Leslie (spelled Lesley on birth record) Elmer Kidney

Birth: 5/4/1889; Martinsburg, West Virginia  

Address: 988 E. 123rd St., Cleveland, Ohio

Demographics: age 28 at draft registration; single; Caucasian; native-born American citizen; occupation at time of draft registration Railway Telegrapher at Pennsylvania Railway, Cleveland, OH. Cleveland City Directories show that he was a telephone/telegraph operator at least since age 20. [The Pennsylvania Railroad operated numerous stations in Cleveland, where telegraph operators were stationed in order to receive and send important messages and facilitate safe and efficient train travel.]

Appearance: Height medium, Build medium, Eyes brown, Hair brown

Draft Date/Enlistment Date/Rank: 6/5/1917; 12/18/1917; Corporal (also recorded as Sergeant)

Service Number: 726608

Deployment: 7/14/1918 from New York aboard SS Khyber

Action: Btry D 64 Arty CAC to death. Pvt Dec 18/17; Corp Feb 9/18; Sgt Oct 14/18. AEF July 14/18 to death.

Death: October 16, 1918 (less than one month before the Armistice on November 11, 1918) at age 29; cause of death Died of Disease: Influenza and Bronchopneumonia  

Burial: buried locally after death; 8/2/1920 remains disinterred and prepared for return to U.S. with remains arriving Saint-Nazaire, France on 8/3/1920; 8/31/1920 remains shipped from Saint-Nazaire to Hoboken, NJ aboard SS Sherman arriving Hoboken 9/11/1920; 9/27/1920 remains shipped from Hoboken to Cleveland, OH to the care of Matthew S. Kidney (father), 1633 E. 65th St., Cleveland, OH; final burial 10/1/1920 at Highland Park Cemetery, 21400 Chagrin Blvd., Cleveland, OH, Govt. Plot 3 Section 3 Tier 1 Grave 1 (no photo of gravestone posted on cemetery's website); in 1930, Corporal Leslie E. Kidney's sister, Mrs. Arthur Knapp (Carrie), 1163 Pomona Rd., Cleveland, OH, applied for a government-issued headstone for her brother's grave

Next of Kin:  Mrs. Laura Kidney, mother, 988 E. 123rd St., Cleveland, OH

Additional Information: Father: Matthew Simpson Kidney (1864-1951), born Ohio of Irish and English ancestry, occupations House Carpenter and Merchant in Confectionary Business, buried Rose Hill Cemetery, Hagerstown, MD; Mother: Laura Belle Avey Kidney (1866-1948), born West Virginia, had at least 4 children, buried Rose Hill Cemetery, Hagerstown, MD; Siblings: Russell and Maggie Kidney (1896-1897), twins who died at age 10 months; Carrie A. Kidney Knapp (1877-?);   parents returned to West Virginia to reside in later years and died there