Rain or shine, the Edmonds Memorial Cemetery Board will host its annual Memorial Day Observance Program at Edmonds Memorial Cemetery on Monday, May 27, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Located at 100th Avenue West and 15th Street Southwest, the cemetery is one block north of the Westgate QFC. Attendants will be on hand to assist visitors.

This year, the program will be dedicated to the MIAs and POWs of all wars, and during the annual White Table Ceremony, a special tribute will be paid to this area’s MIAs and POWs.

A special honor for an Edmonds native

One of the MIAs to be remembered during this Memorial Day program is 2nd Lt. Melvin Samuel Yost, an Edmonds native who has been missing in action since September 12, 1944.

Melvin Samuel Yost was born in Edmonds on Dec. 23, 1917, the son of Agnes (Anderson) Yost (1894-1992) and Samuel Allen Yost (1892-1966). He was a grandson of Edmonds pioneers Allen and Amanda Yost.

A student at Edmonds Grade School and Edmonds High School, Melvin Yost graduated high school with the class of 1934. He attended the University of Illinois, receiving a degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1939. He was a member of the Hughes Memorial Methodist Church and Edmonds Chapter, Order of DeMolay. In 1941, he married his high school sweetheart, Dorothy Lee Crow, a young lady from another very well-known Edmonds family.

Prior to entering military service during WWII, he worked for the Suburban Transportation System in Seattle, a Yost family-owned business.

Lt. Yost enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) in October of 1942. He received his pre-flight training at the Santa Ana Army Air Base, and pilot training at Oxnard and Chico, California. After further training at the Western Flying Training Command at Luke Field in Phoenix, Ariz., he received his Army Air Forces Silver Wings and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Air Forces Reserve in April of 1944. His wife and mother attended Lt. Yost’s graduation ceremony. Receiving a 10-day furlough before assignment, Lt. Yost returned to his home in Edmonds with his wife and mother. After furlough, he received overseas orders for the Central Pacific area, where he was assigned to the WWII Headquarters of the VII Fighter Command, U.S. Army Air Forces.

According to the Sept. 28, 1944 issue of the Edmonds Tribune Review, his family received notice from the Secretary of War that 2nd Lt. Melvin Samuel Yost’s P-51 Mustang had crashed Sept. 12, 1944 in the Central Pacific area and he had been listed as missing in action.

Lt. Yost was survived by his wife Dorothy, his mother, father, and a sister, Mrs. Marvene McGinness, all residents of Edmonds. On Thursday, Oct. 5, 1944, the auditorium of the Hughes Memorial Methodist Church was filled to capacity as relatives and friends gathered to remember this 26-year-old Edmonds native.

In addition to a memorial stone at Edmonds Memorial Cemetery, Lt. Yost is memorialized on the Tablets of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial in Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii.

— By Betty Lou Gaeng