Gainesville historian Tom Carson recently provided biographical information about the five World War I veterans who were evidently Cooke County residents at the time of their deaths, and whose names are proposed to be soon included on Leonard Park’s military monument.
CORP. McKINLEY BRISCO
A native of Allen, Kan., McKinley was the third oldest of the six children of Richard and Emma Brisco, born Nov. 5, 1894.
At age 17, driven to make a name for himself, McKinley left his parents’ home and secured a position with the Fred Harvey people in Topeka as a truck boy.  Within a few years he had caught the eye of those training managers for the many Harvey House restaurants scattered over the United States and the impending marriage of a manager in Gainesville, provided McKinley with a chance to prove himself.
The job opportunity was the Harvey House, located inside Sante Fe Depot. Brisco's chance to move up the ladder came in May of 1917, when it was announced that the manager of the Gainesville Harvey House, Omar D. Dooms, would be taking a leave of absence to get married.
This event provided an opportunity for Brisco to ply his trade as manager of the Harvey House in O.D. Dooms absence. And his arrival in Gainesville was just before the national draft registration date for all men between the ages of 21 and 30, and hence in military reports his fate is forever tied to the city and the county.  
On June 5, 1917, the first day he was to be on the job at the Harvey House in Gainesville, Brisco was instead at the Cooke County Courthouse signing up for the draft.
On Sept. 19, 1917, Brisco was inducted into the army in Gainesville and headed via train to Camp Travis in San Antonio. By Nov. 8, 1917, he had obtained the rank of corporal in Company B of the 359th Infantry.  
His military career headed to an unexpected conclusion, however, when he was hospitalized at the base hospital March 18, 1918, with pneumonia. Nine days later, he died.

PRIVATE GEORGE CALDWELL
 The name George W. Caldwell does not appear on the bronze plaque ordered placed on the Cooke County Courthouse in 1920 bearing the names of those from Cooke County who paid the ultimate price for freedom in the Great War, but George Washington Caldwell, a farm laborer from Valley View, was the first drafted man from the county to die while in service in the new national army.  
His death, like many others, occurred during training at Camp Travis, San Antonio, Texas.  Also, like many others, his death was the result not from combat, but rather respiratory disease facilitated by pneumonia.
On his draft registration card in 1917, Caldwell was list as a natural born citizen, a Caucasian, born in Walnut Ridge, Ark., Nov. 23, 1887.  As for his occupation, George Washington Caldwell listed farm laborer and sited his place of employment as Valley View in Cooke County.
After taking in barely three months training with Company B of the 359th Infantry, Caldwell fell ill with pneumonia.  Being checked into the base hospital on Jan. 6, his condition declined and at 4:30 p.m. Jan. 12, 1918, Caldwell died. The cause of death is listed as lobar pneumonia, which had infected the right upper, middle and lower lobes.
The fact that no living relatives resided in Cooke County may have led to the overlooking of Caldwell as a Cooke County service man.  
CPL. FRANK B. KEEL
Cpl. Frank B. Keel of Gainesville was killed in action Sept. 26, 1918 in France.  As of 2012, his name is yet to appear on a memorial to the fallen in Cooke County.
Born to Thomas and Emma Keel of Grand Avenue, Gainesville in 1894, Frank Keel was the oldest of four children.
By now the family the family resided on North Taylor Street which would still show as the family address when Frank B. registered for the draft in June of 1917.
At Camp Travis, Keel was placed into Co B of the 359th Infantry. While at Camp Travis he rose quickly through the ranks making Private 1st Class March 1,1918, then corporal a month later April 1, 1918, and next sergeant two months later on June 1, 1918.
It was by telegram, on Nov. 1, 1918, that Mr. and Mrs. Tom Keel received word that their son was missing in action since he did not report from a patrol Sept. 26.  The disappearance came two weeks after Keel had participated in the tough fighting in the push for St Mihiel on Sept. 12.
And after eight months of conflicted reports, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Keel received a message from the war department that their son, Corporal Frank Keel, was killed in action on September, 26, 1918.  On the day of his death, he went out in command of a patrol in no man's land and failed to return, being reported missing in action at the time.
Frank's name was listed as a Cooke County casualty when the American Legion held a memorial service in mid-March of 1920 to honor the fallen men of Cooke County.  
The name also appeared on at least one of the lists compiled by the Cooke County memorial group in 1920 and was printed in the bulletin of a memorial service to the fallen of Cooke County which ran in the local paper in 1920.
Tragically, when the information was gathered to place the names of the local boys who had lost their lives while in service to their country in the Great War was put together, the name Frank B. Keel was omitted or, perhaps, the engraver did not include the name by accident.  In the spot where the name should have been is a blank.  Consequently, as of 2010 the name is on neither the courthouse plaque nor the Leonard Park Monument.
Keel was buried in The St. Mihiel American Cemetery, Plot D Row 11 Grave 36, Thiaucourt, France.  


OSCAR JACKSON SPRAGGINS
 Bugler Oscar Jackson Spraggins, who is buried with his mother and father and other siblings at Era, is listed as a Denton County loss on the Denton County records.
According to the information found on the massive gray headstone, which in recent years has begun to lean precariously forward in the Era Cemetery the young soldier was killed in action Nov. 2, 1918, while serving with Company B of the 359th Infantry.  Markings on the headstone indicate that Spraggins was a member of the Masonic Lodge and Woodmen of the Word.  
A photo at one time was mounted between the two emblems but over the years either time or vandals robbed the headstone of the young bugler’s image.
Spraggins name is not included on Cooke County memorials as of 2010.  
ALBERT WADDELL
In reality Albert Waddell of Valley View was drafted into the service and was among the last of the Cooke County men in uniform to die.
Born in Shreveport, La., on Feb. 27, 1892, Albert Waddell was 25 years of age, married and the father of a child when he registered for the draft in the summer of 1917.  
On his draft registration card, filled out in Cooke County, Waddell was listed as an Ethiopian of medium height and medium build with black hair and black eyes, and was listed as a natural born citizen employed in Valley View on the farm of R.C. Edward.
During the war, around 70 black men from Cooke County served in the military.  Of the total, four enlisted while the rest were draftees like Albert Waddell called by their country to serve in France.  All of the draftees served as non-commissioned personnel.  
Inducted in Gainesville, the 26-year-old Valley View farmer was initially placed in 5 Co. 2 Bn. 165 Depot Brigade but ten days later he was transferred to 12 Company 165 Depot Brigade where after less than a month he would be assigned to Company D 531 Engineers with the 24 Service Company. On June 30, 1918, the unit made the jump overseas, and on August 1 Private Waddell was promoted to Private 1st class.
But after surviving the Germans, Albert Waddell fellprey to respiratory disease, and after a brief stint in the hospital died of pneumonia on March 15, 1919.  The late date of his death made him the last Cooke County casualty of the Great War.  No one know where he is buried.  
His name does not appear on the rosters of any of the American Cemeteries in Europe.  Waddell was a native of Louisiana and according to his military records he was born in Shreveport as was his wife Mary.
The date of the death, March 15, 1919, makes Albert Waddell one of the last of the Cooke County boys to die during the period of the Great War.