S1c Joseph Jr. William Lynch

William Joseph Lynch Jr. was born Aug. 26, 1921 in Kaufman, Texas 30 miles east-southeast of Dallas. His mother, Mary Wyatt Lynch, was a homemaker and his father a farmer.

The boy was two when his mother died of arsenic poisoning. Her death certificate said it was a suicide, but her obituary said she had been sick and took the wrong medication. Her life had been difficult. A four-year-old daughter died of malarial congestion in 1914 and her husband a year or so later. She married William Lynch in 1918.

By the time of the 1930 Census, young William and two siblings lived with a half sister, Margie Scantling, and her husband, Robert, 10b miles north in Terrell, Texas.

Mr. Lynch enlisted in the Navy on Nov. 7, 1940. He 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.

Sources: Terrell (Texas) Tribune; Texas birth and death certificates; 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.