♂Roosevelt Joseph Delhorne

Roosevelt Joseph Delhorne (30 September 1919 – 4 February 2012) was a Louisiana-born career Army officer who enlisted in the Infantry in 1940, rose from the ranks to an officer’s commission in January 1942, and retired a lieutenant colonel after twenty-three years of service, having earned the Bronze Star in Europe during the Second World War. The eldest of five children, he was the elder brother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014).

Early life

Roosevelt was born on 30 September 1919 in Louisiana, the first child of Jeffrey Delahorne (1899–1929) and Ida Serrette (1903–1990); his obituary later described him as a native of St. Martin Parish. His father died in 1929, when Roosevelt was ten. The 1930 census found Roosevelt living in Lafayette Parish in the household of Reauld Billeaud, and lists his mother as Billeaud’s wife; no record of their marriage has been found. His sister Mary and his brothers Floyd and Lloyd were at St. Mary’s Home, a Catholic children’s home in Lafayette, together with a boy entered as “Joseph C”, almost certainly his brother Shefton, though that is not proven. In June 1934, at fourteen, he was living at Monroe, some two hundred miles north of his mother, who traveled there from Lafayette to visit him; the newspaper that reported the visit does not say why he was there. By 1935 the family was at Crowley, Acadia Parish. In December 1936, at seventeen, he was again away from home, at Texarkana, Arkansas, where his mother visited him. In January 1937 he and his mother were injured, not seriously, when the car they were riding in was struck by a freight train at a Lafayette crossing and dragged some 85 feet, and the 1940 census found him at Crowley, single, in his mother’s household. His 1946 wedding announcement says he was educated at Crowley High School, and his Army enlistment record gives three years of high school and an occupation as a driver.

The Second World War

Roosevelt enlisted in the Regular Army at Jackson, Mississippi, on 20 August 1940, seventeen days after his brother Floyd had enlisted at the same station in the same branch; their serial numbers are fewer than five hundred apart. A Crowley newspaper of 1942 said that he “followed Floyd into the army,” and all four of Ida’s sons served in the war. By the end of 1941 he was a sergeant in the 36th Infantry^W, 3rd Armored Division^W, at Camp Polk^W, Louisiana; he was then selected for the Armored Force Officer Candidates’ School at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and graduated on 8 January 1942 with the commission of a second lieutenant, seventeen months after enlisting. By March 1942 he was serving with the 6th Armored Division^W at Camp Cook^W, California, and early in 1943, while on leave with his mother at Crowley, he received notice of his promotion to first lieutenant. In August 1943 a Texas newspaper placed him at Pine Camp, New York, the armored training post later renamed Fort Drum^W, in the same report that placed one brother in North Africa, another in England and the third, Lloyd, in Japanese captivity.

His wedding announcement of 1946 records that he trained at Pine Camp with the 5th Armored Division^W and served eighteen months in the European Theater of Operations, earning five battle stars on his campaign ribbon, the Bronze Star Medal, the American Defense ribbon^W and the Victory ribbon. By then he held the rank of captain and was on terminal leave. The division’s veterans’ association later listed him with the headquarters of the 47th Armored Infantry Battalion.

Marriage and later life

On 3 February 1946 Roosevelt married Louise Pauline Tauroney (1921–2005) at St. Anthony’s Church in Watertown, New York, the nearest city to Pine Camp. His brother Lloyd, home from more than three years as a prisoner of the Japanese, was his best man, and his mother traveled from Crowley for the wedding. The bride, a graduate of Watertown High School, had worked for five years in the business department of a Watertown jewelry store; after a dinner at the Hotel Woodruff the couple left for a wedding trip to Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. They had three children.

Roosevelt remained in the Army after the war and retired a lieutenant colonel, with twenty-three years of service in all. He then worked for Pinkerton’s Inc. and later for the Louisiana Department of Labor. When his mother died in 1990, her will was probated in St. Martin Parish, and the judgment of possession of her estate was issued to him and the other heirs. He later married Sally Elizabeth Powell (1928–2017), a native of Colfax, Grant Parish, who directed the Community Action Agency of Grant Parish for twenty-three years and had two sons by an earlier marriage. The couple made their home at Colfax, where a public-records index places him in 1987 and a telephone and address directory between 1993 and 2002. Roosevelt died on 4 February 2012, aged 92, at St. James Place in Baton Rouge. After a funeral Mass at St. Aloysius Catholic Church in Baton Rouge, he was buried at St. Joseph Catholic Church Cemetery in Cecilia, St. Martin Parish, where his father had been buried in 1929. He was survived by his wife, his three children, his stepsons and his brother Floyd.

Notes

Roosevelt used the surname spelling Delhorne, without the second “a”, and his children carry it too, while his parents and brothers were Delahorne; his own obituary prints both forms. The wartime newspapers spell him Delahorne, and a 1942 feature called him “Roosevelt, Jr,” although his father was Jeffrey. His enlistment record names a term of service “for the Panama Canal Department^W,” which records the contract he signed at the recruiting office, not where he served. The 1942 and 1946 newspapers name three armored divisions for him, the 3rd, the 6th and the 5th, which appear to be successive assignments; his service file, which would settle his units and his postwar career, has not been found.

The 47th Armored Infantry Battalion rests on one line of the 5th Armored Division Association’s e-mail directory, which lists “R. J. Delhorne” under company “HQ” and battalion “47 AIB” with no rank or dates; it is taken as him by the rare surname and his training with the division, and it does not show that all eighteen months overseas were spent with that battalion.