Ralph A. Saylor papers, 1939-1950, bulk dates 1941-1946

Ralph Austin Saylor was born October 24, 1910 in Campbell, NE to Austin and Belva Saylor. The Saylor family relocated to the Winnett, MT area by 1915 where Ralph attended school in Grass Range, he graduated from Winnett High School in 1929. He worked on his family's ranch and in oil refineries in Winnett and Kalispell before enlisting in the US Navy in October of 1940, attending torpedo school in Newport, RI. The vessels and stations he served on included the USS Saratoga, the Firing Range in Montauk, Long Island, Radio Materiel School at Treasure Island, and the USS Sierra, Train Pool San Francisco, California. He saw military action in the Philippines and South Pacific. Ralph was honorably discharged December 1946.

In 1930 he married his first wife, Della McVay who had his first daughter, Verla in 1931. The couple later divorced and Ralph married Margaret Thorsheim in 1943 in Billings, MT, with whom he had two children, William (b. 1944) and Julie (b. 1946). Ralph lived with his family in Billings following the war where he worked as a real estate broker. He died of heart complications on October 8, 1973.

Ralph enlisted in the US Navy along with his two brothers, Harold Lloyd and Walter Isaiah at the Billings recruiting station in 1940. Both Harold and Walter served as Aviation Machinist's mates, serving their first Navy tour of duty together, making third, second, and first class within three months of each other and were both advanced to chief in 1945.