COL (Ret) Harold Anton Van Hout

The story goes that Harold Van Hout was the first resident of Big Stone City to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point.  He went on to become a Colonel in the Army and served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.  I had heard that while he was stationed at Ft. Leavenworth, KS, the housing office there had to take a normal, large duplex house and put a hole through a wall connecting the two so his very large family could be in one house.  (Today they would have sent him off-post to find housing)

While I was at Ft. Leavenworth in 1997 for a school, I went to the basement of the Army schoolhouse building to get a haircut.  There was a very old barber in there and when he saw my name tag, he asked me if I was any relation to "Tiger Van Hout".  I told him that I had an Uncle Harold Van Hout who had been to Ft. Leavenworth and we figured that it must have been him.  He told me that "Tiger Van Hout" had lived up to that nickname and that he was a fine officer.  He remembered he had a very large family...another indicator we were both talking about the same Van Hout.

I visited the Lafayette Memorial Cemetery in Fayetteville, NC and took this picture of Harold's marker along with two of his children, Janet and William.   I spoke to his wife, Joy, who told me which part of the cemetery to find him.  She and I will be sitting down to talk about their part of the family tree.