Author: Matthew M. Peek, Military Collection Archivist
Albert Leslie Lewis was born on August 25, 1893, in Wilson, North Carolina, to William G. and Annie Stone Lewis. Albert’s father worked as a farmer in Wilson prior to World War I, and Albert Lewis worked as a laborer on his family’s farm. Sometime between 1910 and 1917, Albert Lewis moved to Halifax County, N.C., where he was a farmer at the time of his draft registration for World War I.
Lewis was inducted into military service for World War I at Weldon, North Carolina, on May 28, 1918. He served during the war as a private in Company C, 322nd Infantry, 81st Division. Lewis served from May 1918 until his honorable discharge on June 25, 1919. He served overseas in Europe from July 31, 1918, to June 18, 1919. During his time in the war, Albert Lewis frequently wrote his mother, father, and other family members—as well as his friend and girlfriend Cora Lea Amerson of Wilson, N.C.
After the war, Albert Lewis returned home and married Cora Amerson on March 25, 1920, in Wilson. By 1930, the Lewis family was living in Wilson, where Albert worked as a salesman for a produce house. Sadly, Cora Lewis died on January 30, 1932, in the town of Enfield in Halifax County, North Carolina, at the age of 35 due to pneumonia. Now widowed, Albert Lewis provided for his three children during the Great Depression.
Albert Lewis would eventually remarry to Alice Gertrude Winstead, originally of Wilson, N.C., on January 4, 1934, in Greenville County, Virginia. By 1940, the Lewis family was in Wilson, and Albert was working as a farmer alongside his oldest son Albert C. Lewis. Albert L. Lewis died on June 18, 1948, and was buried originally in Amerson’s Cemetery with his first wife, but was later reinterred in Maplewood Cemetery in Wilson, N.C.
To learn more about Albert Lewis’ WWI service, check out the Albert L. Lewis Papers (WWI 36) held in the WWI Papers of the Military Collection at the State Archives of North Carolina in Raleigh, N.C.
This blog post is part of the State Archives of North Carolina’s World War I Social Media Project, an effort to bring original WWI archival materials to the public through the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ (NCDNCR) various social media platforms, in order to increase access to the items during the WWI centennial celebration by the state of North Carolina.
Between February 2017 and June 2019, the State Archives of North Carolina will be posting blog articles, Facebook posts, and Twitter posts, featuring WWI archival materials which are posted on the exact 100th anniversary of their creation during the war. Blog posts will feature interpretations of the content of WWI documents, photographs, diary entries, posters, and other records, including scans of the original archival materials, held by the State Archives of North Carolina, and will be featured in NCDNCR’s WWI centennial blog.