Like many communities in the United States, Clinton celebrates Memorial Day by placing flags on graves at the city cemetery and holding a memorial service there.
This year, the lives of Henry County veterans are also being celebrated on the streets.
At the end of April, banners with veterans’ photos were raised on light poles around the Square and along five blocks of Second Street. Of the 72 veterans honored, many are familiar names due to connections to local Clinton businesses or families.
One veteran, Wayland “Wayne” Minor, is relatively unknown in Clinton but his name is recognized beyond the borders of Henry County, and also has a place in Missouri and American history.
“He was the last American soldier to die in World War 1,” said John Vandergriff, a Clinton resident. “The first commissioned American officer to die in World War 1 was a doctor who was also from Missouri.
“Missouri bookends America’s involvement in World War 1.”
John, a veteran from Deepwater who has an interest in military history, proposed Minor’s name for a banner. A 1984 Lakeland High School graduate, John is a 26-year veteran, first at Whiteman Air Force Base and then in the Army after joining the National Guard in Clinton.
He and spouse Donna Conrad Vandergriff, a 1984 Clinton High School graduate, served on the board of the Henry County Historical Society. Donna, a retired St. Louis County Police sergeant, was board president and interim museum director five years ago. During that time, she and John moved the veteran’s displays from an upstairs room downstairs to make them more accessible to veterans, and promoted events for veterans.
But it was only seven months ago, while researching notable WWI veterans from the state for a presentation at the Museum of Missouri Military History, that John discovered Wayland “Wayne” Minor. He learned that Minor was born in Calhoun, Mo., in August of 1894, the son of Ned and Emily Minor, former slaves. Census records show that Ned became a freed man, worked as a potter, and owned a farm in the Tebo Township area in the early 1900s.
“I can’t find the house he was born in,” John said of Wayne Miner. “I would like to put his banner up there.”
Wayne’s oldest sister, Minnie, married into the Shockley family in Calhoun, creating a connection to another veteran on the Square, Leroy Goodwin. Minnie stayed in Henry County, but when Wayne was 18, he and his family moved to Iowa, where he worked as a coal miner.
In October of 1917, at the age of 22, Wayne Minor joined the Army’s 92nd Division of Buffalo Soldiers.
“The motto of all the Buffalo soldiers, worn on a uniform patch, was ‘Deeds, Not Words,’” John said.
Minor (or Miner, in the enlistment clerk’s handwriting) shipped out to France and served in the infantry in the trenches, including during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. It was the last major American offensive of the war. Minor died on Nov. 11, 1918, three hours before the armistice was signed. He was 24 years old.
“He was killed by an explosion while delivering ammo to a machine gun nest,” John said. “He volunteered for the mission.”
In Minor’s honor, one of the oldest African-American Legion posts in the country is named the Wayne Miner (stet) American Legion Post (No. 149). It is located in Kansas City, where Miner signed up.
Clinton’s banners saluting veterans are sponsored by a grant from the Truman Lake Community Foundation and Clinton Main Street, which is dedicated to the vitality of downtown and the historic Clinton Square. Main Street got the word out through media and Facebook, according to Barry Glasscock, asking people to submit photos of their grandfathers, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who are veterans. Glasscock, of Glasscock jewelry stores, is a member of Main Street’s board of directors and banner committee.
There were so many responses, the committee had to divide them into two groups, Glasscock said. The first group of banners will stay up through Olde Glory Days, with the next round going up at the end of the summer, he said. All the spots have been filled, and Main Street is no longer accepting names, he added.
In the first group are Glasscock’s father, Ralph Glasscock Jr., a Navy veteran of World War 11, whose banner hangs in front of the Henry County Museum. Banners also hang on Second Street from Ohio Street north to the library, and off the Square on Jefferson and Main, near the Clinton Chamber of Commerce.
On Second Street, just before Green, look for Lyle D. Cummings, the father of Mayor Carla Moberly, and brothers Steve Cummings and David Cummings, owner with spouse Jennifer of Cummings Mens Wear.
Another veteran people may remember, Glasscock said, is Leroy Goodwin. Goodwin, whose mother was a Shockley, worked for Kansas City Power and Light and was co-pastor of Mount Mariah Church in Calhoun.
Former business owners whose names may be familiar to Clinton residents are Harry Mills of Mills Insurance, Tom Graham of the Graham Time Jewelry Store, and Ernest Harvey, Jr., spouse of Frances Harvey, who owned Quality Cleaners .
Also honored on Clinton’s Square are Jerome Wareham, a former Henry County sheriff, and Gary Michael and Ryan Morton, the Clinton police officers who died in the line of duty.
Almost half of the veterans are pictured in the uniform of the U.S. Army. Many are WWII veterans. About a dozen wear the white sailor cap or uniform of the Navy. Less than a dozen served in the Marine Corps, and a few were in the Air Force, which was founded in 1947. Of those, Don “Kit” Walker is piectured photo shows him standing next to his aircraft, helmet in hand.
Off the Square on Jefferson, near the Chamber of Commerce depot, is the only veteran representing the U.S. Coast Guard, Jerry Mosley.
The banner with Junior Leonard Wilson’s photo, on the south side of the Square, next to the Courthouse lawn, shows he served in SCAR-WAF, an acronym for Special Category Army Reassigned with the Air Force. It was a conglomerate of aviation engineers and other occupations who served in Korea and built airfields in Europe.
Wayne Minor was recommended for a distinguished service cross, John Vandergriff said, but it was never awarded, the paperwork being lost in the aftermath of the war. Minor’s body was not returned to the clay soil that his father’s hands shaped into vessels in Henry County, but was laid to rest in northeast France in the St. Mihiel American Cemetery — Plot B, Row 14, Grave 17.
In his research, John found an entry saying there is no record of the Minor family after 1920. Wayne Minor left behind few records and no direct descendants. But John Vandergriff believes that it is important for the community to remember him.
“People are always getting rid of history," John said. “I’m a lover of history. I don’t want any history to be forgotten.”
John gives programs on famous Missourians in World War 1 at the Museum of Missouri Military History in Jefferson City. The next one is Nov. 5 and 6. They include Harry Truman, Gen. John J. Pershing, astronomer Edwin Hubble, artist Thomas Hart Benson, William Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina in St. Louis, and Walt Disne, who dropped out of school at age 16 to try to enlist in the Army.
The story John tells of Missouri’s involvement in World War I begins with William Fitzsimmons of Kansas City, the doctor who died when the hospital where he was working was hit.
It concludes with the explosion of a German shell on a battlefield in France that killed a young man from Calhoun, whose face looks out from the past on a banner on Clinton Square.
“He was an American soldier,” John said. “He died for his country.”
