52 Ancestors - Herbert Chamberlain

Here’s the little we know about Herbert Chamberlain - he was born the eldest child of Joseph Albert and Florence Lee (Hughes) Chamberlain on the flat delta of the Mississippi River, in Mississippi County, Arkansas in July 1896. His legal name, or his middle name may have been George, as remembered by his younger brother when that brother was an old man.

Herbert is remembered as a rather slim-faced blonde young man (resembling his brother’s grandson), and as being at least a bit aimless. Based on his siblings’ stature, he can’t have been very tall.  He was the oldest, so he may have been assigned to look after his two younger brothers and his one or two sisters.  He may have been close to his next-oldest brother Lee, but Lee died in childhood at an undetermined age.

He filled out a registration card for WWI, and it is probably unfortunate that he didn’t serve.  He may have needed structure, discipline or a job.  Perhaps all three.

During or after World War I, the Chamberlains were back across the Mississippi, this time near Portageville, MO. Herbert was in jail after an assault or fight (decades later, remembered as a murder by his surviving brother - I’ve found no evidence of this). He had been jailed due to non-payment of an attendant fine, which surely was outside of his financial reach. Herbert and his cellmate broke out a cell window, (according to the newspaper only the evening before their scheduled release). The cellmate was apprehended a very short while later in a nearby town, while Herbert was never seen or heard from again. They had escaped by jumping onto a passing train, as was common at the time but could often be fatal.  I’d like to think he lived, and may someday be “found”

There is a record for a Herbert Chamberlain in a later Idaho Census record, married with a child named Lee. This had my attention for many years, but an obituary also exists, seemingly for the same man, who appears to have had a family of origin in Louisiana.  Perhaps a recheck.  Meanwhile, I’d love to think of sitting beside my Gramps’ brother, legs hanging over the edge of a fast-moving boxcar, nibbling on a piece of cornbread and trading stories.