S1c Hugh Donald Stephenson

Hugh Donald Stephenson was born April 2, 1921 south of Utica in Paris, New York, population 3,000. His mother, Nettie Bunn Stephenson, was a homemaker and his father, Robert Stephenson, a farmer. They had four sons.

Hugh graduated in 1939 from Sauquoit Valley Central High School. He ran track and played outfield on the baseball team, performed in the senior-class play, was sports editor for the yearbook, and was treasurer of the Sauquoit Valley Future Farmers Club. He showed Holstein dairy cattle in 4-H and other competitions.

He enlisted in the Navy on Sept. 9, 1939. Mr. Stephenson was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

His name is engraved on the tombstone where his parents are buried at the Sauquoit Valley Cemetery in nearby Clayville, New York.

Sources: the Utica (New York) Observer-Dispatch; New York birth index; Census; Navy muster roll; Sauquoit Valley Central High yearbooks. Yearbook photograph. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.