Ezra Curry was 21 years old when he served in France with the Norton-Harjes Volunteer Motor Corps, and eventually was promoted to second lieutenant in the Aviation Section, Signal Reserve Corps. When he returned home, he earned a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Minnesota.

In 1925, Curry married Ruth Field in Wadena, Minnesota. Their son Howard was born the next year, and soon after, Ezra and Curry divorced. In 1930, Curry was living with his widowed mother in St. Paul, working as a salesman of power plant equipment. He remarried and with his wife ran the Island View Lodge on Gull Lake.