The Story of Lawrence Melzer Tate.

Lawrence M. Tate, an enlisted man in the U.S. Navy, was the first Saint Petersburg resident to make the supreme sacrifice in World War I. It was for that reason that our Post, when it originally formed in January 1919, took this brave sailor's name as a symbol of sanctification; that its members would forever perpetuate, consecrate and sanctify the comradeship which had sprung up between men in arms.

Lawrence M. Tate was born in Magalia, California on June 10, 1900. His Parents moved to Saint Petersburg in the year 1910. Tate attended schools in the Sunshine City of Saint Petersburg, Florida, until his sophomore year at Saint Petersburg High School, when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in April 1917. L.M. Tate was aboard the American steamship Lake Moor, sailing on her maiden voyage with a naval crew aboard, which was sunk by an enemy submarine in European waters about midnight, April 11, 1918. The Navy Department announced that five officers and thirty-nine men were missing from the crew of the Lake Moor. The body of Lawrence Melzer Tate has never been recovered.