virginia Army National Guard Sgt. Brandon Taylor loves looking up his family's history, including its military history. He took special notice of his grandfather Millard Taylor and great uncle Amos Taylor, both veterans of World War I.
As he researched further, he learned something that he didn't like -- that his great uncle Amos had been laid to rest in an unmarked grave.
So began Taylor's work to secure that World War I veteran's marker for his great uncle, work that ultimately came to fruition earlier this month.
The Taylor family celebrated the placement of Amos' marker at Greenwood Cemetery in a small ceremony that also was attended by the Moundsville Veterans Honor Guard and the West Virginia Army National Guard Honor Guard.
"It was great to bestow on him a little bit of an honor that I think he deserved," Taylor said. "I didn't know the man, but with his service, I believe he deserved it."
Both Millard Taylor and Amos Taylor made it home from France in 1919, but Amos had been exposed to mustard gas during combat, something that severely affected him through the rest of his short life. He died in 1925 at age 35, after being treated for tuberculosis and other respiratory issues.
Brandon Taylor had started down the path of learning more about his great uncle in 2017. It was later that year that he discovered his great uncle's gravesite. That discovery was important for the Taylor family, who has a tradition of laying flowers on the gravesites and placing flags on Veterans Day.
But Brandon Taylor was dismayed to see that his great uncle's grave was unmarked. He doesn't know the story behind the burial, but thought times could have been tight in the few years before the Great Depression, and that the unmarked grave may have been all that could have been afforded.
Fast forward to the present, and Taylor felt his great uncle at least deserved a marker. He started looking at the process of getting a veteran's marker, finding the list of specific information the United States Military needed to confirm his great uncle's military service. Unfortunately, that wasn't information that could easily be found. A fire in the 1970s at the National Archives destroyed many of the records from World War I, Taylor said.
Taylor would not give up. He scoured the internet for years trying to unearth any information that would have been the key to securing that grave marker. A breakthrough finally came in 2019 and 2020, when Taylor was stationed in Kuwait in Operation Inherent Resolve. He happened upon a Facebook page managed by the National Guard and posted about his great uncle. SFC Arron Heft replied and became interested in the story.
Heft supplied Taylor with more information on his great uncle - a service ID number and the fact that he likely served in the Meuse Argonne Offensive, a site of brutal combat in WWI. It still wasn't the official information Taylor needed, but it was steps in the right direction.
When Taylor returned to the U.S. in late 2020, he resumed his search. Earlier this year, looking back at information Heft sent him, he found that his great uncle had been inducted in Cleveland, Ohio. He searched "Amos Taylor" and "Cleveland, Ohio" and found his great uncle's Veterans Bureau ID card, the information he needed to confirm his service.
"I immediately called my dad," Taylor said. "Then I sat back in my chair and was like, was this here the whole time or was it something that was just found? I didn't care. I started putting the packet together and said, 'This is going to the VA today.'"
It wasn't long after that Taylor learned the VA had ordered the marker and it was on its way. He contacted Greenwood Cemetery about placing the marker and the cemetery told him it would handle the cost.
Last weekend, the family gathered around that new marker and Taylor's father Gary Taylor received a U.S. flag in honor of his uncle's service. Taylor couldn't give enough thanks to the WVANG Honor Guard and Moundsville Veterans Honor Guard for coming.
"They do a phenomenal job," he said. "I can't give them enough kudos."
Though it took nearly a century, Amos Taylor was given the honor his great nephew was certain he deserved and worked for years to attain.
"It meant a lot," Taylor said. "I don't know what happens when we die, but the least we can do is remember those who did. I felt the least I could do for him was this."