The Thompson Four Foundation
We will not
forget.
William Thompson Hanes went into uniform for the First World War. He and Bethie raised four children in Louisiana, and all four of them served.
This Foundation exists to keep what they left behind — the uniforms, the arms they carried, the papers and the photographs — and to put their story, and the far larger story it opens onto, in front of people who never knew them.
Our mission
Four purposes, for four children.
- 1
Safeguard what they carried
Uniforms, the arms carried in combat, papers, photographs, and decorations — conserved to museum standard and kept together.
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Tell the story of the Four
Aubrey Lee, Homer Buford, William Roger and Anna Beth — and the father and mother who raised them.
Read more → - 3
We will not forget
Teach the greater history of the World Wars — including what was found at Auschwitz — so that tyranny is recognized before it is obeyed.
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Serve quietly
Substantial philanthropy for those with the least, conducted in the background and without publicity.
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The Four
Bethie and Thompson’s Four
One family sent four children into the service of their country. Their records are being recovered one document at a time.
The eldest
Aubrey Lee
1917 – 2001
An Army intelligence officer in the European Theater, and later a full colonel. The family holds that he was among those who documented Auschwitz.
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The second son
Homer Buford
Dates pending
Served in Europe. His discharge papers are held by the family, and reading them will settle whether he landed at Normandy.
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The third son
William Roger
1929 – 2023
First Sergeant, United States Army. Born too late for the Second World War, he carried the family's service into the generation that followed it.
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The daughter · the last of the Four
Anna Beth
Living
Eighteen years with the United States Department of State — Germany, Barbados, Tunisia, and finally Washington, as direct secretary to an Under Secretary of State, handling classified communications. She was inside the Department’s headquarters on September 11, 2001. She is the last surviving of the Four.
Read the record →
Where it began
Thompson & Bethie
The service in this family did not begin with the Four. It began with their father, who went into uniform for the First World War and came home to raise them.
There is no service file to request for Bethie. What she did generates no paperwork. She raised four children between two world wars and then watched all four of them go. The family put her name first on the board, and this Foundation has kept that order.
Standing of the record
Most of these records are still pending.
This is a memorial site, and memorial sites are where family stories quietly harden into fact. This one is built not to do that.
Every statement on this site carries the strength of the evidence behind it — whether it rests on a document, on an archival lead with a gap still in it, or on family memory alone. Where a record has been requested and has not arrived, the page says so and stops. Nothing is rounded up.
Not one of the four service records has been recovered yet. When they arrive, these pages will get longer.