Just 85 years ago this week, the parents of Leo Martin Carey received a telegram which stated their son had died when his U.S. Navy ship was sunk by a German submarine.

This news was relayed to the readers of the Albert Lea Tribune on Page 4 of the May 8, 1918, edition. The headline said: &uot;Leo Carey, First Local Boy to Die by Hun Hands.&uot; (During World War I the members of the Imperial German armed forces were sometimes called the Huns. In reality, one dictionary defines this word as &uot;a member of an Asian people that invaded Europe about A.D. 450.&uot;)

The sub-head of this news report added: &uot;Graduate of Albert Lea High School Class of 1915, sticks to his post at wireless plant on Steamship Tyler when it is sunk by enemy submarine – Harold Livermore, formerly of Albert Lea, also one of crew, may have lost his life.&uot;

The rest of the article in that issue reported:

&uot;The people of Albert Lea and Freeborn county are fast coming to realize that we are at war. Wednesday morning Mr. and Mrs. James Carey, east of the city, received this sad message from Washington, D.C.:

&uot;’… The Bureau of Navigation regrets to announce that your son, Leo Martin, was lost on the Steamship Tyler, which was torpedoed in European waters on the second day of May, this month.

&uot;The Bureau extends the deepest sympathy to you for your loss. …’

&uot;The news came as a great shock to his parents and to the many friends of Leo.

&uot;Mrs. Carey received her last letter from her son about seven weeks ago. Leo was just leaving Portland, Maine, on his third and last trip across (the Atlantic Ocean). He informed his mother that he was just starting for France with a shipload of wheat. He said: ‘Don’t worry about me, mother. The ship is manned by all experienced sailors. The boat was built in 1916 and is a good one.’

&uot;The American Steamship Tyler was formerly an Old Dominion freighter. It was torpedoed and sunk off the French coast, according to information received in marine circles at Washington late Tuesday. Eleven members of the crew were killed or drowned.

&uot;The Tyler was last reported as leaving Portland, Maine, March 6, for Genoa, says the Washington news dispatch. She carried a cargo of grain shipped through the Italian ministry of shipping. The vessel was one of the American ships commandeered by the United States shipping board last October and since then has been engaged in the Italian trade.

&uot;Harold Livermore, who was formerly an Albert Lea boy and lived on South Newton street was a pal of Leo’s. He held a position in the radio service, and sat along side of Leo at the wireless instrument on the Tyler. Three boys operated the wireless an the Tyler. It is believed that Harold also lost his life. The Livermores now live at Garner, Iowa.&uot;

Leo Carey was born on Nov. 11, 1894, the son of Mr. and Mrs. James Carey.

He attended the local schools and graduated from Albert Lea High School in 1915.

Carey’s entry in the AH-LA-HA-SA yearbook shows that his nickname was &uot;Ole.&uot; He participated in class basketball in his freshman, sophomore and junior years. Carey was the junior class president and president of the Aristonian organization as a senior. (The Aristonian was a student group.) He played in the high school band as a junior and senior, and was involved with dramatics in his sophomore, junior and senior years.

After graduation, Carey worked at the Albert Lea Post Office for the summer. That fall he entered St. Mary’s College in Winona. He may have attended this college for two years. However, life for Carey and thousands upon thousands of other young American men changed as a result of the U.S. Congress declaring war against Germany on April 6, 1917.

Carey enlisted in the U.S. Navy during July 1917. After completing boot (basic) training at the Great Lakes Training Station near Chicago, he was sent to Harvard University to complete a course in radio communications. His first sea duty was with the U.S.S. Tyler.

When the new Albert Lea American Legion post was organized in late 1919, the decision was made to honor the memory of the first member of the armed forces from Freeborn County to die in World War I. The result is today’s Leo Carey Post 56, plus the Legion’s singing group &045; the Careyaires.

Leo Carey’s name is one of 12 etched into a memorial in St. Theodore’s Catholic Cemetery which honors the members of this parish who died during wartime. There are four names from World War I and eight more from World War II on the memorial dedicated by the local council of the Knights of Columbus in 1945.

His parents, James and Mary Ellen Carey, are buried in this cemetery. The body of their son, Leo, never came back to Albert Lea and he is forever buried in the Atlantic Ocean. (Nearby is a tombstone erected by the American Legion

which serves as a symbolic memorial to the county’s first casualty of World War I.)

Leo Carey’s name is also one of 60 Freeborn County men from the World

War I era who are honored on the memorial monument in Graceland Cemetery which was dedicated in 1947.

Next: The report of the death of Leo Carey’s boyhood friend and shipmate Harold Livermore was premature. Ed Shannon’s column in the May 9 issue of the Tribune will have more information about this former Albert Lea resident who survived the sinking of the U.S.S. Tyler on May 2, 1918.