Claude Franklin Napier

Mitchell, Rapid City, SD

1934, 1795, Doran, SP-2,
1935, 1793, Pine Creek (Keystone), SP-1,

Claude Franklin Napier was born in South Dakota on March 21, 1911, the youngest of 5 children and only son born to Simon Franklin Napier and Nina Rosetta Helm. Claude appears to have grown up under poor circumstances. His father Simon made his living as a common laborer, a teamster, and a ranch hand, primarily in the Black Hills of South Dakota, but also in eastern Wyoming and Montana. Claude's mother died when he was ten years old. When Claude was only 8 years old, he could be found at the time of the 1920 Census along with his older sister Stella lodging with a middle-aged couple along the Rainier Highway in Pierce County, Washington. By the time of the 1930 Census, he had returned to Rapid City, South Dakota, where he was working as a general laborer and living with his father. He is listed as having served for a time in the Civilian Conservation Corps in South Dakota. By the end of the 1930's Claude relocated to Pierce County, Washington, where he was working as an automobile serviceman at the start of World War II. Claude Napier married Beatrice "Betty" Ellen Lyman on June 2, 1941 in Tacoma, the city from which he enlisted in the US Army on in 1941. Between 1951 and 1976, Claude worked for St. Regis Paper Company in the Tacoma area. He was residing in Puyallup, Pierce County, Washington at the time of his death on November 8, 2005.

Information provided by David Farnsworth

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