Reuben Burrell was born on 10 December 1893 in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, to Nathan Burrell (1844-1925) and Josephine Carter Blayton (1857-1898), both the children of mothers in slavery. Burrell was the eighth of ten children; Lemuel (1878-1917), Zebedee Nathan (1881-?), Alice (1885-1985), Ada (1888-1892), Josephine (1890-1935), Delytha (1891-?), Daisy (1891-1995), James (1896-1932), and Clarence (1898-?). Burrell was named on behalf of his paternal uncle, who died only two years previous to his birth. In 1898, Burrell’s mother died, presumably after the birth of her son Clarence; Burrell, Sr. and his children continued to work on the farm they maintained in Cumberland, Virginia.
Burrell enlisted in the U.S. Army at Montgomery, Pennsylvania on 15 December 1917, assigned initially to 51st Company, 13th Battalion, 153rd Depot Brigade from December of 1917 to April of 1918. Private Burrell was transferred to Machine Gun Company, 371st Infantry Regiment, 93rd Division; he sailed from Hoboken, New Jersey on the U.S. Army Transport Ship H.R. Mallory on 23 April 1918, arriving in Brest, France on or about 30 April. Private Burrell received the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in the Champagne Sector, France, 30 September 1918;
Upon his return home, Burrell lived with his brothers, James (and his wife and daughter), and Clarence. Burrell and James worked as millworkers, Clarence, a chauffeur. Burrell married Golden Lee (1906-1981) in Philadelphia in 1924; the couple had two children, Sara Elizabeth (1923-2011), and Raymond Lee (1925-?). By the 1930s, Burrell had moved into the Veterans Administration Facility in New York for an unknown reason; he died there on 11 July 1935, and is buried in Cypress Hills National Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. “The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Private Reuben Burrell (ASN: 1794075), United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with Machine-Gun Company, 371st Infantry Regiment, 93d Division, A.E.F., in the Champagne Sector, France, 30 September 1918. Private Burrell, although painfully wounded in the knee, refused to be evacuated, stating that if he went to the rear there would not be enough left for his group to function.” WD, GO No. 46 (1919).
It is unknown when Private Burrell returned to the United States; he was Honorably Discharged at Camp Dix, New Jersey, on 3 March 1919.

Source: https://gsr.park.edu/service_members/reuben-burrell/