Name: Harold Ryder Crowell Rank: Private First Lieutenant Service: Aviation Section, Signal Corps, US Army, American Expeditionary Force Date of Birth: January 6, 1893 Place of Birth: Seattle, King County, Washington Date of Enlistment: 1917 Date of Discharge: February 17, 1919 Age: 26 Date of Death: January 26, 1978 Age: 85 Cemetery: Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles Co., California Grave: Cathedral Mausoleum, Crypt 513 Harold Ryder Crowell was the son of Weymouth Crowell, Sr (1864-1952) and Ethel May (Ryder) Crowell (1874-1952). Both parents were born in Argyle in Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia. Harold’s siblings were Ethel Mae Crowell Edel (1894–1951), Willard Weymouth Crowell (1896-1963), Florence A. Crowell Lacy (1898- 1985), Andrew Edward Crowell (1900-1972), Rachel E. Crowell Meyer (1905-1978), Katherine M. Crowell Hinman (1909-1998), and Weymouth Crowell Jr (1918-1944). Harold married Eleanor Hillhouse (1894-1970) on August 19, 1922. Harold’s father Weymouth Sr was the son of Weymouth Crowell 1831-1908 and Elizabeth Crocker Gavel 1833-1891. Weymouth Sr moved to Los Angeles in 1884 where he chopped wood for stoves and moved to Seattle in 1889 where he built the Minor School and many private residences. He married Ethel in Argyle on March 2, 1892. Upon his return to Los Angeles from Seattle, Weymouth Sr. built the Angelus hotel, noted as the first 7-story structure in the city. In 1908, Crowell, a wealthy industrialist at that point, built the Long Beach Public Library and in the early 1920's he purchased 25,000 acres of land in the Pacific Northwest where he ran cattle and built two ranches, including the Crowell Ranch in Grande Ronde, Yamhill County, Oregon. Harold’s brother Willard Weymouth Crowell, Private First Class, served in WWI with E Company of the 25th Engineers and the Headquarters Company of the 334th Battalion in the Tank Corps and was wounded in action, earning him the Purple Heart. Harold’s other brother, also a Purple Heart recipient, Captain Weymouth Crowell Jr. served in the USAAF during WWII and was killed in action on April 17, 1944. Harold graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston with a degree in Architecture in 1916. “H. R. CROWELL HONORED. Los Angeles Student Elected Editor-In-Chief of Technique 1915. At a meeting yesterday of the 1915 Technique electoral committee of the sophomore class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harold Ryder Crowell of Los Angeles was elected editor-in-chief of Technique 1915, which will be the year book of the junior class next year. Crowell came to the institute from the Los Angeles High School, where he was very prominent in athletics. He is a student in the department of architecture. Since coming to Tech, Crowell has Interested himself in many of the undergraduate activities and this year is the class treasurer. He is a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity and has been a member of both the class football team and the varsity wrestling team. As position as editor-in-chief of the student annual Is an important one, for upon the incumbent of this position falls the responsibility of the execution of the book, in which some 30 subeditors take part.” – from the Boston Globe, March 28, 1913 He registered for the US Draft on April 6, 1917, in Los Angeles, and although his US Dept. of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, indicates he enlisted June 24, 1918, he was already serving in the Aviation Section, Signal Enlisted Reserve Corps of the US Army’s Air Corps in September 1917 when he and sailed from New York on the SS Saxonia on September 25, 1917. Harold departed France from Marseille on January 28, 1919, and arrived in New York on February 11, 1919, on the SS Duca Degli Abruzzi. After the war, he was employed as an architect, continuing his work in his pre-war field of studies. He died at the age of 85 in January of 1978 and is interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Sources: U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, (1850-2010) findagrave