Howard Taisey Anderson was born on Feb. 7, 1921, to Norwegian immigrants Thomas Anderson, a farmer, and Hannah (or Johanna) Sund Anderson, a homemaker. (Mother had also been listed as Hanna Knute Amundson in other sources)
Howard was baptized in March 1921 at Zion Lutheran Church in Sharon, North Dakota.
The family suffered much tragedy. One son was a few days old when he died in 1911. Another died at age 16 in 1923. Their father was 44 when he died in 1925.
The 1940 Census identified Howard as a bell boy at a hotel in Grand Forks. He enlisted in the Navy on October 8, 1940 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and completed his basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois. He reported aboards the U.S.S. Arizona for duty on December 9, 1940. He was a fireman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.