Donald Calvin Black

Donald Calvin Black was born in Independence, Kansas, on December 13, 1909. He was the eldest child of Calvin J. Black and Ida Mae Black. By 1920, the family had moved to Canyon, Washington, in Chelan County, where Calvin worked as a lineman for a telephone company and later, as a fruit inspector. Donald graduated from Wenatchee High School and attended Washington State College (WSC) from 1929-1932 as a Civil Engineering major. After leaving WSC, he returned to Wenatchee and married Elizabeth Vandivort on April 25, 1933. They had one child, a son, Lyle V. Black. Donald worked for Chelan County as an engineer working on county highways. He enlisted in the United States Army on July 20, 1943, and was assigned to the 334th Infantry Regiment of the 84th Infantry Division. Wounded in December 1944, Donald was transported to a hospital in England. Medical records classify his injury types as varied and severe. The worst of which appears to be a puncture to the lower intestine, but the list of injuries includes fragments in his foot and possibly his eye. The surgeons performed an enterorrhaphy or sewing up a wound to the intestine. Against all odds, somehow Donald survived the surgery, but his injuries were many and severe. Despite the heroic actions of his own units’ medics and the work of his surgeons in England, he had gone without proper medical treatment in the field for too long, succumbing to his wounds on March 20, 1945. He is memorialized at the WSU Veterans Memorial.