Private Horace C. Derby, HQ Company, Service No 793250
When brothers put on the uniform of the United States Military to defend their Country during wartime, a mother always wonders if she will ever see her sons again. Brothers William K. Derby (B. abt. 1897), Horace C. Derby (B. March 22, 1901) and Dean S. Derby (b. abt. 1903) pose for this photo which was likely taken in January or February of 1919 after the war ended.
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In the above photo on the left is youngest brother Dean S. Derby who was then a student in an R. O. T. C. class, center is the eldest brother William McKeely Derby who was serving in the Navy at the rank of Radio Electrician First Class, and on the right is Pvt. Horace C. Derby who was with the HQ Company, 39th Artillery Brigade, CAC. The photo was stamped "The FARBER STUDIO Norfolk, VA." on the back.
Horace Cyrus Derby was born Auburn, New York on March 22, 1901 and was the second son of Maude Sterns and Horace Oscar Derby. In 1910 the Derby family lived in Rochester, New York where Horace Oscar Derby was working at the local telegraph office along with his wife Maude. Horace Oscar and Maude would have three sons, all being born in New York State.
William was the eldest of the three boys and about 1914 when he turned 18-years old joined the U. S. Navy for a 3-year term. At the end of his 3-years in the Navy William returned home to his family who were now living in Atlanta, Georgia due to Horace and Maude moving there for work. They had taken jobs as telegraph operators for the Western Union Telegraph Company and when William got out of the Navy he took a job as a messenger for the Western Union Company. As the spring of 1917 came forth America was now at war and William went back in the Navy serving as a Radio Electrician First Class. Horace C. likely enlisted into the Army early that summer and was serving within the Coast Artillery Corps. He may have been assigned to a Coast Artillery Company along the Gulf Coast. The youngest brother Dean who would have been in high school in the summer of 1917 was following in his brother footsteps in service to their Country and had joined a R. O. T. C. class at his school.
Horace C. Derby was serving in a Coast Artillery Company until August of 1918 when he was selected for service overseas in France. Each month so many men of the Coast Artillery Corps then serving in the States were randomly selected for Automatic Replacement Drafts and sent overseas for duty. This was how Pvt. Derby got to France.
On August 14, 1918 at noon First Lt. Romie D. Judd in command, along with Second Lt. William F. Searle and 249 enlisted men who formed the August Automatic Replacement Draft from the Coast Artillery Corps went aboard the USS Aeolus then at Newport News, Virginia and headed out for the Atlantic and France.
Already in France was a new Coast Artillery Corps Brigade that had just formed from men already in France. Pvt. Derby was then assigned to the Headquarters Company of this Brigade. This unit was known as the 39th Artillery Brigade and would be the command and control for three regiments of artillery, which were the 44th, 51st and 54th Artillery Regiments. The 39th Brigade was on the line during the war although not right at the front lines, they would have been stationed just rear of the heavy fighting behind the 44th and 51st Artillery Regiments who both were on the front lines. The 54th Regiment was serving as a replacement regiment, and they were staffed as a combat regiment with men fully trained and ready. The purpose of this regiment was when an artillery regiment on the front need a replacement man they would pull a fully trained man ready for duty from the 54th Artillery. This man would be ready to pick up his duties the moment he arrived and would not need to be trained.
It is likely that during the war Pvt. Horace Derby may have been to the front during the fighting as he would have been very close while with the 39th Brigade. And it is certain that he saw first-hand the devastation and the wounded men of the combat lines. But within three-month’s time of his arrival in France the war had ended. The 39th Brigade was removed off the forward area and moved west across France to the coast city of Brest, France. There the 39th Brigade would await transportation back home.
It was on January 2, 1919 the American armored cruiser USS Huntington was in the harbor in Brest, France. Together with the 57th Artillery, CAC the 39th Brigade went aboard the cruiser and steamed for home on a winter crossing of the Atlantic. Once they arrived in the States the 39th Brigade went to Camp Merritt where the 39th Brigade was demobilized. Pvt. Horace Derby would have been Honorably Discharged in late January or early February of 1919.
Now back in civilian life Horace derby went home, but now home was in Norfolk, Virginia as his parents and his brothers all were living there. Both his parents were working as telegraph operators, both for the Seaboard Railroad. By January of 1920 all three brothers were home and William the eldest was out of the navy and was then working as a clerk at the Norfolk Naval Base. Horace had taken a job with the government as a Federal Census enumerator for the 1920 Federal Census. Dean the youngest brother was still in school.
In 1925 when Horace was 24-years old he married Carrie Marie Squires (June 27, 1901-December 4, 1990) of North Carolina. Carrie went by her middle name of Marie most of the time. By the spring of 1930 Marie and Horace were still in Norfolk, Virginia living in a rented apartment located at 3210 Llewellyn Ave. This was a white concrete block apartment building that sat on the corner of Llewellyn Ave. and Broadway Street, where the rent was Thirty-dollars a month. The apartment building still stands today. There they lived with Marie’s mother Mary A. Squires who at the time was a 70-year old widow. Horace worked as a clerk for the Norfolk and Western Railroad and Marie was then a stenographer for a local basket factory.
By 1935 Marie and Horace had moved to another home at 314 Cape View Ave, near the corner of Cape View and Edgewood Ave. in Norfolk. Horace was still working for the Norfolk and Western Railroad but Marie had taken a job working as a bookkeeper for a chemical company. Marie and Horace would not have any children during their lives and Horace would retire from the railroad. By 1940 Horace’s parents were still alive and both were living on Barton Ave. which was about a mile away from the Elizabeth River in Norfolk where his father still was working as a telegraph operator for the Norfolk and Western railroad.
Marie and Horace C. Derby would live the rest of their lives in Norfolk. On November 28, 1984 Horace passed away and was buried in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Norfolk. His widowed wife would live on in Norfolk moving into a retirement home on Llewellyn Ave. the same street Marie and Horace lived on back in the 1930’s. On December 4, 1990 Marie passed away and she was buried next to her husband Horace.