Cecil Carlton McWhorter, continued..

Read Part 1 here.

Read Part 2 here.

In my search for Cecil Carlton McWhorter and descendants, I also turned to Ancestry.com for personal information.

Cecil was born in Olney, Texas on March 4, 1918. His birth year explains why Laurie Newbold considered Cecil McWhorter “old.” Cecil would have been twenty-seven years old in 1945. Most of the men who made up WWII air crews were in their late teens and early twenties.

In 1930, the United States Census reported that the McWhorter family lived in Throckmorton County, Texas. Cecil’s father was Isaac McWhorter, 51 years old, and was a farmer. Isaac was born in Kentucky as was his father. Isaac’s mother was born in Tennessee. Cecil’s mother was Susan Cloyd McWhorter. She was born in Kentucky as was her mother. Her father was born in Tennessee. Susan was 41 years old in 1930. She and Isaac had been married for 23 years.

Isaac and Susan McWhorter had 5 children living at home in 1930. Albert was 20, Cecil was 12, Martha Dee was 10, Louis Winston was 6, and Eldon Cloyd was 2 1/2. They also had an older daughter, Francis, who was 22 and no longer living at home.

Shortly before being shipped overseas, on May 6, 1944, at age 26, Cecil Carlton McWhorter married Martha Elizabeth Rohner in Highlands County, Florida. At the time, he listed his address as the 399th Bomb Squadron of the 88th Bomb Group, stationed at Avon Park Army Air Field. He listed his occupation as S/Sgt., U.S. Army. Martha’s age was listed as 27, birthplace East Bernstadt, Kentucky.

Oddly, it was Cecil’s marriage license that revealed how and where Cecil served in WWII before he was assigned to the 351st Bomb Group. The 88th Bomb Group was a training unit that was part of the 2nd and 3rd Air Forces and was based in Avon Park, Florida. It was inactivated on May 1, 1944, just five days before Cecil married Martha. They must have married knowing Cecil would soon be going overseas, leaving Martha behind. She must have worried greatly about her new husband when he was first declared missing in action and then prisoner of war.

Between 1956 and 1958, Cecil and Martha must have divorced. They are listed as husband and wife in the 1956 Louisville, Kentucky city directory. Cecil worked in the lab at Ford Motors and they lived at 1353 Lillian. In the 1958 directory, Cecil’s wife is listed as Ethel L., and the couple lived at 1207 West Market. Cecil was employed as a Trimmer for Ford Motors. Cecil must have been 39 or 40 years old when he remarried in 1957 or 1958.

Cecil Carlton McWhorter died on February 10, 1965 in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky at age 46 of pancreatic cancer, of which he had been suffering for ten months. On his death certificate, his occupation was listed as Assembler for the Ford Motor Company. His wife was listed as Mrs. Ethel McWhorter. He is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky.

Cecil’s first wife, Martha Rohner, died March 21, 2010 in Louisville at the age of 93. The last name “McWhorter” was not included in her obituary title, leading me to believe that she and Cecil had indeed divorced. However, there was mention that she was preceded in death by her husband, Cecil [McWhorter]. Survivors listed in her obituary included nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews, but no children.

I cannot find an obituary, death record, or current address listing for Cecil’s second wife, Ethel L. McWhorter. An obituary usually reveals whether a person had any children or not. Cecil and Martha apparently didn’t have children, but I don’t know if he and Ethel did. They were married for seven or eight years before he died, so could have.

When I visited the NPRC (National Personnel Records Center) in St. Louis, Missouri, I reviewed Cecil McWhorter’s military record. Unfortunately, Cecil’s record was destroyed in the fire of 1973, or at least most of his record. The only document it contained was Cecil’s Final Payment Roll dated August 25, 1945.

As far as I know, on Black March Liberation Day, May 2, 1945, Dad, Laurie Newbold, and Cecil McWhorter finished their march across Germany together. The column of prisoners of which these three were a combine had been on the road marching since February 6, eighty-six days and five hundred miles. They endured so much together, but I don’t believe that they ever saw each other again for the remainder of their lives. I would like to find their children to share the knowledge of the bond our fathers had almost seventy-five years ago with the next generation.

If you are a relative of 351st Bomb Group waist gunner Cecil C. McWhorter or RAF airman Laurie Newbold, please Contact Me.

© Cindy Farrar Bryan and The Arrowhead Club, 2018