Having already served in Washington’s National Guard for six years – and been posted along the Mexican border in 1916 – Truman Arthur Starr was already in training at the Presidio’s Officers Training camp at the time he registered for the draft. At the completion of his training he went to Camp Lewis, where he received his commission as lieutenant. He went overseas in June with the 363rd Machine Gun Company of the 91st Division and was killed in action of October 4, 1918, in the Argonne Forest, having done as “good work in the drive as any in the division, none barred” said his captain. (Seattle Daily Times, November 5, 1921, pg. 2.)
Truman was the seventh of Samuel Starr and Ella Eugenia Saunders’ nine children; eight boys and one girl. He was born and raised in Auburn, the first of Auburn High School’s graduates to be killed in action. He attended the University of Washington for two years, studying chemical engineering. Truman married Leah Clara Constance in Seattle on December 22, 1917. On October 29, 1918, Leah gave birth Truman Arthur Starr, Jr. Just two weeks later she would receive official notification from the war department of her husband’s death, her grief further compounded by the stillbirth of Truman’s twin, Marian Constance. Originally buried in France, Truman was reinterred at Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery in 1921. (bit.ly/uw_starr)
Excerpt from a poem dedicated to Clair by B.W. Brintnall:
His country’s call, it found him fit.
He’d been a-rowing on the crew;
He hadn’t been out nights with you,
He had so many things to do.
His country’s call – he answered it.