Ellis Eugene "Gene" Schwartz
CPL in 603rd Engineer Camouflage Bn : Co C
ASN#35314957
Born 1918 in OH, Died 1992
Artist
County of residence at enlistment: Summit County, OH
Other residence(s): Akron, OH; Sun City, AZ
United States Army, European Theatre of Operations
Occupation before the war: commercial artists
College education before the war: 3 years
Gene Schwartz was born on August 13, 1918 in Akron, OH, the oldest of three children. His father was a jobber in the rubber industry, and all four of his grandparents had been born in Russia. The 1930 census shows two servants living in the household, so the family was clearly well-off.
Gene spent four years in college, though the institution is not known. Prior to 1940, he married Ruth Dorothy Hill, and in 1940 he was living with Dorothy and her family in Cleveland and working as an industrial artist with a WPA program. He registered for the draft on October 16, 1940.
He enlisted on July 18, 1942 at which point he had gotten divorced and moved back to Akron. His profession was listed as "commercial artist."
The following year he was stationed in a base near Durham, NC, and had earned the rank of CPL. It was in Durham that he married Gertrude Pearl Sawilosky on May 23, 1943.
He eventually found his way into the 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, and served in Europe with the unit. He was discharged on February 9, 1946.
Over the subsequent years he married twice more—one of his wives died, and the fourth outlived him. (That was Eleanor Gombert Cleverdon, whom he married on September 1, 1974.) He also fathered three children: Arnold, Barbara, and Susan, and became a stepfather to Christine Smith and Thomas Cleverdon.
Little else is known of his life or work. His 1974 marriage record says that he was working as a realtor; his obituary says he was an award-winning calligrapher, and founder of the Scripts and Scribes Calligraphy Club in Akron. He served as president of that organization.
After retiring with Eleanor to Sun City, AZ in 1988, he founded Calligraphy West there, and also served as president of that group.
He died on May 22, 1992 in Sun City.
Sources:
1930 census
1940 census
1940 draft card
1942 enlistment record
1943 marriage record
1974 marriage record
1992 VA death record
1992 Social Security applications and claims index
1992 obituary in the Akron Beacon Journal (OH)