George Moreland Collection

George M Moreland, son of William B Moreland and Amanda "Mandy" Baldwin Moreland, was born on 26 January, 1881, in Pontotoc, Mississippi. Moreland enlisted in the Army in 1901, where he achieved the rank of Sargent. In 1902, while a member of Company L, 26th Infantry Regiment, then stationed at Cabano, Guimaras, in the Philippine Islands, Moreland was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in honor of his bravery after contracting cholera after volunteering to nurse a fellow soldier, and to prepare the man’s body for burial without assistance.

In 1919, Moreland became a journalist, and spent twenty years as a reporter for the Memphis Commercial Appeal. His column, which had a variety of titles including Tri-State Rambles, focused on local history in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. In addition to his career as a journalist, he was also a popular speaker across the South. In 1933 he married Julia Pearl “Owahna” Atkinson; they had no children. Moreland died in 1939 in Tucson, Arizona, of tuberculosis, having already lost on arm and become paralyzed in the other due to accidents.

Source: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36777944/george-m-moreland; obituary, Clarion-Ledger, Sept. 7, 1939; editors note on his article “Rambling in Old Mizzou,” The Democrat-Argus, Carruthersville, MO, 11/7/1924