 |
| | 1ST CL. PVT. EDWARD C. SCHONSCHECK
Serial No. 2,050,123
Wyandotte, Mich.
Private Schonseheck was inducted April, 1918. He was one of the second lot of men of the Battery and before coming into the army he bad studied for the ministry and had delved into philosophy. A nervous breakdown followed and Schomcheck took up barbering. At Custer he rigged up a barber’s chair and he became the Battery barber, and the money he got, which was 15 cents a shave, he contributed to the Battery fund, in consequence he individually put more money into the fund than anyone else.
He was early selected to he a member of a gun crew, undergoing all the hardships and privations of his duty in the line and participated in all actual combat with the enemy.
At Pont-a-Mousson he and Private Lee Gardner established an improvised barber shop in a sun parlor in one of the French homes partially destroyed by shells, where he set up his tonsorial studio. In this way he insured the boys against unfavorable criticism under inspection by eliminating long hair, which had to be done in moments off duty.
At the Belgian Camp, in the forwarding area, when there was a wholesale attack on mustachios or misplaced eyebrows, such as some of the men and officers had effected to make them look severe. Schonscheck acted as executioner, using for his guillotine his barber’s clippers. This called out all the heavy arms in the Battery, who caught the intended victims and held them in the chair while the hirsute extraction was made. Among those who could be mentioned as having offered the stoutest resistance are Sergt. Young, Private Gustafson, Corp. Whalen, Mech. Horton and Private DeGroote. This was a day of great amusement among the boys, though they designated it as “painful moments.”
He maintained the esprit de corps of the Battery, which is the subtle force of an organization. |