Single, With Dependents

A while ago, I found my dad's World War II Enlistment record on Ancestry.  At the bottom of the form was a sweet piece of information noting that my dad, in 1946, was single, with dependents.  He was just 17, but I smiled when I remembered that I had been told long before that he had an allotment taken from his Army check each month and sent to his widowed mother.

Today I just discovered that Uncle Jack (Jack R. Hahn) also enlisted in the military during World War II when he, too, was just 17 years old.  Like my dad, he was single, with dependents.  I have no idea who is referred to by the word dependents.  They may have been his siblings, the youngest one twelve. Or the word dependents may have referred to his half-siblings, all of whom were younger than twelve.  Perhaps his wife, Ethel, was the dependant.  They were not quite married at the time, but very soon to be.  Or, his dependants may have simply been his parents, farmers trying to recover from the depression of the 1930s.  Whoever they were, I am left with feelings of admiration for Uncle Jack, who took upon himself, at such an early age, the financial support of someone else.

http://www.realnews247.com/wwII_soldiers.jpg