County veterans declared a cadet awaiting an active duty commission to be one of them.

William Ambrose Sullivan was born May 23, 1900, in Wisconsin to Mr. and Mrs. E. T. Sullivan. At an early age he accompanied his family to Santa Cruz County where they settled in the Larkin Valley area. Along with brothers Frank and Eugene and sisters Irene and Marie, he attended local schools. Sullivan was a popular student at Watsonville High School and was graduated 1918.

In the summer between high school and college William worked as a farmer on the E. E. Sullivan farm at Ceres, in Stanislaus County. In September he registered for the draft at Modesto, and was described as being tall, of medium stature and with dark hair and brown eyes.

In the fall of 1918 Sullivan enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley and entered the student training corps, a predecessor of the present day ROTC program. In 1918 Sullivan was stricken with influenza and after a long recuperation period, was on the road to recovery when he contracted spinal meningitis.

Cadet William Ambrose Sullivan died at Berkeley, California, on November 21, 1918, and was buried in the Valley Catholic cemetery near Watsonville on November 25, 1918.

William Sullivan was not on active duty in the army at the time of his death; however, because of his active cadet status his name was included on the county's memorial plaques recognizing local World War I deaths.

(WWIDR; WRP November 22, 1918 5:7; WEP November 25, 1918 1:3; Photo-WHS)