Author: Matthew M. Peek, Military Collection Archivist
Edward Gregory Sammons was reported to have been born on March 10, 1893, in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, to Joseph R. and Sophia Atwood Binford Sammons. Edward G. Sammons went by the first name “Eddie” or “Edd” throughout his lifetime. Eddie’s father was a farmer. By 1900, the Sammons were living in the town of South Hill in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. Eddie was one of five children in the Sammons family by 1900. By 1910, the Sammons had moved to Hawtree Township in Warren County, North Carolina, and there were now nine children in the family. At the time of his registration for the World War I draft, Eddie Sammons was working as a farmer like his father, and was described as being of medium height and medium build, with blue eyes and brown hair. 
Eddie G. Sammons was living in Merry Mount in Warren County at the time of his enlistment in WWI. Sammons was inducted into military service on May 25, 1918, in Warrenton, N.C. He held the rank of Private, and was assigned to Company I, 322nd Infantry, 81st Division, in which unit her served until his discharge from service. He served overseas in Europe from July 31, 1918, until June 18, 1919, and was honorably discharged from service on June 25, 1919.
After the war, Eddie Sammons married Nell May Strickland (who also went by the first name “Nellie”) on Christmas Day, December 25, 1919, in Chatham County, N.C. The couple moved in with Eddie’s parents in the Sammons family home in Warren County, where Eddie worked as a farmer. By 1930, Eddie and Nell Sammons had moved back to Nell’s home county, living in the community of Moncure. The couple had two sons, Jacob and Joseph. Eddie was working as a flagman for a railroad. By the time of his death, Eddie Sammons was living in the town of Hamlet in Richmond County, N.C., where he worked as a railroad conductor. Eddie G. Sammons died on July 12, 1964, in a Veterans Administration hospital in Fayetteville, N.C., at the age of 71. He was buried in Haywood Independent Bible Church Cemetery in the town of Haywood in Chatham County, N.C.
To learn more about Eddie Sammons’ WWI service, check out the Eddie G. Sammons Papers (WWI 28) 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.