S2c Texas Thomas Jr. Kent

Texas Thomas Kent Jr. was born Oct. 25, 1920 at Newburg in north-central Arkansas. His father operated a general store and his mother, Maud Wiseman Kent, was a homemaker. 

Texas Jr., the youngest of 10 children, was two when his mother died.

He graduated from nearby Violet Hill High School. By the time of the spring 1940 Census he was still at home with his father and one older sister. He worked at a Civilian Conservation Corps reforestation camp in 1939, earning $420 for 47 weeks of work. The CCC was a federal Depression-era jobs program.

Mr. Kent left Newburg, population 964, to enlist in the Navy on June 24, 1941. He was a seaman second class on the U.S.S. Arizona when he died that Dec. 7 in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Sources: the Baxter Bulletin of Mountain Home, Arkansas; Census; Navy muster roll; grave markers; Defense Department. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.