Staff Sergeant William Weldon Stiles, 26, former Poly High Student

Creator

Preview

Identifier

20031458

Description

Staff Sergeant William Weldon Stiles, 26, former Poly High Student. A man standing next to a painted plaster wall in an army uniform. His tie is a solid light color and is tucked into the buttoned front of his shirt and his collar points are held in place behind the knot of his tie with a large safety pin. He is wearing a garrison cap with a United States Army Corps of Engineers patch sewn on. Clipping: "Soldier From Panama Is Visiting Relatives Here. Staff Sgt. William Weldon Stiles, 26, former Polytechnic High School student, is on his first furlough in the United States in three and a half years. He could not bring his wife home with him from Panama, but he's spending some of his furlough time buying American clothes to take back to her. Sergeant Stiles, son of Mr. and Mrs. W. C. Stiles of Burbank, California, arrived in Burbank October 3 and came on to Fort Worth this week to visit his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Will S. Wood, 511 Hawkins. His mother followed a few days later, to be with him until his furlough expires on November 3. After joining the Army five years ago, Stiles was at Fort Lewis, Washington, for a year and a half before being sent to Panama to do construction work with the Corps of Engineers. He was married in 1941 to Miss Antonio [Antonia] Velasques. His wife was born in Panama and has never visited the United States. 'She could have come with me,' Stiles explained, 'but she would not have been allowed to go back for the duration. She's anxious to see the States, and as soon as the war is over we're coming back for a visit, but we'll make Panama our home.' Gas is rationed in Panama and food is government – controlled, 'which amounts to about the same thing,' Sergeant Stiles declares. His marriage in Panama was an exception to the general rule, he says, for few of the American soldiers stationed there marry Spanish girls. Stiles commented on the 'wonderful civilian attitude,' toward soldiers on the West Coast. His family is 100 per cent enrolled in the war effort—his father is in the machine shop at Lockheed-Vega, and his mother is an inspector in the same plant." Stamped: Star-Telegram Morn Oct. 31, 1943

Archival Date

1943-10-30

Collection Name

Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection

Collection Number

AR406-6-294

Original Format

Negatives, Black & White

File Format

JPG

Rights

Rights held by The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections. Any use of content downloaded or printed from this page is limited to non-commercial personal or educational use, including fair use as directed by U.S. copyright laws. For more information or for reproduction requests, please contact UTA Special Collections by emailing spcoref@uta.edu.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Subjects

Panama; Poly High schools