William Andrew Rawls Jr. was born in Tallahassee, Florida on April 20, 1892, the son of William Andrew Rawls I (1851-1926) and Mary Maxwell Flagg (1857-1928). His father was a Confederate veteran who fought at the battle of Natural Bridge in Leon County, Florida at the age of 14-years-old. He would later graduate from Virginia Military Institute in 1872 before becoming a civil engineer. In that capacity he assisted in building the Seaboard Airline railroad east of Tallahassee. He was also a renown entrepreneur his entire life and even served as the Florida State Chemist for eight years. He was a banker and also dealt in the pharmaceutical business. In his later years, he would serve as the adjutant for the United Confederate Veteran, Camp Ward #10 organization in Pensacola under the command of Judge Boykin Jones. He also had time to dabble in the new "Hupmobile" when he went into business with his son-in-law Dudley Frisbie Chittenden in 1916. They opened the Chittenden Garage Company where they leased a new garage built by J. M. Muldon at 16 North Palafox Street.
As for William Jr., he was born in Tallahassee, but grew up in Pensacola. He was a graduate of the Armstrong Classical School in Pensacola and like his father attended VMI in Lexington, Virginia where Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson once taught. Upon graduation, he received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1916 and attended the Army's infantry school at Ft. Benning, Georgia. During WWI, he served as a captain with the 3rd Infantry Division in France. Prior to departing for overseas, he would marry Miss Ethel McDonald (1897-1983) on July 5, 1917, the daughter of a local Pensacola machinist Martin and Margaret Sarra McDonald.
Captain Rawls would write a News Journal article published on July 21, 1918, about his life at the front. He returned to the states in 1919 and served as an instructor of military science at the University of Florida until his retirement in 1929. Following the beginning of WWII, William and Ethel would see their son-in-law David B. Lee leave with the US Army to fight mosquitoes in the South Pacific. The deadly insects were putting more Marines out of action that the Japanese were. His son, William A. III would also enlist and serve during WWII in the US Navy as a pilot before retiring from the service years later.
Major Rawls would pass away on July 10, 1943 and buried with military honors at Barrancas Cemetery. He was joined by Ethel in 1983.
Comments