JOSEPH H. SEVERYNS, JR., LT, USN

Joseph Severyns, Jr. '20

Date of birth: July 19, 1896

Date of death: April 4, 1933

Age: 36

Lucky Bag

From the 1920 Lucky Bag:

Joseph Hubert Severyns

Seattle, Washington

"The Old Spare Part"

JOE asked for fax in his biography and fax he gets. It's a sweet job to bare his past, for he's rather quiet, but—still water runs deep. The great secret of his quietness is that Joe is in love—always has been since we knew him. She lives out in Seattle and he's so busy trying to remember what he said in the letter of a week ago Tuesday about which she made such a queer retort in her Wednesday missive that he hasn't time to let the devil which lurks within come out in words. But it's there. All the evidence points to it.

Before he came to us he was one of Dobie's football young hopefuls at the U. of W. He lasted three days, which doesn't seem much, but any one who lasts twenty-four hours with Dobie is far from a well-mannered nice young thing.

First Class year finds him, with all the natural advantages of two stripes and star class standing, threatening his three striper with bodily harm if that conscientious room-mate gives him less than a 3.4 in grease.

But, for a' that, and a' that, Joe must be given credit for one job he has done for Twenty, and done well. He undertook the photography of this Lucky Bag. He has worked hard and conscientiously early and late, has fixed our smiles, placed our feet, padded our chests, pulled official legs, and held White's birdie while he squeezed the bulb. He is the man to whom credit is due for the pictures in the Lucky Hag, and, as pictures make or break a book, he falls or stands with the issue.

Honors: Two Stripes; Honor Committee, 4, 3; Star, 4, 3, 1; Lucky Bag Staff; Lacrosse Squad 4.

The Class of 1920 was graduated in June 1919 due to World War I. The entirety of 2nd class (junior) year was removed from the curriculum.

Joseph Hubert Severyns

Seattle, Washington

"The Old Spare Part"

JOE asked for fax in his biography and fax he gets. It's a sweet job to bare his past, for he's rather quiet, but—still water runs deep. The great secret of his quietness is that Joe is in love—always has been since we knew him. She lives out in Seattle and he's so busy trying to remember what he said in the letter of a week ago Tuesday about which she made such a queer retort in her Wednesday missive that he hasn't time to let the devil which lurks within come out in words. But it's there. All the evidence points to it.

Before he came to us he was one of Dobie's football young hopefuls at the U. of W. He lasted three days, which doesn't seem much, but any one who lasts twenty-four hours with Dobie is far from a well-mannered nice young thing.

First Class year finds him, with all the natural advantages of two stripes and star class standing, threatening his three striper with bodily harm if that conscientious room-mate gives him less than a 3.4 in grease.

But, for a' that, and a' that, Joe must be given credit for one job he has done for Twenty, and done well. He undertook the photography of this Lucky Bag. He has worked hard and conscientiously early and late, has fixed our smiles, placed our feet, padded our chests, pulled official legs, and held White's birdie while he squeezed the bulb. He is the man to whom credit is due for the pictures in the Lucky Hag, and, as pictures make or break a book, he falls or stands with the issue.

Honors: Two Stripes; Honor Committee, 4, 3; Star, 4, 3, 1; Lucky Bag Staff; Lacrosse Squad 4.

The Class of 1920 was graduated in June 1919 due to World War I. The entirety of 2nd class (junior) year was removed from the curriculum.

Loss

Joseph was lost when the airship USS Akron (ZRS 4) crashed off the coast of New Jersey on April 4, 1933.

Other Information

From Find A Grave:

Joseph Hubert Severyns was the son of Joseph Hubert Severyns and Mary Francois DeWitte. On November 25, 1921 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Joseph married Marjorie Kohlman.
LT Severyns was a guest aboard the USS Akron when it went down over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New Jersey. His body was lost at sea.

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Joseph was born in Santee, California. He graduated from Prosser High School in 1914 and was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon at the University of Washington in 1915.
Like his classmate Edwin Conway, Joseph applied for a stipend from the World War I Veteran’s Adjusted Compensation Fund. His application was rejected, too, because he enlisted before the war began.
In November, 1924, Joseph’s wife Marjorie joined him in Manila.
Joseph was an officer on the Akron, but at the time of the crash, he was on leave, so he was noted as a guest officer.
He was interested in chemistry and had become an expert in regard to the extraction of helium gas from crude oil (per The Custer County Chief, Nebraska, April 6, 1933.) He was a gifted artist who spent much of his leisure time painting, specializing in landscape work (per The Grand Island Independent, Nebraska, April 8, 1933.)
In 1933, Virginia Hollinger Stout of Annapolis displayed her miniature portrait of Joseph in the General Exhibits Building, Graphic Arts Pavilion at the Chicago World’s Fair, May 27 to October 31, 1933. She married Vice Admiral Richard Farnum Stout (‘24.)
Joseph's parents Joseph and Mary (DeWitte) were born in Belgium. His father came to the U.S. in 1875 at the age of 20. In 1880, he had a farm with his sister, and his brother lived nearby in Custer County, Nebraska. In 1900, his father was a farmer in El Cajon Township, California. He died in 1903, and the family sold the 10-acre farm. In 1910, they lived in Prosser, Washington: mother Mary; John, age 23, a wheat farmer; William 23; Andrew 21; Catherine/Kate 20; and Joseph 14. His mother died in 1932 and was cremated in Aberdeen, Washington. William and Andrew were track stars at Prosser High School. John became the Benton County assessor, and Kate (Mrs. Charles Dement) was county auditor. William became a special investigator, attorney, and chief of police of Seattle. Andrew became an attorney and city official at Port Angelus. The Spokesman Review of December 17, 1922, ran an article on them and published photos of each.

He was designated naval aviator #3650 in 1930.

Photographs

From the Daily News on April 5, 1933
From the yearbook of the University of Washington in 1915

Video

Akron's executive officer, LCDR Herbert V. Wiley '15, one of only three survivors, was filmed shortly after the crash:

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

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.