S1c Glendale Rex Young

Glendale Rex Young was born Nov. 13, 1919 in Butte Township, Lyman County in south-central South Dakota. His mother, Clara Alice Ferber Young, was a homemaker and his father, Elmer Vincent Young, a farm hand.

By April 1930 the family lived in Herrick in northeast Nebraska a few miles from South Dakota, and the household included six children. Five years later they were about 15 miles east in Yankton, South Dakota.

The April 1940 Census shows Glen, as he was known, living with his parents and two siblings in Springfield, Oregon east of Eugene.

As for most families during the Great Depression, times were tough for the Youngs. Glen had completed 8th grade and worked 20 weeks in 1939 as a “green chain man” at a saw mill, earning $300. His father worked 16 weeks as a carpenter and also earned $300 – about $5,800 in 2022 dollars.

Glen Young enlisted in the Navy on Nov. 6, 1940. He was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Sources: The Eugene (Oregon) Guard; Census; Navy muster roll. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.