Our Arklahoma Heritage: UofA medical student enrolled in Army in 1943. earned a Purple Heart and was KIA December 7, 1944
- Dennis McCaslin
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Dr. Odell Jehu Kirksey r
Dr. Odell Jehu Kirksey ran a Mulberry medical practice that reached into every corner of Crawford County. Born in Texas in 1894 to a family of physicians, he settled there in 1920 after completing medical school.
He married Blanche Cruger from Owasso, Oklahoma, in June 1921. Their first child, Ozell, arrived on February 1, 1924. Ozell spent his boyhood on the edge of town where the family kept a small farm. They raised short-horned cattle, Tennessee Walking horses, and a modest grain crop.
A couple lived on the place and helped with the animals and fields. Dr. Kirksey made house calls by horse or buggy in the early years, later by car, even when creeks flooded and neighbors met him at crossings with fresh mounts.
Ozell and his younger siblings, Avenelle and Joe, grew up watching their father tend patients at all hours. Fees were often whatever a family could spare. During the Depression, payment sometimes came as live poultry.
Ozell graduated from Mulberry High School and enrolled at the University of Arkansas as a pre-medical student. He planned to follow his father into medicine.
In January 1943, while still at the university, he volunteered for service. He entered the Army on June 12, 1943, as a private assigned to the Infantry. Basic training took him first to Camp Wolters, Texas, then to Sheppard Field, where he qualified as an expert marksman.
He reached the European Theater in May 1944 and joined the 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division. His unit fought through the Normandy campaign and into the Rhineland. In July 1944, during the Battle of St. Lo in France, shrapnel or bullets struck him. He spent the next four months in a hospital in England.
Army doctors released him to duty on November 20, 1944. Private Kirksey returned to his company in the 358th Infantry Regiment of the 90th Infantry Division
.The division had finished clearing the last German positions around Metz in late November and shifted eastward to join XX Corps for the next phase of the advance into Germany. By early December the regiment stood on high ground west of the Saar River, part of a two-regiment assault ordered to force a bridgehead north of Saarlautern in the Dillingen sector.
On December 6 the 358th attacked with two battalions abreast. They moved forward under covering fire, crossed the river, and pushed into the outskirts of Dillingen against machine-gun positions and small-arms fire from buildings along the railroad tracks.
The fighting turned to house-to-house clearance under constant enemy artillery and small-arms fire from prepared positions inside the town. Private Kirksey had rejoined his unit only weeks earlier and took part in this advance. On December 7, while the regiment continued to fight block by block through Dillingen, he was killed in action.
In addition to the Purple Heart he received for the wound at St. Lo, Kirksey was awarded the American Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, and the Army Presidential Unit Citation earned by his regiment for its combat performance.
The Army brought his body home after the war. He lies in the New Mulberry Cemetery in Crawford County.
His father practiced medicine for another twenty years, delivering more than four thousand seven hundred babies before dying suddenly in his office in 1966. He rests in the same cemetery.
Ozell’s mother, Blanche, and his siblings survived him. Avenelle became a professor and researcher in nutrition. Joe farmed and ranched and helped lead civic projects in Mulberry.
Dr. Odell J. Kirksey and his wife Blanche, together with their son Joe Kirksey and his wife Chloe, donated the land that became Kirksey Park. The Crawford County Fairgrounds sit inside this park at 845 Kirksey Parkway. Joe served as president of the Crawford County Fair Association and held other leadership roles including president of the Mulberry School Board and member of the Mulberry City Council.
ach September the park fills with the sights and sounds of the Crawford County Fair. Livestock shows, rodeos, exhibits, and family gatherings draw crowds to the grounds the Kirksey family gave to the community.
In that way the Kirksey name is remembered every year when the county fair is held, keeping alive the legacy of service that began with a country doctor and continued through his children.
