Wesley Ancil Davison
1LT in 603rd Engineer Camouflage Bn
ASN#32261290
Born 1919 in NJ, Died 2013
County of residence at enlistment: Mercer County, NJ
Other residence(s): Cranbury, NJ; Mercer, NJ; Hightsown, NJ; Pahrump, NV; Phoenix, AZ; Clallam, WA
United States Army, European Theatre of Operations
Occupation before the war: teachers (secondary school) and principals
College education before the war: NJ State Teachers College Trenton 4 years
Wesley A. Davison was born in Cranbury, New Jersey on April 23, 1919, one of five children born to a local farmer. His parents had both been born in Cranbury and could trace their relatives back in the area for 200 years or more. There is a street in Cranbury today with the name of Ancil Davison Road (Ancil Davison was Wesley's father).
He graduated from New Jersey State Teachers College in Trenton in 1941 with a major in general secondary education with a concentration in math and science.
He enlisted on March 21, 1942, at which time he was living in Mercer, New Jersey and employed as a teacher.
He spent three and a half years in the Army, with a final rank of CPT. During his time in the Army, on August 16, 1943, he married Margaret Louise Dake of Pasadena, California. The first of their three children, Wesley Jr., was born in California in December, 1944.
He was hired in October, 1945 (shortly after his release from the Army) to serve as principal of the Willis School in Bridgewater, New Jersey. He was living in Hightstown, New Jersey.
But by 1947-1948 they had moved to the Los Angeles area, and he went to work as a construction engineer with Texaco some time prior to 1957. He would stay at Texaco until his retirement (per an Ancestry family tree record that was clearly written with family input). That same tree says that his personal hobby was piloting his own plane around the country.
After California, the Davisons lived in a variety of places. In the 1990s, Washington State, and by 1999 in Pahrump, Nevada, where Margaret died that year. In the mid-2000s Wesley was living in Phoenix, Arizona.
He died on March 31, 2013 in Clallam, Washington.
Photo:
1941 Photo from college graduation yearbook
1941 Yearbook page from above photo
Sources:
1930 Census
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?ti=0&indiv=try&db=1930usfedcen&h=18728584
1942 enlistment record
1943 marriage record
1945 article in Bridgewater, NJ Courier News
https://www.newspapers.com/image/221443780/?terms=wesley%2Ba%2Bdavison
1948 Los Angeles voter registration
2004 sister's obituary (shows him in Phoenix)
2013 Washington Death Index
Ancestry family tree record (for some personal details)