Garland ESY/Raytheon Retirees

Verna Sylvia Welch Vaughn, who we all knew as Sylvia Vaughn, passed away on Wednesday, 18 Mar, a week short of her 92nd birthday after a long and fruitful life and a rather short illness resulting from a respiratory virus contracted in rehab.

Sylvia was born on 26 Mar 1934 in Lodi, Arkansas, a rather small farming community located in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains on Arkansas Highway 84 approximately halfway between the Texas state line and Hot Springs.  She was raised on a very rural farm along with 7 other siblings.  In those post-Depression days, money was always tight, so she spent her summers in Chicago, taking on work in a variety of industries.  One of these jobs (Western Electric) taught her the essential skills of soldering and reading blueprints that, years later, would pave the way for an illustrious career in the defense industry.

Sylvia graduated from the Langley School (1945~1969) in nearby Langley, Arkansas and she was accorded the honor of being named the Best Athlete in her senior class.

After tying the knot with her husband Arlie, they relocated to Dallas and she snagged a job at Collins Radio based upon her previous work experience at Western Electric.  She subsequently was hired on at LTV/Chance-Vought which, in itself was an interesting story: “They required [applicants] to take a test and, if you passed that they’d give you a harder test [, and so on] until you failed.  That would be the level of position you would hire in at.  I got pretty far and I think they were surprised.” 

Sylvia joined the company in 1961, originally expecting to work there for 3 months or so (in order to gather the funds for a new coffee table of all things!).  Her employment lasted 43 years, occasionally being laid off and re-activated due to variances in the workload in the early days of the company.  Of course, Ling-Temco-Vought spun off their LTV Electrosystems subsidiary, forming E-Systems in 1972.  Throughout her career, she was primarily in the Manufacturing organization, although she did spend some time in Alice Springs as a security representative as well as some time in Langley, VA working on behalf of one of the “three-letter” governmental organizations.  She retired around 1994 shortly before the Raytheon acquisition.  In her words, “a long-time temporary job, I guess”.

Sylvia made many lifelong friends during her time at Garland, and her son Craig even worked in the ESY Garland Machine Shop from 1984~1995.  She leaves behind three kids – daughters Kay (Rogers) and Kristal, and son Craig, 8 grandkids, and 11 great-grandkids.

Ever the forward-thinker, Sylvia had provided instructions to her family for her memorial service, including no “funeral home type involvement”.  Accordingly, they are planning on carrying out those directions in the form of a “Life Remembrance and Fellowship” event to be held on Saturday, 28 March 2026 beginning at 1:00 p.m. in the barn at their ranch located at 1000 Pullen Rd, Rockwall TX 75032.  All are welcome to attend.