Chester drawers or chest of drawers?

In last Thursday’s Saline Courier was an account of a woman whose father “had passed” and who gave a great number of furniture items to a burned-out family. The reporter is a young woman who seems to be a go-getter—always involved in the newspaper’s sponsoring some charitable event or another.
In the list of items given to the newly-bereft family was “chester drawers.” I yelled out an “Oh, my gosh! I’m not believing this!” and immediately wrote the phrase in my journal.
“Chest OF drawers, sweetie,” I said to her, though she was not in my dining room, “chest OF drawers.”
I Googled (I know some hard noses who will sniff at using that as a verb, but it is SO right; somehow ‘I search-engined’ leaves something to be desired.) “chester drawers” and—I’ll be switched—several sites came up.
The first one I visited was eBay where a twelve-inch, hard record was for sale at $9.99 or best offer. The performer was Chester Drawers; the song, “Rock the Turntables” and the source was shazamsrecords.
Chester Drawers was a real person? Oh, sure, like Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Greenjeans, I supposed. Yep, er yes! Next in the list was Eddie Bowman aka Chester Drawers. This site (eBay again) advertized a book, “Crazy Cat,” for $15.99, o.b.o.
Then there was Chester storage. A furniture company, Chester, made accent tables. On Shopzilla were links to stores selling chester drawers, but all entries and pictures were drawers, and chests, not chester drawers.
I returned to Eddie Bowman’s website. A picture of a sort of hillbilly type with a funny hat, large spectacles, mis-matched, gaudy shirts over overalls and topped with a LOUD tie—he was a Mr. Greenjeans type.
Here is what I learned. “Eddie Bowman, better known as Chester Drawers by people around the world (Have I been hiding under a rock all these years? Who else has heard of this singer?), has been writing songs for many years. Living near Branson, he has also been a professional entertainer and comedian.
“Eddie has entertained people and children from all walks of life all across the US. He is most famous for his children’s books, especially his “Silly Song Series.” All of Eddie’s children’s books are on the national readers program, Accelerated Reader. He has also written three additional humorous and inspirational books.”
Next, I investigated what looked like either a thesis or a position paper, 17 pages with tables, graphs and pictures on “the bureau question: what do you call it?”
Last, I found “100 most often mispronounced words and phrases in English,” (yourdictionary.com) which I added to my favorites list. Here is the item: “DON’T SAY: chester drawers;DO SAY: chest of drawers. COMMENT: The drawers of Chester is a typical way of looking at these chests down south but it misses the point.”
Who’d a’ thought a person could learn so much about one phrase? Certainly not me. So, is Miss Reporter correct or not? Do you say “chester drawers”?

by Pat Laster, d.b.a. lovepat press c 2011