Bridget’s cousin, his Navy service and the records behind the identification.
Remembering her cousin Alvin
In her memoir, Bridget called Alvin Kunkel “our first cousin” and remembered that he was buried at sea. The 1940 census, the Navy’s casualty list and earlier Kunkel family records strongly support identifying him as the son of Fidelus Kunkel, brother of Bridget’s mother, Barbara. [A1] Original Navy muster records place Alvin Fidelus Kunkel aboard USS South Dakota; service number 3385018 links those records to his American Battle Monuments Commission entry. The ship’s May 1945 report of changes records his burial at sea on May 6, 1945. ABMC separately records that date as his date of death. The records reviewed do not establish his individual cause of death. [A2–A3]
Sources for Alvin’s story
[A1] Bridget Morrison Roling, family-held handwritten memoir, p. 23; 1940 U.S. census, Bee Branch Township, Chariton County, Missouri, ED 21-1, sheet 6B, household 123, lines 59–65; Navy, State Summary of War Casualties from World War II for Missouri (1946), p. 14; 1910 U.S. census, Bee Branch Township, ED 26, sheet 8A, dwelling 113, family 114; Fidelus Kunkel, Missouri death certificate, 1956.
1940 original (Ancestry; account may be required)
[A2] USS South Dakota, muster roll for quarter ending June 30, 1944, p. 33; report of changes for period ending May 31, 1945, p. 6, corresponding row 4 in both tables. National Archives, RG 24, NAID 594996; digital images in Ancestry, collection 1143.
June 1944 original (Ancestry; account may be required)