Mosley-Jackson Family Papers

Howell Davidson McKnight, 1897-1925, was an MSU (then A&M) alum from Sessum in Oktibbeha County, MS, that fought in World War I. Graduating from college in 1917, he joined the military that same year; he later fought in France and was a Private First Class. He died at 27 after the war ended. He was married to Margaret (nee Davidson). He had three sisters: Augusta (1892-1976), Sarah “Ellie” (1889-1896), and Margaret (1895-1988). The women in his family wrote extensively to each other and to him, highlighting domestic life while the country was at war and their internal family history.

Joseph Thomas “Joe Thomas” Mosley (1927-2018) was a World War II veteran and Mississippi State University alum. He attended Navy basic training at Camp Peary in Virginia, after he graduated from Starkville High School in 1945. While in high school, he was a member of TKO fraternity, played football, and was a member of Mississippi State Guard. He married the niece of Howell McKnight’s niece, Margaret Augusta Brooks (Augusta McKnight’s daughter). He wrote extensively about his time serving in the military and the subsequent demobilization of World War II soldiers to his parents, Elizabeth Crumpton and Thomas Henry Mosley. Joe Thomas and his brother Donald Crumpton Mosley graduated from MSU after they returned home from the war in 1946.

Joe Thomas’s cousin Frank Thomas Jackson (1924-2014) was a World War II veteran. Having been drafted in 1942 while he was a student at MSU, he served through three war campaign zones and landed on Utah Beach during the invasion of Europe. He later lived in Starkville for the rest of his life, serving as Associate Comptroller at Mississippi State University and an Elder at First Presbyterian Church. Frank Jackson’s brother “Billy” William also fought in WWII and died during the war in 1944; he received a Purple Heart. Frank Jackson’s mom was Mary Ruth “Molly” Crumpton Jackson, and his grandfather was a physician and elder at First Presbyterian Church of Starkville Joseph Walter Crumpton, whose papers are also featured in this collection.