Mordecai Reese Craig
CPL in 603rd Engineer Camouflage Bn : Co B, 1st Platoon
ASN#38150385
Born 1911 in KS, Died 1990
Artist
County of residence at enlistment: Garfield County, OK
Other residence(s): Enid, OK; Demarest, NJ
United States Army, European Theatre of Operations
Occupation before the war: commercial artists
Mordecai Craig was born on September 6, 1911 in Columbus, Kansas. He graduated from Enid (OK) High School in 1930, and, in the 1930 census, he was living with his family in Enid, and working as an artist at a theatre.
He married Dorothy Madeline Robertson on February 21, 1931, but they were divorced prior to his WW2 service—most likely sometime in the 1930s.
The 1940 census and his October 16, 1940 draft card describe him as a window decorator at Newman Mercantile, a department store in Enid, and living with his father.
He enlisted in the Army on April 9, 1942.
In 1948, he was back in Enid, Oklahoma and working as a window decorator at Herzberg's Department Store. He had married Jean Kirk Eggleston on July 19, 1947.
He also served in the National Guard after his discharge from the Army.
Sometime before 1950, he had moved to California and gotten a job as an advertising designer at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, and gotten divorced from Jean. On September 11, 1953 he married Eleanor F. D'Camp Fields in Los Angeles, who had a three-year old daughter. Eleanor was a veteran as well—she had served in the Navy from April 1944 to February 1946. Mordecai and Eleanor would go on to have four children in addition to Eleanor's daughter.
In 1954 he took a job in the art department at Purdue Frederick Pharmaceuticals in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he remained until he retired in 1972 as senior art director and designer.
He died on October 1, 1990; he was living in Demarest, NJ at the time of his death.
Photos:
1930 high school yearbook
1943 in uniform in front of a 603rd camouflage battalion sign
Sources:
1930 census
1931 marriage record
1940 draft card
1942 enlistment record
1947 marriage record
1948 city directory
1950 voter registration
1953 marriage record
1990 Social Security death record
1990 Obituary, The Record (Hackensack NJ)
https://www.newspapers.com/image/496586857/?terms=mordecai%2Breese%2Bcraig