Harry Paige Evans, Jr.

Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Harry started life just as the decade known as the Roaring Twenties was getting started. All that is known of his childhood is that his parents were Harry and Pearl Jones Evans.

He was probably living in Philadelphia as the 1930s came to a close. Turning 21 in 1941 meant Harry was of legal drinking age in Pennsylvania, but it also meant he had to register for the draft. He was living at 52 East Earlham Street, so on July 1 he reported to the local draft board on School House Lane in Germantown. He described his occupation as “odd jobs.”

Harry became a married man on January 10, 1942 when he and Gertrude Thomas were wed in Wilmington, Delaware. They came home to Earlham Street and had a daughter five months later, named after her mother. 

 On June 29, 1943 Harry decided to enlist in the Navy. Perhaps he saw this recruiting poster for the Seabees, the construction battalions that built most of the airfields used by the Army Air Forces and Marine Corps. Getting experience in construction work would help him get a good job after the war was over. The skin color of the man in the poster wasn’t as dark as his but he guessed they wanted him as much as he wanted them.

Basic training was at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois, the site of the first African American trainees. From there he was sent to California, then to the Russell Islands, part of the Solomon Islands. He was promoted to Seaman 1st Class and was part of “Base Company 7 – Colored.” While it was segregated, the company helped construct airfields and buildings for the Naval Advance Base throughout the islands.

Harry had heart problems in the summer of 1944 and was sent to one fleet hospital and then another, then to the Naval Convalescent Hospital in California before being returned to duty later that year. He was given leave for the holidays, and fortunately there was a Naval Hospital in Philadelphia, so close to home. On January 1, 1945 he checked in, suffering from chronic myocarditis. After remaining there nearly six months he died of heart failure on June 24.

Gertrude witnessed her husband’s burial here in the Naval Plot. A few months later, on October 27, she gave birth to a son and named him Harry Paige Evans III in honor of the man who served his country.