Frederick William Cluggish
T/5 in 603rd Engineer Camouflage Bn : Co C
ASN#13105458
Born 1914 in IN, Died 1989
Artist
County of residence at enlistment: Queens County, NY
Other residence(s): New Castle, IN; Chicago, IL
United States Army, European Theatre of Operations
Occupation before the war: advertising agents
College education before the war: Chicago Art Institute; Art Academy of Chicago; Indiana University 4 years
Frederick Cluggish was born on June 27, 1914 in New Castle, Indiana. His father was a factory worker.
From what I can piece together from various sources, he graduated from Chrysler HS in New Castle, IN in 1932, where he served as snapshot editor for the yearbook. He started college at Indiana University. But in the spring of 1933 he was studying at the "Art Academy at Chicago", and in December, 1933 he was at the Chicago Art Institute; presumably he graduated from there. (According to the 1940 census he was living in Chicago in 1935, and his enlistment record says he has four years of college.)
He married Ruth Elizabeth Vannington (Scheuerholz) in 1938.
The 1940 census reports that the Cluggishes were living in the Hudson Square area of New York City, and Frederick was working as a "displayer" in advertising. His wife was a stenographer.
His September 25, 1942 enlistment record reports him as living in Queens, NY and working as an advertising agent.
Like many other artists and ad men, Frederick found his way into the 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion. An October, 1944 letter from fellow Ghost Army soldier Art Singer to his wife reports that before the war, Frederick “used to be a traveling salesman for window and show display companies. He ran Maxwell Displays in New York (a tremendous business) and consequently knows a good deal about design, all types of materials that go into displays, and he is a good businessman and salesman. He has an ideal setup for after the war and he is to be aided by his wife and sister (the latter used to be Gift Buyer for Altman’s and she knows the gift business in and out).”
After the war the Cluggish’s son, Fredric (different spelling), was born about 1946; in 1965 he was in the Air Force and being trained as a language specialist. Frederick and Ruth were living in Tenafly, NJ.
Frederick died on October 11, 1989, in Bonita Springs, FL, where the Cluggishes had been living for several years. He is buried at Brookside Cemetery in Englewood, NJ.
Photo:
High School Yearbook, 1932
https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/1265/sid_18028391_1932_0026/423849424?backurl=ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/73414812/person/160002599280/...d
Sources:
1933 newspaper article; says he's at Chicago Art Institute
https://www.newspapers.com/image/251903907/?terms=fred%2Bcluggish
1938 marriage information
1940 census
1942 enlistment record
1965 article about his son in Air Force
https://www.newspapers.com/image/553562041/?terms=frederick%2Bw%2Bcluggish
1989 Social Security death record
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=ssdi&h=11324372
1989 Find a Grave record
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186968172/frederick-w-cluggish