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World War I is also called "The Great War" because of its scale and carnage. The United States declared war on Germany in 1917, and it is estimated that more than 400,000 U.S.
men and women enlisted during the 19 months of fighting, although some did not serve in Europe. Of those who did, 53,000 did not make it back. Service members either volunteered or were drafted.
Berkeley County, a much different place back then, was the home of 534 service members between 1917 and 1918. Due to some painstaking work, their names are listed on Berkeley County Museum’s website, BerkeleyCountyMuseum.org .
Berkeley County Museum Director Chelsy Clark Proper said compiling the information is a labor of love. The list shows all people with Berkeley County connections who were born or lived in the county and who enlisted in the U.S.
forces during WWI. The names were compiled from the multi-volume “Official Roster of South Carolina Soldiers, Sailors and Marines in the World War, 1917-18,” released in 1929. “I have gone through the 1929 list of every soldier, every nurse, every marine that registered from Berkeley County and I put them on our website,” Proper said.
From that list, she now searches for any information on relatives who can offer additional information on the service members to get more details on the story of each of the 534 enlisted members. “I have started to compile,” she said. “I have asked residents for pictures of anybody in their family.
I have an ancestry site I look through.” She said she even goes as far as trolling through graveyards to look for familiar names. It all started in 2018 on the 100th anniversary of the armistice that Germany signed to end the war.
She is doing good work, considering the nationwide database has about 2,000 names of the thousands who served at the time. “On our website on the database, all of those that are italicized were killed in the war or died of disease or didn’t come home for one reason or another,” she said. “And if we have a link next to their name, we have a photo or an enlistment form, some sort of media.
” Providing and finding as much information as possible is her goal. She is driven more by their whole story than their war story. “It’s something that really interests me,” she said.
“I am more of a social history person. So, I think it’s fascinating learning about what they did before or after the war. That kind of thing.
” Proper said she is always accepting new leads. To contact her, call the Berkeley County Museum at 843-899-5101 or email [email protected] .
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