Gone for Soldiers: Charles Russell Durfee (1918 - 1944) Marine

Charles Durfee is a fourth cousin, once removed, from my great great grandmother Martha Heath Hardy's line. The common ancestor we both share is John H. Hardy whose 1854 Alabama will I covered last week.

The Hardy clan moved from Alabama to Texas after the Civil War and most stayed there but somehow his mother Anna found her way to South Dakota where she married Aaron B. Durfee in 1916. Charles, their second child, was born two years later.

Charles was listed as a midshipman at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, appointed on June 11, 1938, from North Dakota.

[Ancestry.com. U.S., Select Military Registers, 1862-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors.

Original data: United States Military Registers, 1902–1985. Salem, Oregon: Oregon State Library.]

He entered the Marine Corps as a 2nd Lieutenant in January of 1942 and was raised to the temporary rank of Captain a year later, serving in the Pacific Theater where he distinguished himself at the Battle of Tarawa, winning the Navy Cross.

[13 Mar 1944, Page 4 - Rapid City Journal at Newspapers.com]

Three months later he was killed during the invasion of Saipan and was awarded the Silver Star posthumously.

[12 Jul 1944, Page 4 - Rapid City Journal at Newspapers.com]

Here's a U.S. Army film about the assault on Saipan.

[Battle of Saipan, Marianas Islands 1944 (1949) US Army; Pacific Island Hopping, World War II]

Here are the details of his actions as given in the citations for the medals:

[Found on the website The Military Times Hall of Valor Project]

He's buried in the Black Hills National Cemetery in Sturgis, South Dakota.

[Ancestry.com. U.S. National Cemetery Interment Control Forms, 1928-1962 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data: Interment Control Forms, 1928–1962. Interment Control Forms, A1 2110-B. Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774–1985, Record Group 92. The National Archives at College Park, College Park, Maryland.]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Ross Lloyd Hughes (1878 - 1967) Stationary Engineer

Abandoning, at least for the moment, the farther reaches of my family tree, my attention was drawn to the career of Ross Lloyd Hughes who's the oldest child of Lewis Logan Slater's sister Serena Adeline and her husband Dr. Ezra Hughes. (So he's my first cousin, twice removed.*)

[Courtesy of Vicki D. via Ancestry.com]

In the 1900 Federal Census he was a single man working as a farm laborer in Kansas but by the end of the next year he was living in Blaine County, Oklahoma Territory, where he married Arizona native Blanche Rowe.

[Ancestry.com. Oklahoma, County Marriages, 1890-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.

Original data: Marriage Records. Oklahoma Marriages. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, UT.]

I don't know where these pictures were taken but they're each holding the same branch of that leafless tree.

[Courtesy of Vicki D. via Ancestry.com]

[Courtesy of Vicki D. via Ancestry.com]

From another of Cousin Vicki's photos we can place the couple in North Dakota in 1906 at the Fort Berthold Indian Mission** in Elbowoods.

[Courtesy of Vicki D. via Ancestry.com]

This double portrait of Ross and Blanche, dated 1909, was taken the year after the fire mentioned at the top of the preceding picture.

[Courtesy of Vicki D. via Ancestry.com]

And the 1910 Federal Census found the couple and their two children residing at the Vermillion School at Pipestone Mission in Minnesota. (For some reason, the enumerator listed both adults as Canadian-born which they clearly weren't.) Ross's occupation was given as Eng[ineer} and Blanche was listed as a Teacher.***

[Year: 1910; Census Place: Township 62, Saint Louis, Minnesota; Roll: T624_724; Page: 8B; Enumeration District: 0244; FHL microfilm: 1374737. Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.

Original data: Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910 (NARA microfilm publication T624, 1,178 rolls). Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29. National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

Eight years later 40-year-old Ross, still residing at Pipestone Mission, registered for the draft and gave his occupation as stationary engineer.

[Registration State: Minnesota; Registration County: Pipestone; Roll: 1675774. Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005. Original data: United States, Selective Service System. World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls. Imaged from Family History Library microfilm.]

Subsequent census records (1920, 1930, and 1940) confirm that Ross remained at Pipestone as a stationary engineer at least through 1942 when he again registered for the draft.

[Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: United States, Selective Service System. Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Number 147. National Archives and Records Administration.]

[Courtesy of Vicki D. via Ancestry.com]

After his wife died in 1960, Ross went to live with one of his sisters in Oklahoma where he died in 1967. His body was taken back to Minnesota where he's buried next to Blanche in the Old Woodlawn Cemetery in Pipestone.



*All of the pictures of Ross Lloyd and Blanche in this post were originally shared by his great granddaughter Vicki D. in her Ancestry.com public tree (And she's a 5th-8th cousin in my Ancestry DNA matches).
**You can read more about the history of Indian Missions in North Dakota. including the early history of Fort Berthold, here.
***Here's a history of American Indian boarding schools in Minnesota (and elsewhere), and if you really want to get into the subject Adam Fortunate Eagle's memoir Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School is available from Amazon (and other sources).


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.