Personal History
Haines was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1908, one of three sons of Diedrich Jansen Haines and Ella Wister Haines. His father worked as vice president of a surety bond company, Southern Surety Company of Iowa, and his mother was a notable author of mysteries and serialized stories, many of which appeared in The Des Moines Register. His uncle, Owen Wister, authored the 1902 novel The Virginian, which popularized the genre of Western fiction, and later became both a successful film and television series.
Haines was educated at the Scholta-Nollen School, the Culver Military Academy, and Des Moines' Theodore Roosevelt High School, from which he graduated in 1926. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1931 with a degree in engineering. Unable to find employment as an engineer during the Great Depression, he worked nights as an electric lineman on a railroad running between Chicago and the Eastern Seaboard. His experience as a lineman became the basis for his first two books, Slim and High Tension.
Haines joined the United States Army Air Forces in early 1942, going to the United Kingdom as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Eighth Air Force. Haines served nearly three years in Britain, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel on the staff of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces Europe, where he worked on the Ultra Project.
In 1934, Haines married Frances Tuckerman and had two children, William Jr. and Laura. Haines retired in Laguna Niguel, in Southern California and died of a stroke while on a cruise ship near Acapulco.
Read more about this topic: William Wister Haines
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