William Morton Savage
William Morton Savage was born in 1891 and shows on no census. The only accountings we have of him are a few photos, newspaper clippings and his Tombstone.
I first heard Uncle Bill’s story as a very small girl. My grandmother Jessie Savage Ownby would tell me stories and her eyes would get teary as she talked. She would tell about how he was drowned aboard ship when it caught on fire and they flooded the room he was in to put the fire out. (His story can be read in Heaven’s Promise)
Long after she died I found the San Francisco Chronicle article detailing the incident. One thing struck me in the article. Bill’s shipmates thought he had recently married while on leave in San Diego. There was no record of it aboard ship and no one knew her name. I often think about her and hope she received word somehow that her new husband was a hero. He survived WWI then died tragically, in port during peacetime.
Rita Ownby Holcomb Author 