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Veterans Monument Planned for Holmes Water Park
By Louis Conerly

At the January (2004) meeting, Walthall County Post #56 of The American Legion voted to build
a monument to the Veterans of Walthall County at the Holmes Water Park in Tylertown, Miss.

Plans were for a flat monument in the shape of Walthall County and located just south of the
bridge connecting the parking lot with the area in front of the stage. The monument will be
about 18 feet down the left side and 19 feet across the bottom. Bricks engraved with veteran
names will then be mounted on a concrete base. The Pearl River Basin Development District,
the Town of Tylertown, and Walthall County have all approved the location for the monument.

Post #56 also agreed to provide bricks for those county veterans who gave their lives while in
service to their country at no cost to their families. Accordingly, one of the first tasks was to
identify Walthall County veterans who were killed or died in service.

How we identified KIAs:

Veteran names with gold stars on the Veterans Memorial Board at the Walthall County
Courthouse have been listed and compared with the related list in the Veterans Issue of the
Tylertown Times on November 10, 1994. I then reviewed issues of the Tylertown Times on file
in the Chancery Clerk's office for 1942, 1943, 1944, and 1945 for articles on veterans who gave
their lives in service--both veterans who were killed in action and veterans who died in
non-battle incidents. Walthall County casualties of World War II, the Korean War, and the
Vietnam War were also obtained from the Internet.

There are a couple of points that I would urge you to consider when determining if a name
should be considered as a Walthall veteran. The first is where he lived. Veterans that received
their mail from Jayess or Kokomo may or may not have lived in Walthall County. Sgt. Plummer
Ben Terrell, killed in France in 1944, is listed on the Walthall County Courthouse Board, but the
Internet lists him as a Lawrence County casualty. Should he be classified as a Walthall or
Lawrence County veteran?

During the war years, the Tylertown Times carried many articles of casualties of the war. It was
clear that most of these casualties had either been residents of Walthall County, or that they
were not, but had families with close ties to the county and provided news of their death to the
Times to let friends know of the death. The county of some casualties reported in the Times
were not so easy to classify.

For example on September 2, 1943, the Tylertown Times reported that James Lee Fortenberry,
the son of Mrs. Minnie Estelle Fortenberry, was reported missing in action in the North Africa
area including Sicily. He is not listed on the Walthall County Courthouse Board or in the 1994
Veterans list issue of the Times. A copy of The Fortenberry Families of South Mississippi in the
Walthall County Library shows that many of his relatives were from the Silver Springs area near
Progress in Pike County. So if that is the area he is from, he was properly not included as a
Walthall County veteran.

The second consideration is that family and friends often use the second name as the primary
name while the military will use the first name. As an example, Collins Cooper, son of Rev.
W. R. Cooper, pastor of Tylertown Baptist Church, was reported in the Tylertown Times to be
missing in action in the South Pacific in 1943. Then in 1945, the Times reported that Reuben C.
Cooper, son of Rev. W. R. Cooper, who had been carried as missing since 1943, was now
presumed dead. Reuben Collins Cooper was the full name of Rev. Cooper's son.

Here is an example of what appears to be another name problem. Robert Ballard is listed with
a gold star on the courthouse board. But, the March 16, 1944, issue of the Tylertown Times
reported that Pvt. Chesterfield Ballard, son of Mr. And Mrs. Robert Ballard of Sartinville was
missing in action since January 21, 1944. The Internet shows that Chesterfield Ballard is
buried in the Sicily-Rome Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy. On the other hand, his dad, Robert Ballard,
lived until 1959 and was buried in the New Hope Cemetery near Monticello.





			Photos of Monument and Veterans Day 2004 Dedication, courtesy of Louis Conerly.