What does a gravestone tell us?

A headstone can give a short biography, computer searches can fill out almost instantaneous details. The stone as a military emblem similar to an Egyptian winged disc, but with a shield. A kid and an officer who lived between the wars. Walking by this stone, one notices the dates 1918 and 1941. The first is when WWI ended, the second was when WWII began for the US. He lived almost entirely in peace time. We see he was a (Second) Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps. 1941? Pearl Harbor? No.

Now few stones will tell something beyond the name and dates of its corpse. The stones function as filing folders, minimally labelled so as to be found if or when searched for. Military service information is often an exception. There is a desire for the dead one, or his family to tell of his service to the country.

This fellow was a University of Michigan Forester, Class of 1940. Inside the west entrance of the Dana building on campus is a plaque listing him as dying in service. He was a pilot who died in a mid-air collision at Coalinga, California on 25 March 1941.

He was from Rocky River. He was buried in Cleveland's Calvary.