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F3c Robert Stanley Pearson
Robert Stanley Pearson was born Oct. 31, 1922 in Golden Valley County, Montana north of Billings. His mother, Amelia Swanson Pearson, was a homemaker, and his father, Eric Pearson, a farmer. The father was born in Sweden.
The family moved in the 1920s to Arlee, a town in northwest Montana near Missoula. The spring 1940 Census said the family still lived there. Robert had completed four years of high school and was a farm hand. He left Arlee, population 934, in November 1940 to enlist in the Navy.
Mr. Pearson was a fireman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941.
His brother Victor Daniel, who was about a year and a half younger, was a cryptographer in the Army Air Corps during World War II.
A large stone marker at Missoula Cemetery serves as a cenotaph for Robert Pearson. It’s also the grave marker for his parents and for a sister and brother who died as young children.
Sources: The Missoulian of Missoula, Montana; The (Boise) Idaho Statesman; Census; Navy muster roll; Montana birth index. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.