Carleton Merritt
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
Carleton Merritt, son of Thomas Aaron Merritt, of Duluth entered Culver Military Academy in Indiana in September 1916 and graduated in June 1919. After graduation, the Merritt family in an attempt to diversify from the Minnesota iron mining business, sent him to the University of Oklahoma to study petroleum geology. He met his future wife, Mae Carroll Merritt, in Oklahoma and they moved back after college to Duluth, where he went into the mining business. He also became a reserve officer in the horse cavalry and subsequently in the artillery (as a member of the Minnesota National Guard, where he remained until World War II).
In the 1930s, Carleton and several partners went to Oklahoma and Texas and drilled oil wells during the Depression. When WW II broke out, he was mobilized for active duty with the 125th Field Artillery from Duluth and served in North Africa as commander of an artillery battalion with the 34th Division and later in France. He remained on active duty after WW II as commandant of a displaced persons camp and military posts in Bad Nauheim and Frankfurt, Germany. He served 34 years with the Army and retired as Chief of Staff of the 5th Armored Division at Fort Chafee, Arkansas.
His obituary in the "Duluth News Tribune" Newspaper on December 7, 1985 reported that he died at Redington Beach, Florida on November 5, 1985. His obituary also reported that he had moved to Redington Beach in 1957, had served as mayor from 1963 to 1965 and later as town commissioner. His first wife, Mae Carroll Merritt, died in 1963 and he married a second time to Mrs. Gertrude Wangensteen Stanger, a widow. She died in July 1985. His obituary also reported that his son, 2nd Lt. Thomas Merritt died in 1944. Col. Merritt was a member of Sigma Chi and a 32nd degree Mason in the Glen Avon Lodge. Memorial services were held at the Calvary Episcopal Church in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida.
