BM1c John Doran Hayes
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“I like boys, but give me a girl every time,” it says next to a photo of John Doran Hayes in the Charles City (Iowa) High School yearbook.
That was in 1931, the year Mr. Hayes graduated. He was active in the glee club, student council, the operetta and a club affiliated with the YMCA.
Mr. Hayes, born Dec. 3, 1913, lived in the northeast Iowa town until he joined the Navy in 1934. He was a boatswain’s mate and petty officer first class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.
He was survived by his wife, Virginia Easton Hayes, of Long Beach, California. They were married in 1937 and had a daughter, Sharron, the next year. He was also survived by his parents, Blanche Doran Hayes and Cleveland Hayes, in Charles City. His father had been an inspector at a tractor factory, according to the 1930 Census.
A memorial service honored Mr. Hayes at the First Congregational Church in Charles City on Christmas Eve 1941.
Two other men with connections to Charles City — whose 1940 population was 8,681 — were also killed on the Arizona. Ray Milo Wilson was younger — he graduated from high school there in 1938. Arnold Alfred Wilcox grew up 37 miles away in Dumont, Iowa, and graduated from high school there in 1935. But by the time of his death, his mother was living in Charles City.
Sources: Mount Union Times of Mount Union, Pennsylvania; Census; California birth index; Charles City High yearbook; Mason City, Iowa, Globe-Gazette; U.S. Veterans Administration. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.