Lesley Staite's Quest for her G.I. father, John Chermack-Powell (5)
From this list, I got 'John from Illinois' army number and asked Sally from GITRACE to just check him out. I had found his enlistment record on line and he was 32 – but the name wasn't foreign sounding as my mother had insisted it was.
Surprise surprise – Sally comes back with this John's obituary – no he wasn't killed in action – he died in 1973 – BUT his family name was foreign sounding – seems that he may for some reason changed his last name ?? Sally found the obits of his brother and parents and, yes, he was there – could this be the right man, could this be my dad, was this my other family? Researched the 1930 census and he was there under his 'foreign sounding' family name, but sometime before he enlisted in 1941 he changed his name to a more common one. I later found out that the name he took and enlisted under was the anglicized version of his mother's maiden name.