PHM3c Leland Grimstead Ostrander

Leland Grimstead Ostrander’s father was a surgeon at hospitals for veterans, and the family moved around for his job when Lee, as the son was known, was a boy.

He was born September 26, 1917 in Barrett, Minnesota, a community of circa 350 about 35 miles east of where the North and South Dakota border meets Minnesota, to Dr. Arland “Arley” John Ostrander and Mabel Grimstead Ostrander, a homemaker.

By 1920 the family had moved to Enderlin, North Dakota about 40 miles southwest of Fargo. In 1928 the father became superintendent of the hospital at Fort William Henry Harrison outside Helena, Montana, and by April 1935 the family was in Roseburg in southwest Oregon. In October the Roseburg paper reported that Lee, “a high school athlete,” had been selected as a candidate for enlistment in the Navy, but he apparently made other plans. The family reportedly later moved to Los Angeles, California till May 1939 when they returned to Oregon at Cave Junction near the California border.

Dr. Ostrander had been a captain in the Army Medical Corps during World War I. He died at home at Cave Junction in October 1939 while cleaning a shotgun. When it discharged, the son heard the shot and came to his father’s aid, but it was too late.

By April 1940 the widow and Lee were living with the oldest son, Charles, and his wife and daughter in Roseburg. Lee reported completing the 11th grade and, in 1939, earning $720 for 52 weeks of work as an attendant at a filling station. 

He was back in Cave Junction when he enlisted in the Navy on November 25, 1940. He was a pharmacist’s mate and petty officer third class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.

Sources: The News-Review of Roseburg, Oregon; Evangelical Lutheran Church in America baptism record; U.S. Headstone Application for Military Veterans. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.