9ZT 1924 Minneapolis, Minnesota

Don Wallace W6AM was what you'd call an emancipated minor beginning at age 14, when he took the radioman's job on the Long Beach to San Francisco steamer on the weekend run, while he was still attending Long Beach Polytechnic High School. He wasn't that close to his father, who'd remarried after his mother died when he was 5 or 6. His father was more accurately a bank teller, although he's listed as a cofounder of the first Newport Beach Bank.
These were back in the days when $13,000 might be all the capital on hand, to give you an idea. Will, his father, didn't support his radio so much as get out of Grandpa's way. And by the mid 1920's Grandpa was sending support checks to his father.
At 17, DCW enlisted in the Navy, was stationed at Mare Island where he wrote the radio guide for operators at the Farallon Island Light. To escape being deskbound he volunteered on a submarine, the O-16, and made a voyage down coast, through the Panama Canal and into the Gulf and Atlantic. After this he was sent to Brooklyn Naval Yard to refit and equip the USS Washington for President Wilson's upcoming trip to the Versailles Peace Conference. A 21 year old in charge of a project never before imagined or attempted! He spent the conference anchored off Brest, handling all the communications from the conferenece, which went on for months. 
Don was a very self-made man, W6AM. His upbringing was privileged for being from Minnesota, the best state in the union in terms of education at the time, and Long Beach, the second best. It also didn't hurt to be 6'5" and a champion boxer and football player.

Don W6AM at his 9ZT station in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

QSL courtesy of W8SU
Info courtesy of Grandson Don Wallace
Photo from Radio Magazine, May 1926, courtesy of W5KNE