Military Monday ~ Joseph Handler's Draft Cards

In doing research on another Handler family member, I realized that I have not yet shared the Draft Cards for my husband's paternal grandfather.

Courtesy of Ancestry.com's World War I Draft Registration Cards description:

Registration
The World War I draft consisted of three separate registrations.

• First Registration. The registration on 5 June 1917, was for men aged twenty-one to thirty-one—men born between 6 June 1886 and 5 June 1896.
• Second Registration. The registration on 5 June 1918, was for men who had turned twenty-one years of age since the previous registration—men born between 6 June 1896 and 5 June 1897. Men who had not previously registered and were not already in the military also registered. In addition, a supplemental registration on 24 August 1918, was for men who turned twenty-one years of age since 5 June 1918.
• Third Registration. The registration on 12 Sept 1918, was for men aged eighteen to twenty-one and thirty-one to forty-five—men born between 11 Sept 1872 and 12 Sept 1900.

Registration Cards
Each of the three separate registrations used a slightly different version of the draft registration card. Because different cards were used, the information included in each varies.

I find 34-year-old Joe Handler in the World War I Draft Registration records in September 1918 (third registration).

Ancestry.com, World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 (Provo, UT, USA, The Generations Network, Inc., 2005), www.ancestry.com, Database online. Registration Location: Summit County, Ohio;
Roll: 1819623; Draft Board:  5. Record for Joseph Handler.

Joe Handler is living at 646 Bell [Street], Akron, Ohio. He was born August 24, 1884. He is a declared alien, which indicates that he has declared his intention to become a citizen. (Joseph Handler became a citizen in June 1920. See his naturalization here.)

This also indicates his occupation, but it's challenging to read. Does that look like "Bar Tender" and the employer is "Handler + Weinberg"? It's also hard to read the address: possibly 1223 Sweitzer, Akron, Summit, Ohio.

His nearest relative is his wife, Lena Handler, at 646 Bell [Street], Akron. The next page indicates that Joseph is of medium height, medium build, with brown eyes and black hair.

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From Ancestry.com's description of the World War II Draft Cards that are publicly available:

"The U.S. officially entered World War II on 8 December 1941 following an attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Just about a year before that, in October 1940, President Roosevelt had signed into law the first peacetime selective service draft in U.S. history, due to rising world conflicts. After the U.S. entered WWII a new selective service act required that all men between ages 18 and 65 register for the draft. Between November 1940 and October 1946, over 10 million American men were registered. This database is an indexed collection of the draft cards from the Fourth Registration, the only registration currently available to the public (the other registrations are not available due to privacy laws). The Fourth Registration, often referred to as the "old man's registration", was conducted on 27 April 1942 and registered men who born on or between 28 April 1877 and 16 February 1897 - men who were between 45 and 64 years old - and who were not already in the military."

Here is 57-year-old Joseph Handler's WWII Draft Card. If you've been following my blog for awhile, you'll know that three of his four sons served in WWII, and two died serving their country.

Ancestry.com, U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 (Provo, UT, USA, The Generations Network, Inc., 2007), www.ancestry.com, Database online. Local Board: Ohio. Record for Joseph Handler.

By 1942, Joseph Handler lives at 553 Rhodes Avenue (at phone number BL 9242), which is just a couple of blocks from Bell Street, where the family lived 23 years earlier. Birthdate is what I expect: August 24, 1884, and born in JugoSlavia. (Eastern European borders changed over time and between 1920 and 1930, the city of his birth, Ilok, changed from being in Hungary to being in Yugoslavia. Ilok is now in easternmost Croatia, across the Danube River from Serbia.)

Interestingly, the "name and address of person who will always know your address" is not his wife Lena, but his youngest son, Harry, who turned 20 in 1942.