April 27, 1917 - March 20, 2010

     Richard Roger Byram was born 27 April 1917 in Decatur, Nebraska and died 20 March 2010 Corpus Christi, TX.  

      He graduated from the Decatur High School, in the middle of the great depression of the 1930's.  After spending a few months in the Civilian Conservation Core he joined the US Navy in 1937.

      In the Navy he was an aircraft mechanic and assigned to the aircraft carrier, Lexington.  In December of 1941 Roger was assigned the task of an engine replacement on an aircraft on shore.  That placed him at Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941.  He has told family members many exciting and tragic things about that day.

      He was on the aircraft carrier Lexington during the battle of the Coral Sea in April of 1942 when that ship was sunk out from under him.  During the remainder of the war he served on several aircraft carriers and survived the war.

      R. Roger remained in the US Navy until 1947.  He again served his country for several years as a civil servant at the Corpus Christi, TX, Naval Base.

     He married first in March 1951 to Clementine Elizabeth Byerly who died in Jun 1995 and second in 2010 to Jean Gaskins.  There were no children born to either union.

      R. Roger Byram was preceded in death by his first wife, his parents, two brothers, Charles of Decatur, NE and Roy of Las Vegas, NV, and two sisters, Roxene Smith of Hooper, NE and Beth J. O'Donnell of Phoenix, AZ.  He is survived by his current wife, Jean, a sister Janice Wells, of Phoenix, AZ, and a brother, John Byram of San Jose, CA.