MLDR2c Paul Daniel Keller,
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MLDR2c Paul Daniel Keller
On the day after Christmas 1941, Nettie Johnson Keller received two messages from the Navy that left her “torn between hope and resignation” about the fate of her son, Paul Daniel Keller.
One telegram said that Mr. Keller, a molder and petty officer second class on the U.S.S. Arizona, was missing in action after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. The second, as reported by the Detroit Free Press, said “possibly he may have been picked up by an outgoing vessel.”
The truth was that Mr. Keller was killed when the Arizona was bombed, blew up, and sank.
He had served in the Michigan National Guard Co. A-126, Infantry, 32nd Division, until September 1939, then enlisted in the Navy on Jan. 3, 1940.
He was born April 19, 1918 at Ann Arbor, Michigan, but the family moved to Coldwater, Michigan the next year. His mother was a homemaker and his father, John Keller, a foundry superintendent.
The family, particularly his mother, endured much tragedy. She and her first husband, Edward Ash, had seven children by the time he died of pneumonia in 1912. Their last child was born six months after his death.
Nettie married John Keller in April 1915. Their first child, a boy, died of measles in June 1916. Another boy died at birth in 1922. The next year one of Nettie’s daughters from her first marriage died giving birth. Three years later a son from Nettie’s first marriage died of tuberculosis.
Nettie and John Keller had four children together by the time she divorced him on grounds of extreme and repeated cruelty in 1931. Paul and his younger sister remained with their mother. John Keller died of a heart attack in January 1938.
When he applied for Navy enlistment in October 1939, Paul said he’d completed 8th grade. He started in the Navy as an apprentice seaman, but later advanced to the job of molder. Molders repaired and replaced metal parts on the battleship.
On the 7th anniversary of her cousin’s death, Jacqueline Keller enlisted in the Women in the Air Force (commonly known as the WAF).
Nettie Keller lived to age 85.
Sources: the Detroit Free Press; the Battle Creek (Michigan) Enquirer; Census; Navy enlistment records and muster roll; Michigan death certificates and divorce record, Veterans Administration. Photo courtesy of Owen Marquette. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.