Willard Coffinbarger and his grandfather's Civil War experience

Willard Richard Coffinbarger, listed on a Hedgesville High School program from 1926, was born in Berkeley County in 1907.

The story has been told that his grandfather, Richard "Dick" Coffinbarger, a West Virginia native born in 1838, hid out to try to avoid being drafted for the Civil War. When Confederate soldiers finally tracked him down, he ran from them and they shot at him, striking him in the hip or leg. Because of his injury, he was able to avoid being drafted. The bullet remained in his body for the rest of his life. Dick lived in Tomahawk.

Willard was a son of Dick’s son Jake.

When Willard was 32, in 1940, he was still single and was living with his older sister Elsie Chambers and her family on North Mountain Road. Their elderly father was also living there, along with Elsie’s mother in law Daisy.

When the U.S. got involved in WWII a few years later, Willard served in the military.

He moved to Santa Rosa, California, in 1946 and lived there the rest of his life. He taught science at a junior-senior high school there. He and his wife lived at 3444 Montgomery Drive, a modest ranch in a tree-lined neighborhood with a view of mountains at the end of the street.

He and his wife, Margaret, had no children.

He was only 59 when he died at home in 1966 after a brief illness.