Charles Henry Kingsburry's World War I draft card.

Kingsburry, a veteran of the Spanish-American War of 1898 and a leading Newhall citizen from the 1920s until his death in 1963, was living in Trinidad, Colo., during the World War I, according to this draft card.

We don't know why he was exempted. When the Selective Service Act was enacted May 18, 1917, it required all able-bodied men from age 21 to 30 to register; Kingsburry was ineligible because he was 36 (turning 37). However, Congress expanced the act in August 1918 to men aged 18 through 45, making him eligible. When Kingsburry registered on Sept. 12, 1918 — the third and final national registration day of the war — he was 39. Two months later the armistice was signed, and by mid-1919 the Selective Service system was dissolved.

This draft card clears up a couple of things for us. His birth date is sometimes listed as August 18, but this draft card shows a date of August 19, 1879. Also, his surname is sometimes misspelled with only one R; this card, signed in his own hand, shows two.

Born in Missouri, Kingsburry arrived in the SCV in 1919 to work as a carpenter on one of L.A.'s power plants in San Francisquito Canyon. By the 1930s he was operating a meat market in Newhall. Called "Uncle Charlie," he was Mason and was known for aiding widows. He led Newhall's 1934 Fourth of July Parade, something he repeated for several years thereafter.

In 1943, Charles and his wife, Ruth, purchased an 1878 colonial revival-style home in Newhall which today sits in the SCV Historical Society's Heritage Junction Historic Park. Charles died August 10, 1963, in Los Angeles.