William Stoltzfus

Stoltzfus was born in Beirut in 1924. His father was a Mennonite from Ohio and his mother a Presbyterian from Minneapolis. Stoltzfus' father was principal of a boys' school in Aleppo, Syria, and later president of the Beirut College for Women.

Stoltzfus was tutored in Aleppo before going to the American Community School in Beirut and learned to speak Arabic and French at an early age. At fifteen, he returned to the United States to attend Deerfield Academy and, later, Princeton University.

In 1943 Stoltzfus left Princeton to become a pilot in the United States Naval Air Corps. He returned to Princeton at the end of the war and attended the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs. After his graduation in 1949, Stoltzfus failed his first attempt at the Foreign Service exam; his childhood abroad left him without a strong knowledge of U.S. geography.{{Cite web|url=http://www.towntopics.com/oct2903/stratton.html|title = Town Topics}}

Stoltzfus joined the Foreign Service in 1949.{{Cite web |date=18 May 1994 |title=The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR WILLIAM A. STOLTZFUS, JR. |url=https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Stoltzfus,%20William%20A.%20Jr.toc.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240709174832/https://adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Stoltzfus,%20William%20A.%20Jr.toc.pdf |archive-date=9 July 2024 |access-date=5 August 2024 |website=Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training}} His first post was in Alexandria, Egypt, where he worked as an economic officer and reported on the production of flax and other natural resources. After doing economic reporting in Benghazi, Libya, Stoltzfus was assigned to Kuwait, where he did consular work with Palestinian refugees applying for visas to the United States. He then did political reporting in Jidda, Damascus, and Aden before being assigned as Ambassador to Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain in 1972. In 1974, he would return to Kuwait, his first posting, as the new ambassador. In 1976 Stoltzfus retired from the foreign service and went into banking.

Stoltzfus married educator Janet Sorg in 1954.{{Cite news |date=1954-01-14 |title=Miss Janet Sorg is Bride-Elect |pages=6 |work=The Item of Millburn and Short Hills |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111813822/miss-janet-sorg-is-bride-elect/ |access-date=2022-10-23 |via=Newspapers.com}} They had five children together. After he retired from the Foreign Service,{{Cite news |date=1975-11-30 |title=Ambassadors to Kuwait and Liberia Give Notice |pages=2 |work=Arizona Republic |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/111842051/ambassadors-to-kuwait-and-liberia-give/ |access-date=2022-10-23 |via=Newspapers.com}} they lived in Princeton, New Jersey, and in London. His wife died in 2004, and Stoltzfus died in 2015, at the age of 90.

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• [http://www.towntopics.com/oct2903/stratton.html Interview]

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{{succession box | before = John N. Gatch, Jr. | title =United States Ambassador to Bahrain| years = 1971–1974| after = Joseph W. Twinam}}

{{succession box | before = office established | title =United States Ambassador to Qatar| years = 1971–1974| after = Robert Peter Paganelli}}

{{succession box | before = office established | title =United States Ambassador to United Arab Emirates| years = 1972–1974| after = Michael Sterner}}

{{succession box | before = John Patrick Walsh | title =United States Ambassador to Kuwait| years = 1972–1976| after = Frank E. Maestrone}}

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Category:1924 births

Category:2015 deaths

Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Bahrain

Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Kuwait

Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Oman

Category:Ambassadors of the United States to Qatar

Category:Ambassadors of the United States to the United Arab Emirates

Category:United States Navy pilots of World War II

Category:United States Foreign Service personnel

Category:American expatriates in Lebanon

Category:American expatriates in Syria

Category:American expatriates in Egypt

Category:American expatriates in Yemen

Category:American expatriates in Saudi Arabia

Category:20th-century American diplomats