Thursday, January 16, 2020

Seavers in the News -- Colonel J.T. Seaver Dies in Washington DC in 1962

It's time for another edition of "Seavers in the News" - a weekly feature from the historical newspapers about persons with the surname Seaver that are interesting, useful, mysterious, fun, macabre, or add information to my family tree database.

This week's entry is from the  St. Louis [Mo.] Globe-Democrat newspaper dated 31 October 1962:

The transcription of the article is:

"Col. J.T. Seaver Burial Held at Arlington

"Col. James T. Seaver Jr., 45, former vice-commander of the USAF Air Weather Service at Scott Air force Base, was buried Tuesday in Arlington, Va. National Cemetery.

"Col. Seaver died Saturday in Washington, D.C., after a long illness.  He had been assigned to the Pentagon as assistant for Weather, USAF Headquarters.

"He served at Scott from July, 1958, to July 1960, and was vice-commander from November 1959 to July, 1960.

"Colonel Seaver, a native of Mt. Vernon, N.Y., was a 1938 graduate of Dartmouth College.  He was commissioned a second lieutenant after attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a meteorology cadet.

"For his combat service during World War II he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Legion of Merit.

"He is survived by his wife, the former June Fuller of Long Island, N.Y., and three sons."

The source citation is:

"Col. J.T. Seaver Burial Held at Arlington," St. Louis [Mo.] Globe-Democrat newspaper, obituary, Wednesday, 31 October 1962, page 15, column 4, Col. J.T. Seaver obituaryNewspapers.com   (https://www.newspapers.com : accessed 16 January 2020).

This obituary provides only a name with initials, an age, a birth place, an obituary date and place of death, the widow's maiden name, and the fact that he has three sons.  

From my RootsMagic family tree, I see that James Thatcher Seaver (1917-1962) was born on 23 September 1917 in Mount Vernon, New York to James Thatcher and Mary Idella (Benjamin) Seaver.  He married June Taylor Fuller (1919-????), probably before 1942 in New York, and they had three sons born in 1942, 1945 and 1952.  I won't list them here because at least two of them, and their mother, may still be living.  I found the names of the sons on military transport records on Ancestry.com, and birth dates for the sons in New York records.

I am a 7th cousin 2 times removed to James Thatcher Seaver, and an 8th cousin 1 times removed to his children.  Our common ancestors are my 8th great-grandparents, Shubael and Hannah (Wilson) Seaver.

There are over 8,000 Seaver "stories" in my family tree - this was one of them.   Life happens, accidentally and intentionally, and sometimes the life of a person provides service to his nation.  I am glad I can honor James Thatcher Seaver today.

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Disclosure:  I have a complimentary subscription to Newspapers.com and have used it extensively to find articles about my ancestral and one-name families.




Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver

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2 comments:

Diane Gould Hall said...

I really enjoy these Seaver stories Randy.

Unknown said...

Hello Randy,
I am currently in a Genealogy Resources in the Library class for my Masterʻs in Library and Information Science and in the course of an assignment to research my own genealogy I ran across this blog post. James Thatcher Seaver is my grandfather.