HARDY B. PAGE, LCDR, USN
Hardy Page '13
Lucky Bag
From the 1913 Lucky Bag:
Hardy B. Page
Sandpoint, Idaho
"Ikey" "Jew" "Hardy"
WHEN it was once discovered that Ikey's goat could be paraded with small trouble and less worry, the animal roamed forth to graze in rich pastures, and the owner has spent much valuable time in search of it. Hardy has a good physique, and in a school where competition was less keen he would have been an athlete of the first calibre; as it is, his sweaters do not lack for decoration. He is a heavy fusser, and likes to combine that game with motoring. But his chief delight is in argument, and he will readily furnish infallible opinions on any question under the sun. At mess he spends much time under hatches repenting of the tales he has told about his doings with that kid brother of his.
His classmates find Page both likable and good-natured, albeit argumentative.
Football N-2d—Football—Track—Basketball Numerals, Choir, Masquerader, Buzzard
Hardy B. Page
Sandpoint, Idaho
"Ikey" "Jew" "Hardy"
WHEN it was once discovered that Ikey's goat could be paraded with small trouble and less worry, the animal roamed forth to graze in rich pastures, and the owner has spent much valuable time in search of it. Hardy has a good physique, and in a school where competition was less keen he would have been an athlete of the first calibre; as it is, his sweaters do not lack for decoration. He is a heavy fusser, and likes to combine that game with motoring. But his chief delight is in argument, and he will readily furnish infallible opinions on any question under the sun. At mess he spends much time under hatches repenting of the tales he has told about his doings with that kid brother of his.
His classmates find Page both likable and good-natured, albeit argumentative.
Football N-2d—Football—Track—Basketball Numerals, Choir, Masquerader, Buzzard
Loss
Hardy was lost on May 3, 1927 when the aircraft he was piloting crashed near Hampton Roads, Virginia.
Other Information
From researcher Kathy Franz:
Hardy was born in Emporia, Kansas. In 1900, he, his brother Benjamin, and his sisters Olive and Frances lived with their grandparents John and Frances Page in Emporia.
In June 1903 Hardy’s uncle took Hardy and Olive to live with their father and stepmother in Sandpoint, Idaho. By August, he had a cub bear and a bull dog. He also was fishing and hunting there.
In March 1907 Hardy was captain of the Sandpoint high school track team. In May, he participated in an interscholastic high school track meet held at Washington State College in Pullman.
In August 1908 he visited in Emporia from Sandpoint. In September, Hardy and his brother Ben were inducted into the Mathonians of the College of Emporia. In October, Hardy played fullback on the football team. He was fast, a sprinter, and maybe would be on the track team the next spring. In December, he was elected captain of the basketball team. He had previous experience in California playing with a coast team and was to play forward. However, he left the college in January 1909, for the Naval Academy.
Hardy was appointed to the Naval Academy by Senator Hayburn of Idaho. His brother Ben received an appointment to West Point in 1909, but went to the Naval Academy instead (‘14.)
In April 1914 their father, who had charge of the Sandpoint Militia, received word to be on the alert.
Hardy married Frances H. Froment in Washington, D. C. on April 8, 1914. Their daughter Harriet was born in the fall of 1916 in Newport.
In the 1920 census, taken on January 29, Hardy was on the USS Lea stationed in San Pedro, California.
In October 1923 Hardy gave testimony in San Diego at the hearing on the Honda Point destroyer disaster. He had been navigator of USS Paul Hamilton, twelfth in the column of 14 destroyers as they turned east. Seven ships were destroyed in the grounding, and 23 sailors died.
The next month the Sandpoint high school students unveiled a memorial tablet with World War I veterans listed on it including the names of Hardy and his brother Ben.
Hardy had wanted to get into aviation for several years. He was on his first student flight when the plane crashed. The plane had been used that morning without any problem.
His father Ones, a physician, married Hardy’s mother Minnie Barcalow on May 29, 1886, in Gadsden County, Florida. Hardy’s mother died, and his father lived in Pullman City, Washington, in June 1900.
From Find A Grave:
Lt. Commander H. B Page, USN, was a student Naval Aviator when he was killed, along with his instructor, LT R. V. Pollard, USN, in a flying accident in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.
Washington Post
May 6, 1927Comdr. Page's Funeral attended by Wilbur
Secretary of the Navy Wilbur attended the funeral at Arlington National cemetery yesterday afternoon of Lieut. Comdr. Hardy B. Page, aid to Rear Admiral E. H. Campbell, judge advocate general of the navy, killed Tuesday in a plane accident at Hampton Roads, Va. Burial of Lieut. R. V. Pollard, naval aviation instructor at Hampton Roads naval air station, who was killed in the accident with Commander Page, will be held at Arlington National cemetery tomorrow afternoon. The body will arrive in this city tomorrow morning. Mrs. Pollard, the widow, and other relatives will arrive by train.
He was survived by his wife, Frances. Hardy also has a memorial marker in Virginia.
Photographs
The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.
The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.
The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.
Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.
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