{"id":18759,"date":"2011-12-03T16:32:21","date_gmt":"2011-12-04T00:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/a-father-for-all-times-thomas-e-shelton\/"},"modified":"2016-10-21T22:50:36","modified_gmt":"2016-10-22T05:50:36","slug":"a-father-for-all-times-thomas-e-shelton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/news\/a-father-for-all-times-thomas-e-shelton\/","title":{"rendered":"A father for all times | Thomas E. Shelton"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the newly released film \u201cJ. Edgar,\u201d<\/a> directed by Clint Eastwood, hit the screens in early November it brought back a flood of memories for Marcus Shelton about his father.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Kent East Hill resident is the son of Thomas E. Shelton, a master sergeant in the Air Force, a 25-year Boeing employee and a mentor to Marcus.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"The reason the \u201cJ. Edgar\u201d film brought back memories for Marcus was his father was a latent fingerprint expert who worked extensively with both military and civilian law enforcement agencies including the FBI during the 1950s and 60s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Some of the memorabilia Marcus had carefully preserved in a three-ring notebook included letters written to his father from J. Edgar Hoover thanking him for his work.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"Marcus said his father worked with Scotland Yard on fingerprints and handwriting analysis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He was also a weapons instructor for the Air Force.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realize how big he was,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cMy dad knew a lot of important people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Much of his father\u2019s history surfaced after his dad died in 2006.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He remembered his father could speak fluent Japanese and was head of the law enforcement for the Air Force while stationed in Germany.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Now 52 years old, Marcus looks back on the years with his father and mother, Patricia, as a very special and important time in his life.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cDad was very strict, but he cared about us,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cHe was a great provider.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Marcus said the family moved to Kent in mid-70s after his father retired from the Air\u00a0 Force. He spent 26 years wearing the Air Force uniform and worked the next two decades at Boeing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Marcus opened the three ring notebook with his father\u2019s papers, photographs of the war, medals and letters of commendation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very lucky to have him as a father,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cHe had a profound effect on my life. I wish he were here right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the newly released film \u201cJ. Edgar,\u201d directed by Clint Eastwood, hit the screens in early November it brought back a flood of memories for Marcus Shelton about his father.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":215,"featured_media":18760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/215"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18759"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}