Thomas Verhines left a wife and daughter to re-experience a military messenger of death.

Thomas Henry Verhines was born September 9, 1921, to A. C. and Gertrude Verhines in Fresno, California, where his father worked as a building contractor. The family, consisting of sons Kenneth and Clarence and daughter Margaret, moved to Santa Cruz and settled into a home on Windham Street. About 1940 Verhines married Elizabeth Jacobs in Santa Cruz.

Thomas Verhines joined the naval reserve in 1941; it was about this time that the couple's daughter Helen was born. On May 6, 1941, Seaman Second Class Verhines was called to active duty and left immediately for Hawaii where he was assigned to the USS St. Louis berthed at Pearl Harbor. While serving aboard that ship, Seaman Verhines developed a tumor in his knee and entered the US Naval hospital to have it removed. His medical condition became more serious than was initially diagnosed and he remained in the hospital in Hawaii for three months.

In October Verhines was returned to California and admitted to the naval hospital in Vallejo for additional treatments. Over the next two months his condition deteri- orated and on January 9, 1942, he died. Following a funeral he was buried at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno.

A sad footnote to the story was the ongoing tragedy encountered by his wife, Elizabeth, who later married Clemens Lambrecht, a soldier who was killed in France, leaving her a widow for a second time. Clemens Lambrecht also appears on the county's Roll of Honor.
(USDVA; SCSn August 30, 1941 5:4, January 10, 1942 1:8;