Tag: Military Service

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Crutcher, Benjamin (“Ben”) Harrison  (B.S., Dairy Foods and Industry, 1925; M.S., Dairy Husbandry and Comparative Physiology, 1931)

Headshot of Benjamin Harrison Crutcher

Benjamin Harrison Crutcher was born 6 August 1890 in Harrodsburg City, Kentucky, to Silas Crutcher, a plasterer and sometime clergyman, and his wife, Anna (aka Ann or Anne) M. Worrell Crutcher. On 26 April 1918, Benjamin enlisted in the Army. He was discharged 5 July 1919. Crutcher graduated from Tuskegee Institute, Florida A & M College in Tallahassee, Florida, and Iowa State College, where he earned a B.S. in Dairy Foods and Industry in 1925 and an M.S. in Dairy Husbandry and Comparative Physiology in 1931. When Crutcher earned his B.S. in 1925-26, he was one of only 13 Black regular session students at ISC (“A Record,” 1926). His classmates included Compton Chapman, Maurice Thomasson, and Willa Juanita Ewing.

Crutcher married Cleopatra Baker in 1922, while taking some time off from college coursework. As an Iowa State undergraduate, in 1924-25, Crutcher roomed at 2522 Chamberlain, with Holloway Smith, Thomas Whibby, and Harold Tutt.

In 1935, as a Dairyman at Tuskegee Institute, he was listed as an attendee at the banquet held by the Iowa State Alumni Association for Frederick D. Patterson’s inauguration as President of Tuskegee. By 1942, he was Head of the Animal Husbandry Department and assistant to the Director of Agriculture at Georgia State College, Savannah. In a second career, Crutcher worked as a medical technologist for the Veterans Administration in Tuskegee, Alabama, where he died on 3 August 1981. At the time of his death, Crutcher, age 91, was the oldest active member of the Alpha Nu Lambda Chapter (Tuskegee) of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity (“Omega Chapter,” 1981).

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: The animal parasites of the woodchuck (Marmota monax L.) with special reference to the protozoa, 1936 

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://quicksearch.lib.iastate.edu/permalink/01IASU_INST/174tg9m/alma990007117870102756 

Sources

A record of the Negro at college 1926. (1926, August). The crisis: A record of the darker races, p. 174.

Omega chapter. (1981, Fall). Sphinx 67. p. 82.

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Perry, Benjamin Luther, Jr. (M.S., Agricultural Economics, 1935)

Headshot of Benjamin Luther Perry

Benjamin Luther Perry, Jr., was born in Eatonville, Florida, on 27 February 1918 to parents Benjamin Luther Perry, Sr., and Annie Lee Perry. He received a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Education from Florida A&M and a Master’s in Agricultural Economics from Iowa State College in 1942. He enlisted in the US Army in 1943 and was discharged in 1946. He married Helen Neomah (Shown as “Naomi” on Marriage Certificate) Harrison 12 August 1944 in Monroe, North Carolina.  After serving in the Army, he completed a Ph.D. in Land Economics at Cornell University. He was struck by a car on 10 March 1997 and died eleven days later, on 21 Mar 1997, in Tallahassee, Florida.

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: Economics of agronomic responses to lime and phosphate on 48 Iowa farm unit-test demonstration farms, 1937-1941 

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://quicksearch.lib.iastate.edu/permalink/01IASU_INST/174tg9m/alma990001486320102756 

Iowa State College Dissertation Title: Present status of Agricultural Departments in 17 Negro land-grant colleges, 1935

Iowa State University Catalog Record:https://quicksearch.lib.iastate.edu/permalink/01IASU_INST/174tg9m/alma990008958610102756

Sources

Biography available at  HBCU Connections at Iowa State University :  Benjamin L. Perry, Jr.  ( http://hbcuconnections.iastatedigital.org/Benjamin_L._Perry,_Jr. )

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Madison, Archibald “Archie” Warren (Enrolled in Engineering Program, 1938-1940)

Headshot of Archibald Warren Madison

Archibald “Archie” Warren Madison was born 13 November 1920 in Ames, Iowa, to parents Walter Garfield Madison (ISC class of 1914), the first licensed Black plumber in the state, and his wife, Gussie Irene Askew Madison. Archie graduated from Ames high School in 1938 and enrolled in Iowa State College. During his time at ISC, Archie lived at home with his family at 1204 Third Street. His parents housed many Black ISC students there until they moved to live year around in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1942. (Walter Madison had already taken a job there as Chief Engineer at Fisk University in 1938.) Archie left Iowa State after two years in the engineering program to move to Nashville, where, according to his 1944 Army enlistment record, his civil employment fell into the category of “plumbers, gas fitters, and steamfitters.” He had joined his father’s business as an employee of Madison Plumbing and Heating before the company gained its government contract at Tuskegee Institute, which is likely where he met his future wife, Daile Sheppard Moore. The couple married in June 1942.

In 1944, Archie enlisted in the Army as a Private, serving in the Pacific Theater during World War Two. After his discharge, he re-enlisted in 1947 and served as a Lieutenant in an Army engineering dump truck company in Occupied Korea. He died there 5 October 1948 and was survived by his widow and three children: Beth Irene, Gail Paulette, and Archie Warren Madison, Jr. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Nashville.

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Jackson, Rufus Benjamin  (Left ISC in 1917)

Headshot of Rufus Benjamin Jackson

Rufus Benjamin Jackson was born in Buffalo, Wyoming on 12 July 1896. His parents were John Jackson, a member of the Buffalo Soldiers of the U.S. Army, and Mary Jane Wilson Jackson. After moving with his family a number of times in childhood to accommodate his father’s Army service, Rufus graduated from East High School in 1914, the only Black student in his class (“Rufus Benjamin Jackson,” 2021).

He started his education at Iowa State College before he enrolled in the Army to fight in WWI. During WWI, he became a war hero and served with distinction, receiving the Distinguished Service Cross. His act of heroism was on 28 September 1918 near Farm La Foile, France. He acted bravely and made a personal reconnaissance as he crawled into enemy lines to find machine gun nests that were blocking his unit’s advancements. He used Stokes mortars to clear these nests, allowing for his unit to advance. (“Rufus Benjamin Jackson,” 2021).

Following his service in WWI, he married Leona Miller on 5 March 1918, in Houston Texas, but the couple later divorced. He died on 31 March 1992 in Detroit, Michigan, and is buried at the Ft. Custer National Cemetery in Augusta, Michigan. (“Rufus Benjamin Jackson,” 2021).

Sources

Photo Credit The Cardinal Tales

Rufus Benjamin Jackson. (2021). George S. Robb Centre for the Study of the Great War. Park University. Retrieved from  https://gsr.park.edu/service_members/rufus-benjamin-jackson/

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Brantley, Charles L. (left ISC in 1926)

Charles Lee Brantley was born 25 Nov 1891 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Mack Brantley, a formerly enslaved  and Esibell Londie Dickson Brantley. Charles served as a Private in Company H of the 806th Pioneer Infantry in 1919. Not long before his enlistment, he married Nevada Doris Lewis Brantley on 18 August 1918; however, at the time of his draft registration in 1917, he claimed he already had a wife and child to support. The couple divorced in 1931. In 1926, Charles attended Iowa State College. During that time he resided at 200 ½ Main Street. Charles Lee Brantley died on 3 March 1966 and was buried in Detroit Memorial Park.

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