Distinguished Monroe military family: Buffalo Soldier, Tuskegee Airman, Pentagon author with PhD
The Chappell family has had a distinguished presence in Monroe since they relocated to Michigan from Kentucky nearly 100 years ago.
Linold Chappell and his wife, Flora Evans, both grandchildren of slaves, were born in Kentucky in the 1890's and moved to Monroe in the 1920's. Linold’s grandfathers had been enslaved and later served as soldiers in the U.S. Colored Troops (Union Army) during the Civil War with one, Private Morgan Chappell, serving in the 12th U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment (Tennessee) and the other, Sergeant Stephen Cruise, serving in the 124th U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment (Kentucky).
Morgan had been freed sometime during the Civil War and Stephen remained enslaved and enlisted with the permission of the slaveowner’s wife. Both men enlisted in 1863, soon after President Abraham Lincoln first called for African Americans to enlist in the Union Army after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Morgan and Stephen’s grandson, Linold, followed in their footsteps of military service and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1913. Sergeant Linold Chappell was a member of the 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments, which were segregated units first organized during the Civil War and, along with the 9th and 10th Cavalry, were famously known as the “Buffalo Soldiers”.
Linold was stationed at Camp Furlong, which was adjacent to the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and his unit’s responsibilities included guarding the U.S.-Mexico border. In 1915, Linold and 44 other soldiers were sent on temporary duty to Schofield Barracks, Hawaii before traveling to the town of Hilo on the Big Island to build the now famous Mauna Loa Trail, which rises 13,600 feet to the summit of the still active Mauna Loa Volcano.
Building the trail was incredibly hard work, with the men having only 12-pound sledgehammers to smash the lava into a three-foot-wide path and using cloth gunny sacks to carry the broken-up lava pieces away. Soldiers worked for a week at high altitude then spent a week down below at their base camp before returning to the high elevation.
After completing work in Hawaii, Linold returned to New Mexico. On March 9, 1916, Mexican General Francisco “Pancho” Villa and 500 of his men, called “Villistas,” launched a surprise attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 18 Americans and looting and burning much of the town.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson responded by ordering a Punitive Expedition into Mexico, under the command of Brig. Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing, to capture or kill Pancho Villa. The expedition was unsuccessful in locating Villa, but Sgt. Linold Chappell and other members of the all-Black 25th Infantry were part of the expeditionary force that pursued Villa’s forces into Mexico. Linold and Flora remained at Camp Furlong for nearly seven years and, during this time, their first child, William (Billy), was born in neighboring Columbus, New Mexico in 1919.
After his discharge from the U.S. Army, Linold and Flora returned to the Tennessee-Kentucky border area where he was employed as a coal miner. He was also a union officer for a United Mine Workers Union Local in 1921 in Pruden, Tennessee. Their second (Roy) and third child (Emma) were born in Williamsburg, Kentucky.
The Chappell family moved to Monroe in the mid-1920's for employment opportunities and joined Carey Chapel AME Church on Monroe’s East Side. Linold worked as the Head Chef at the Park Hotel in downtown Monroe for several years and later worked for wealthy families and private clubs. His culinary skills were said to be exceptional. He died in 1940 and is buried in Woodland Cemetery in Monroe. Linold distinguished himself as a member of the Prince Hall Masons and as the founder of the original NAACP Chapter in Monroe County in 1932. He was highly thought of by the entire community, with The Monroe Evening News referring to him as an “outstanding citizen.” Linold was very active in the Democratic Party and made Monroe a better place for members of the Black community.
Flora Chappell was a housewife who worked part-time as a school teacher. Flora had attended college at Knoxville College in Tennessee which, at the time, was a segregated teacher’s college for young Black women. She attended college at a time when most people, white or Black, did not attend. Mrs. Chappell was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star and was a prominent member of Carey Chapel AME Church before passing away in 1946. Her eldest son, Billy, entered the workforce after high school, eventually working as a Master Welder for Monroe Steel Castings for 38 years. Roy and Emma both received college degrees. Like his father, Billy was active the United Auto Workers union and the Democratic Party, and eventually became the President of his local UAW Union.
All three Chappell children graduated from Monroe High School between 1939 and 1942. Billy graduated in 1939 and was a star athlete on the track team, where he competed alongside his brother Roy, Perry Mason, and Bill Campbell. Soon after graduation, Billy married his childhood sweetheart, Olivia L. Walker, who was his sister Emma’s best friend from Williamsburg, Kentucky. Billy and Olivia were the parents of six children and were married for over 40 years, until Billy passed away in 1983. Olivia lived until the age of 100 years, before she passed away in 2022. To honor her 100th birthday, the family held a commemoration where over 100 cars passed by her home on Monroe’s East Side.
The Monroe High School graduating Class of 1940 was composed of 210 students with just one Black student among them that year, Roy M. Chappell. Roy participated in football and track and graduated in the top 10-percent of his class. After graduating from Monroe High School, Roy attended college at Kentucky State University and was in his third year of a chemistry major when he joined the Army Air Corps’ Tuskegee Airmen program during WWII.
Roy became one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen and served as a B-25 navigator/bombardier with the 477th Bombardment Group, which was under the command of the legendary Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. In 1945, 2nd Lieutenant Roy M. Chappell was one of the 101 Black officers who were arrested, court martialed, and received Letters of Reprimand for refusing to acknowledge a base order that segregated the Officers Club at Freeman Field, Indiana, in what became known as the Freeman Field Mutiny.
The Black officers were not allowed to eat, drink or socialize with the same white aviators they flew with or protected in combat. The incident helped end segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces in 1948. During World War II, service members routinely wore their uniforms when they were home on leave. Whenever Roy came home, Billy made him wear his uniform and walk around downtown Monroe. Billy would then stand across the street and watch as white enlisted service members saluted his younger brother because he was an officer. Having grown up in segregated Kentucky, seeing the respect paid to his younger brother had special meaning to Billy.
After the war, Roy and his wife, Dr. Lucy Lang-Chappell, and his sister Emma (Clarence) Matthews moved to Chicago. Roy and Lucy were the parents of two daughters, Camille and Kathy, and Emma and Clarence were the parents of a son, Derek.
Roy received numerous awards and honors during his lifetime. There is a street and a college building in two states named after Roy M. Chappell, as well as a historical marker that commemorates his life. In Monroe, where he grew up on Liberty Court and at Monroe High School, where he graduated from, there is nothing to commemorate this highly accomplished man. It may be time to change this omission. In the 1940 Monroe High School yearbook, under Roy’s picture, there is a short caption that states: “Get out of my way, I am going places.” Roy M. Chappell fulfilled that prophecy and then some.
Another Chappell family member, Dr. Brian K. Chappell, graduated from Monroe High School in 1988 and from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force through the Air Force ROTC program.
After serving 28 years on active duty, Lieutenant Colonel Brian K. Chappell retired from the U.S. Air Force in 2021. His distinguished career includes serving as a Minuteman III ICBM nuclear weapons officer and three staff officer assignments at the Pentagon, including working for the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of the Air Force.
Lt. Col. Chappell is also a veteran of the Afghanistan War, having deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan in 2014. Brian has five college degrees, including a bachelor’s degree, three master’s degrees, and a PhD in World Politics. Dr. Chappell is a published author who has traveled to over 50 countries and is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. His book, “State Responses to Nuclear Proliferation: The Differential Effects of Threat Perception”, examines the potential impact of the spread of nuclear weapons.
Dr. Brian K. Chappell is the great-grandson of Linold and Flora Chappell and the grandson of Billy and Olivia Chappell. In July 2022, Brian visited Hilo, Hawaii and hiked the Mauna Loa Trail that his great-grandfather, Linold, helped build over one hundred years earlier.
David L. Eby is a member of the Monroe County Historical Society. His email is daveeby@yahoo.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: A most distinguished Monroe military family
