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Stanley Laverne Packer was born on June 19, 1923 in Oregon to Josephine Belle Whipple and English immigrant William Stanley Packer. He had an older sister, Wilhelmina, and 2 younger siblings, Ruth and Everett, as well as an older maternal half-brother, Alfred Watke/Wutke (who later adopted the Packer surname), from his mother's previous marriage to Alexander Watke/Wutke which ended in divorce sometime between 1920 and 1922. Sometime between 1933 and 1940, Stanley's parents divorced. He moved in with his half-brother, Alfred, who owned a farm in Loon Lake, Washington, and the other 3 children moved with their mother to Spokane, Washington.

On November 6, 1940, Stanley's mother married Elmer McCracken, her 3rd husband, in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Stanley attended Rogers High School in Spokane and Deer Park High School in Deer Park, Washington, completing 2 years of high school. Before his enlistment, he worked as a laborer and an architect.

4 days after the wedding of his younger sister, Ruth, and George Gwin, in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Stanley enlisted in the Army at Geiger Field (now Spokane International Airport) in Spokane, Washington on December 17, 1941.

On August 1, 1943, Stanley was killed in a plane crash; he was 20 years old.

"The B-24D named, Old Baldy, was assigned to the 9th Air Force, the 98th Bomb Group, and the 345th Bomb Squadron, USAAF. Aircraft was lost, Failed To Return (FTR), with Lt. John J. Dore Jr.'s crew, after the bombing mission over Ploesti, Romania. Old Baldy was shot down and lost near its bombing target, the Astra Romano refinery complex." - American Air Museum in Britain

He was survived by both of his biological parents, his stepfather, Elmer McCracken, older half-brother, Alfred (who also served in the Army Air Corps during WWII), younger brother, Everett, older sister, Wilhelmina Packer Canter, younger sister, Ruth Packer Gwin, 2 brothers-in-law, Roland Canter and George Gwin, nephew, Gerry Canter, niece, Carol Gwin, and multiple aunts, uncles and cousins. Stanley was preceded in death by multiple aunts, uncles and cousins.

A few years after Stanley's death, his older sister, Wilhelmina, gave birth to a baby boy who she and her husband named Stanley R. Canter.

Over 7 years after his death, Stanley was reinterred at Willamette National Cemetery in Portland, Oregon on April 13, 1951.

Stanley L Packer