John List
John List was long seen as the perfect son, husband, and father. He worked at a bank as an accountant to provide for his family. He was doing so well that his mansion with his mother, wife, and three children had 19 rooms, a ballroom, a Tiffany skylight, and marble fireplaces.
List was born in Bay City, Michigan, and was the only child of German-American parents. Like his father, List had been a devout Lutheran and Sunday school teacher. He enlisted in the Army in 1943 and was a laboratory tech during World War II. After being discharged three years later, he enrolled at the University of Michigan. That’s where he earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s in accounting. He was commissioned a second lieutenant through ROTC.
As the Korean War escalated, List was recalled to active duty in November 1950. At Fort Eustis, Virginia, he met Helen Morris Taylor, the widow of an infantry officer killed in action. She lived nearby with her daughter, Brenda. List married Helen on December 1, 1951, in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to northern California. Once the Army realized the accounting skills List had, they reassigned him to the Finance Corps.
After finishing his second tour in 1952, List began to work for an accounting firm in Detroit and became an audit supervisor at a paper company in Kalamazoo, where his three children were born. By 1959, List…
