Viola, Oswald & Larry
on leave in 1944 from the South Pacific
On October 8, 1941 Oswald married Viola Joens, a 1940 graduate of Manning high school.
Oswald was a Private First Class in the U.S. Army, 129th Infantry Regiment, 37th Infantry
Division, Pacific Theater.
Barney spent from 1942 until 1944 in the Solomon Islands. He received accommodation for
winning the fight with the Japanese unit that had been responsible for the Rape of
Nanking in 1938.
From there he went to the Philippines. They were preparing for the assault
on Japan when the war came to an end.
Oswald was born April 9, 1911, in Arcadia, Iowa, he was the 8th of 20 children born to John and Antoinette (Pille) Stangl. He was raised in Coon Rapids and attended school there. In 1941 he married Viola Joens and, with the outbreak of WWII, was sent to the South Pacific as a combat infantryman with the U.S. Army. A combat veteran of numerous campaigns against the Japanese throughout the South Pacific, he was commended for his part in the 1945 Battle of Bougainville where the Imperial Japanese Army's 6th Infantry Division, infamous for the 1937 Rape of Nanking atrocities, was annihilated. After the war, he settled his family in Manning, Iowa, and went into the tavern business, moving to Knoxville in 1951. He continued as a full-time bartender until the age of 86 and was a longstanding member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion. As owner and bartender of the former Tap & Grill in downtown Knoxville, he made history in 1963 by selling the first legal liquor served by the drink in Marion County since before Prohibition. A 1991 inductee into the Seagram's Bartender Hall of Fame, his friendly disposition and natural leadership ability were instrumental in his remarkable achievement of never having to call on law enforcement officials in over 55 years of bartending. He was a member of St. Anthony's Catholic
Church in Knoxville since 1951 and often joked that as a bartender, he probably heard more confessions than most priests. While having only an 8th grade education himself, he was steadfast in inspiring all three of his children to earn university degrees.
Oswald died February 24th at the age of 96 at the Carlisle Care Center in Carlisle, Iowa.
In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his wife of 65 years, Viola; seventeen siblings: Adaline Neihaus, Clement Stangl, Clarence Stangl, Michael Stangl, Isabelle MacDonald, Caroline Smith, Louis Stangl, Clayton Stangl, Wilson Stangl, Billy Stangl, Janet Stam, Patrick Stangl and five others who died in infancy.
He is survived by his son, Larry (Lily) of Pittsburg, California; daughters, Beth Clarke (Gary) of Ames, Iowa, and Suzanne Stangl-Erkens (Joe) of Sauk Rapids, Minnesota; three grandchildren, David (Tina) Stangl, Aprille Clarke (Denny Crall), and Tyler Clarke; two great-grandchildren, Lisa Stangl and Miles Clarke Crall; and two sisters, Alice Broude of Los Angeles, California, and Marykay Mendez of Holly, Michigan.
Memorial contributions may be made to the S.O.S. (Save Our Stadium) fund. Online Condolences may be made bertrandfuneralhomes.com