S2c Kenneth Floyd Geer

Kenneth Floyd Geer was born Oct. 24, 1922 in Colorado. His mother, Edith Kennedy Geer, was a homemaker and his father, Raymond Geer, an auto mechanic.

The family lived in Kansas in 1925, but by 1930 moved to the Los Angeles area. The spring 1940 Census said Kenneth had completed three years of high school but was no longer enrolled. It listed him as a “new worker.”

As for many families during the Great Depression, times were difficult for the Geers. The father was an auto mechanic for the Works Progress Administration, a federal jobs program. He worked 48 weeks in 1939, earning $629 — equal to about $11,700 in 2020. He was the sole support for a household of six.

Kenneth Geer enlisted in the Navy on Nov. 26, 1940. He was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

An older brother, Ronald, served in the Army in World War II and Korea. A younger brother, Clifford, served in the Navy from February 1946 through December 1947.

Sources: the Rutland (Vermont) Daily Herald; Census; Navy muster rolls; U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs death file; U.S. Defense Department. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.