Florida Fallen Stories

Ordinary Seaman. Enlisted Dry Tortugas, Florida, April 12, 1917, age 16 years, 5 months. Next of kin: Mrs. Carrie Elizabeth Gay Felton (mother), 616 Ashe Street, Key West. Both of his…

Boy 1st class, African American. Born in Key West, June 30, 1899. Enlisted U.S. Coast Guard, Key West, April 6, 1917. Next of kin: Mrs. Isabelle Major (stepmother), 722 Windsor Lane, Key West…

Boy 1st class. Enlisted U.S. Coast Guard in New York City, December 15, 1916, 18 years, 10 months. Born in Crystal River, Florida, by 1910 he resided with his parents and…

Chief Gunner. Born Jackson, Illinois, December 14, 1876, he was the son of a French sign painter who later moved to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Darnou first enlisted in the Navy in 1891…

Seaman. Enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in Tampa on April 8, 1917. Born Monte Santo, Cuba, August 8, 1892. Arrival Key West, Florida, from Havana, September 21, 1905…

Boy 1st class. Enlisted U.S. Coast Guard in Tampa on May 4, 1917, age 18 years, 4 months, one of nine children of Edwin A. Connell (1872-1919), a carpenter…

Boy 1st class, African American. Enlisted U.S. Coast Guard at Tampa March 13, 1917, age 17 years, 5 months. Next of kin: Mrs. Estelle Carmichael (mother)…

Machinist’s mate 1st class. Enlisted in U.S. Coast Guard, December 4, 1916. Born October 5, 1888. Expert boilermaker prior to enlistment…

Seaman. Enlisted U.S. Coast Guard, June 1, 1917. Born in Tampa September 27, 1894. Nicknamed “Boisy.” Worked at Southern Lumber Company, where his father, Thomas…

Fireman. Born November 7, 1892. Enlisted U.S. Coast Guard April 8, 1917. Residence: Mulberry, Florida.

Water tender. Enlisted U.S. Coast Guard at Tampa, Florida, on April 18, 1917, age 21 years, 8 months. Lived in Tampa and worked for the American Supply Company and Ferman Motor Sales, founded in 1895….

Assistant Master at Arms. Enlisted at Tampa, Florida, April 7, 1917. Born Okaloosa, Florida, May 6, 1894. Next of kin: Thomas Hanley Bell (father), Dover, Hillsborough County, an orange grower from Alabama…

Fireman – Born on March 8, 1896, he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard at Key West, Florida, on June 29, 1917. Next of kin: Mrs. Eunice Melvin Agee (mother), Fort Lauderdale, Florida…

Cabin Steward, African American. Born in Key West on December 30, 1894. Enlisted in U.S. Coast Guard at Boston, Massachusetts, on August 7, 1913; age 18 years, 7 months. Employed by the Ybor City Ice Company prior to…

Wardroom Steward, African American. Born May 24, 1897. Enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard at Tampa on February 2, 1917. Next of kin: Mrs. Freddie Weech (mother), 58 Lopez Lane, Key West. American Legion Post No. 168…

Boy 1st class. Son of William Harrison Webb (1853-1910) and Verona McDaniel (1867-1958), both native Kentuckians who moved to St. Petersburg about 1905. One of nine children, Webb was born on April 28, 1900. He enlisted…

Ship’s Writer. Son of John Franklin Vaughan (1874-1931) and Ellen Mobbs (1882-1957), one of seven children. Vaughan’s father served for nearly forty years as superintendent of the Peninsular Telephone Company in Tampa…

Boy 1st class. Enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard at Key West, Florida, on April 28, 1917. Residence: 418 White Street, Key West. Born February 18, 1899, one of eleven children of John Thompson (1853-1911), a sponge…

Fireman. One of eight children and the oldest of three sons of John Edgar Talley (1867-1945) and Sarah Elizabeth Giddens (1871-1940), John was born in Hernando, Florida, January 7, 1898. By 1910 the Talleys had relocated…

Ship’s Writer. An older brother to Homer, born on December 24, 1893, he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard at Key West on July 20, 1917. Worked as a bookkeeper for the Exchange National Bank in Tampa and roomed…

Ordinary Seaman. One of nine children of Jefferson Davis Sumner (1862-1906) and Mildred (Mittie) Roberts (1866-1941). Born in Dade City, Florida, December 31, 1899, he moved to Tampa, where he attended Hillsborough…

Coxswain. Born in the Baltic port city of Libau, Russia (Latvia today), on June 3, 1890, Skelte (using the name John Smith) immigrated to Key West in 1914, entering the U.S. via Havana, Cuba. An expert seaman, Smith joined…

Boy 1st class. Nicknamed “Tootsie.” Born in Talladega, Alabama, on October 8, 1899, one of five children, “Tootsie” lived in Tampa in 1910 with his family at 309 Pine Street. His father, James B. Robertson, was in the brokerage…

Cook. Born June 2, 1878, Roberts enlisted in U.S. Coast Guard at Baltimore, Maryland on June 17, 1914. Next of kin: Mrs. Maria E. Bamas (cousin), 803 Whitehead Street, Key West…

Seaman. Born January 19, 1897, one of seven children of Thomas Abel Reynolds (1867-1939), a Georgia-born sawmill worker. His two older brothers, Arley Rance Reynolds (1887-1955) and Hassie C. Reynolds (1894-1967), both…

Ordinary Seaman. Born in Sharpes, Brevard County, Florida, on January 6, 1899, one of seven children of Robert Clayton Poppell (1859-1940), a citrus grower and county tax accessor, and Isabella Franklin Faulkner (1871-1945). Enlisted in…

Son of Joseph Norwood (1851-1908) and Alma Penn (1858-1945), missionaries for the American Bible Society in Mexico, the Caribbean and South America from the early 1880s through 1900s. Robert was born in Antioquia, Colombia…

Boy 1st class. Born on October 10, 1897, Nobles enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard on April 7, 1917, at Tampa and gave Gasparilla, Florida, a fishing settlement on Charlotte Harbor near Boca Grande, as his hometown. In 1910 he…

Ship’s Writer. Nix was born in Hampton, South Carolina, on July 31, 1888. By 1910 he moved to Tampa, where he worked as a stenographer for Exchange National Bank. He and Wambolt Sumner (see below) worked in the…

Electrician’s mate 3rd class. Born on July 8, 1899, Newell gave an address of 920 West Adams Street in Jacksonville, Florida, when he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard on March 29, 1917. His family owned and operated a bakery…