Edyth Carter said she did not need the government to tell her that her husband, Paxton Turner Carter, was killed on the U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor.
He wrote to her twice a week, and when the letters stopped, she knew, she told the Los Angeles Times.
Mr. Carter was the warrant pay clerk on the battleship, a job to which he had been promoted shortly before his death, Dec. 7, 1941.
Mr. Carter was born in 1913 in Mississippi to T.C. Carter and Carrie Shedd Carter. His mother died that same year, and US Census records for 1920 and 1930 show him living with his paternal grandparents. The 1930 record says he was a salesman for a newspaper.
His family moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon, in 1929 and he enlisted there in 1933. At the time of his death his spouse, Edyth Benadom Carter, was living with her mother in Bell, California. They'd married in September 1938.
The church Mr. Carter attended in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Court Street Methodist, wrote about him in its Dec. 21, 1941, program. "Paxton still regarded himself as a member of Court Street, where he attended as a boy" and often came to a mid-week prayer service with an aunt.
A survivor of the Arizona, Ralph Byard, said he and Mr. Carter had dinner in Honolulu the night before the attack and that he had invited his friend to spend the night ashore at his apartment instead of traveling back late. Mr. Carter declined. "He wanted to go back to the Arizona so that he could get up early in the morning and grade training courses for some of the crew members who were trying to advance in rate," Mr. Byard told author Paul Stillwell, who interviewed him for the book "Battleship Arizona, An Illustrated History."
Sources: Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi; The Evening Herald of Klamath Falls, Oregon; The Los Angeles Times; Arizona State Archives; grave marker; California marriage index; Census; "Battleship Arizona, An Illustrated History" by Paul Stillwell. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.
He wrote to her twice a week, and when the letters stopped, she knew, she told the Los Angeles Times.
Mr. Carter was the warrant pay clerk on the battleship, a job to which he had been promoted shortly before his death, Dec. 7, 1941.
Mr. Carter was born in 1913 in Mississippi to T.C. Carter and Carrie Shedd Carter. His mother died that same year, and US Census records for 1920 and 1930 show him living with his paternal grandparents. The 1930 record says he was a salesman for a newspaper.
His family moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon, in 1929 and he enlisted there in 1933. At the time of his death his spouse, Edyth Benadom Carter, was living with her mother in Bell, California. They'd married in September 1938.
The church Mr. Carter attended in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Court Street Methodist, wrote about him in its Dec. 21, 1941, program. "Paxton still regarded himself as a member of Court Street, where he attended as a boy" and often came to a mid-week prayer service with an aunt.
A survivor of the Arizona, Ralph Byard, said he and Mr. Carter had dinner in Honolulu the night before the attack and that he had invited his friend to spend the night ashore at his apartment instead of traveling back late. Mr. Carter declined. "He wanted to go back to the Arizona so that he could get up early in the morning and grade training courses for some of the crew members who were trying to advance in rate," Mr. Byard told author Paul Stillwell, who interviewed him for the book "Battleship Arizona, An Illustrated History."
Sources: Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi; The Evening Herald of Klamath Falls, Oregon; The Los Angeles Times; Arizona State Archives; grave marker; California marriage index; Census; "Battleship Arizona, An Illustrated History" by Paul Stillwell. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.
Edyth Carter said she did not need the government to tell her that her husband, Paxton Turner Carter, was killed on the U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor.
He wrote to her twice a week, and when the letters stopped, she knew, she told the Los Angeles Times.
Mr. Carter was the warrant pay clerk on the battleship, a job to which he had been promoted shortly before his death, Dec. 7, 1941.
Mr. Carter was born in 1913 in Mississippi to T.C. Carter and Carrie Shedd Carter. His mother died that same year, and US Census records for 1920 and 1930 show him living with his paternal grandparents. The 1930 record says he was a salesman for a newspaper.
His family moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon, in 1929 and he enlisted there in 1933. At the time of his death his spouse, Edyth Benadom Carter, was living with her mother in Bell, California. They'd married in September 1938.
The church Mr. Carter attended in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Court Street Methodist, wrote about him in its Dec. 21, 1941, program. "Paxton still regarded himself as a member of Court Street, where he attended as a boy" and often came to a mid-week prayer service with an aunt.
A survivor of the Arizona, Ralph Byard, said he and Mr. Carter had dinner in Honolulu the night before the attack and that he had invited his friend to spend the night ashore at his apartment instead of traveling back late. Mr. Carter declined. "He wanted to go back to the Arizona so that he could get up early in the morning and grade training courses for some of the crew members who were trying to advance in rate," Mr. Byard told author Paul Stillwell, who interviewed him for the book "Battleship Arizona, An Illustrated History."
Sources: Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi; The Evening Herald of Klamath Falls, Oregon; The Los Angeles Times; Arizona State Archives; grave marker; California marriage index; Census; "Battleship Arizona, An Illustrated History" by Paul Stillwell. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.
He wrote to her twice a week, and when the letters stopped, she knew, she told the Los Angeles Times.
Mr. Carter was the warrant pay clerk on the battleship, a job to which he had been promoted shortly before his death, Dec. 7, 1941.
Mr. Carter was born in 1913 in Mississippi to T.C. Carter and Carrie Shedd Carter. His mother died that same year, and US Census records for 1920 and 1930 show him living with his paternal grandparents. The 1930 record says he was a salesman for a newspaper.
His family moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon, in 1929 and he enlisted there in 1933. At the time of his death his spouse, Edyth Benadom Carter, was living with her mother in Bell, California. They'd married in September 1938.
The church Mr. Carter attended in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Court Street Methodist, wrote about him in its Dec. 21, 1941, program. "Paxton still regarded himself as a member of Court Street, where he attended as a boy" and often came to a mid-week prayer service with an aunt.
A survivor of the Arizona, Ralph Byard, said he and Mr. Carter had dinner in Honolulu the night before the attack and that he had invited his friend to spend the night ashore at his apartment instead of traveling back late. Mr. Carter declined. "He wanted to go back to the Arizona so that he could get up early in the morning and grade training courses for some of the crew members who were trying to advance in rate," Mr. Byard told author Paul Stillwell, who interviewed him for the book "Battleship Arizona, An Illustrated History."
Sources: Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi; The Evening Herald of Klamath Falls, Oregon; The Los Angeles Times; Arizona State Archives; grave marker; California marriage index; Census; "Battleship Arizona, An Illustrated History" by Paul Stillwell. This profile was researched and written on behalf of the U.S.S. Arizona Mall Memorial at the University of Arizona.
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