Private First Class Frank Schweitzer
Frank Schweitzer was born in Patterson, New Jersey to Franz and Philipina (Braun) Schweitzer, both immigrants from Germany who arrived in the US in the mid 1880’s. Frank was the second out of nine children in the household and while attending school, was a labor worker and later a silk spinner for Robert Muller Silk Co. When the United States entered World War One in April of 1917, Frank signed up for the draft and listed his family as an exemption. Nevertheless, Frank was drafted on May 25th, 1918 and was quickly assigned to the newly constituted 59th Pioneer Infantry at Camp Dix, New Jersey who were in dire need of recruits. The men of the Pioneer Infantry did not know their unit’s purpose, so they were initially trained as regular infantry. They would later find out that the Pioneer Infantry was modeled off the same unit of the British Army which involved Engineering duties and being used as infantry when needed. On August 21st, word was given to Private Schweitzer and the 59th Pioneer Infantry that they would be deployed overseas, and preparations to leave Camp Dix were immediately made. Ten days later, they would leave aboard the Leviathan for France. The trip was carried out with caution due to the presence of enemy submarines. Each soldier was required to have a life preserver at all times, abandon ship drills were conducted, and no lights were allowed at night. Eventually, Private Schweitzer and his battalion arrived in Brest in mid September with no submarine incidents and were moved to Foulain for a brief period of gas training. With the urgent need for American units to support the Meuse Argonne Offensive, the 59th Pioneer Infantry was split up and stationed across the French countryside. Private Schweitzer’s D Company was sent to Sorcy on September 26th and then ordered to report to Company B, 26th Engineers at Grosrouvres. The company arrived there after a fifteen mile march on the 30th of September and after establishing their headquarters, left for the Bois de Puvenelle on October 2nd. It was here that their engineering duties began. Their job for the rest of the war was to build pipelines and reservoirs to supply water to the allies. By the time the Armistice was called to end the war on November 11th, 1918, Private Schweitzer and Company D had constructed and sent soldiers to operate sixteen pipelines located in France. The 59th Pioneer Infantry remained in Europe after the war ended to help salvage and destroy munitions until Private First Class Schweitzer finally left for the United States aboard the Artemis on July 21st, 1919, arriving in early August and being discharged on the 8th. Returning to New Jersey, Frank married Gertrude De Voil, helped found the CIO affiliated silk workers union in Patterson, worked as a private investigator in the Wage and Hours division of the Federal Department of Labor, and was active in veterans organizations such as Silk City Barracks 88 and Veterans of WW1 in Patterson. During the last six months of his life, Frank moved to a veterans hospital due to a sickness which eventually led to his death on April 17th, 1965.
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