Lloyd Mathew Hoynes was born March 16, 1914 in Mapes, North Dakota to parents John (Jack) Patrick and Marguarette (Maggie) Georgina McPhee Hoynes. Jack and Maggie were both native Minnesotans of Irish descent who married on October 28, 1912 at Michigan, North Dakota. Jack was a steam engineer working in Michigan. The couple made their home at Mapes until the fall of 1919 when they moved to the Riverview area five miles northeast of Shevlin, Minnesota.

Lloyd, the only boy, was born in 1914, Myrtle in 1915 and Pearl in 1921. Lloyd attended school at District #39 (Riverview) School near his home. Lloyd was used to hard work because it was his job to carry water and wood into the house. There were many good times, too, with sliding parties, skiing, house parties and bowery dances, plus swimming and fishing the abundant fish in the Clearwater River.

His sister Pearl wrote this about an event in Lloyd’s life when he was 11 years old:  “. . . Lloyd started feeling sick and running a high fever. Mom tried everything she could think of to doctor him but nothing helped. Dad hitched up the team early one morning and went to town to notify the doctor. When he came home, he said he had talked to the doctor’s wife and she had said the doctor was out on a call, but would see to it that he got to our place later that day. We waited all afternoon for the doctor. It was a relief when we finally saw him and his wife coming up the driveway with his wife driving the horse. I will never forget the look on mom’s face when they finally got out of the buggy. Mom said,”Oh my God!” and I thought she was going to cry. The doctor was so drunk he fell out of the buggy, and his wife and Dad had to help him into the house. In spite of his stupor he diagnosed Lloyd’s illness as a case of scarlet fever and prescribed shots and medicine. He gave Lloyd his shot and broke the needle off in his back. His wife probed for the needle with a tweezer and it took both Mom and Dad to hold him down while she was doing it. Myrt and I had to take the shots too, and in spite of our screaming and crying we still got the shots. We were quarantined for six weeks. A neighbor Mr. Aaberg used to come over now and then to see if we needed groceries or anything. We would tell him what we needed through the window. Mom and Dad let Lloyd have the bedroom during this time and they slept in the living room. Dad could no longer haul wood to town until the quarantine was lifted. When Lloyd got well it was like a celebration that he was able to join us at mealtime again; to join us in our games and of course to resume his share of carrying wood and water.”

Lloyd never got to go to school beyond grade school. He went to North Dakota in the summer months to help his Uncle Bill on his large farm. When the fall work was done he got to come home for the winter. His sister Pearl was always glad when he came home, because when he wasn’t getting wood, shoveling snow or doing other chores he would play cards and do crossword puzzles with Pearl.

Lloyd and his family were musically inclined and they often passed the winter nights after supper dishes were done playing music. Lloyd learned to play the bones, which are four curved ebony sticks about 7” or 8” long to be held two in each hand. By shaking the wrists, the bones would rattle and give a beat to the music. Lloyd had mastered it, and although it looked simple enough, lots of people tried and couldn’t do it. Sometimes Lloyd’s wrists would get sore and he would have to wear an elastic bandage on them but he didn’t give up easy. When he was about 19 or 20 he sent to Spiegel catalog for a banjo, paying $16 for it on the installment plan of two dollars per month. Lloyd, Jack and Maggie often played for house parties in their neighborhood. Lloyd played the bones, the banjo and the guitar.

Lloyd registered for the draft on October 16, 1940 in Dudley Township. He was age 26 and currently working for Theodore Sollum in the WPA in Bagley. He was 5’11”, 150 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair.

Lloyd entered the Army on December 4, 1942. After four months of training he was sent to the Pacific area – first to Hawaii, then to Australia, then New Guinea and finally to Leyte Province in the Philippines. In June, 1943 his unit, the 34^th Infantry Regiment, was assigned to the 24^th Infantry Division, a Hawaiian National Guard unit assigned to the defense of the island.  That duty was over in three months when the division was shipped out in September to Australia for training. The 34th served as division reserve during the Operation Reckless landings at Tanahmerah Bay, Netherlands New Guinea on April 22, 1944. The regiment was brought ashore and assisted in mopping-up operations around the Hollandia airdrome. Early June of 1944 found the regiment attached to the 41^st Infantry Division to assist in the assault on Biak Island, New Guinea. A two-day assault by the 34th captured Sorido and Brooke airdromes, major objectives in the campaign.

The Battle of Leyte, codenamed “King Two,” was the amphibious invasion of the island of Leyte in the Philippines by American forces. The 34^th was back with the 24^th Infantry Division when the Leyte invasion began at dawn on October 17, 1944, and the 34^th was chosen to spearhead the assault. On Leyte the 34^th participated in some of the most horrific combat under the most insufferable weather and terrain conditions of the War in the Pacific. It is not known what day TEC 5 Lloyd Mathew Hoynes was wounded, but it is known that he succumbed to his injuries on November 25, 1944. Lloyd was initially buried in the USAF Cemetery on Leyte.  In 1948 his body was disinterred and reinterred with military honors in block C-25 of Fort Snelling National Cemetery with many of his family present.  Lloyd was 30 years old.

Lloyd’s family keeps his military items – his Army picture, his dog tags, his ribbons and Purple Heart and an article about his burial in a glass case that has been handed down to his niece, LaVonne Linde McPhee.