When Egbert Williams Beach was born on October 6, 1888, his father, Ranson, was 29 and his mother, Edith, was 24. He had two sisters. He was a native of San Francisco and was thirty years of age. He entered the first officers' training camp at the Presidio and was commissioned in the Engineer Corps. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I as a Second Lieutenant in Company B, 1st Engineer Combat Battalion, 1st Infantry Division. He was Killed in Action on April 27, 1918 and is now buried in Somme American Cemetery, Bony, France. He also has a marker in Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, Alameda County, California, USA.