George R. Neide

PRIVATE FIRST CLASS GEORGE RALPH NEIDE was born on June 20, 1925 to Ralph H. and Catherine A. Neide. The 1930 Census taken in April of 1930 shows the Neide family at 211 Ardmore Avenue in the Westmont section of Haddon Township. The neighbors at 205 Ardmore were William Hernandez, his wife Lucille, and son William Jr.

By 1940 the family had moved to 328 Chestnut Avenue in Audubon, New Jersey. Ralph Neide was then working as a machinist at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard in Camden. The family had moved to 208 Chestnut Avenue by 1943. In November of that year a sister, named Catherine after her mother, was born.

George Neide left high school after one year, as did the majority of boys of his generation, and according to Army records, worked as a "route man" prior to being inducted into the United States Army on December 11, 1943.

Assigned to the 362nd Infantry Regiment, 91st Infantry Division, he took part in the fighting in Italy. At the end of the war, the 362n Infantry took the town of Treviso, just north of Venice. Combat operations had virtually ceased. Private Neide and his unit had arrived in a bivouac area late and night and were given a location to bed down for the night. Tragically, the location where they slept turned out to be a roadway. A truck came through, killing Private Neide and several of his companions were killed.

At the time of his death, George Neide was about to get engaged to his long time girlfriend Dorothy Powel. His mother had bought the rings and in one of her last letters asked him when he wanted her to give them to 'Dottie'. It wasn't to be.

George Neide was initially buried in Italy. He was brought home in the late 1940s and was buried with full military honors at Locustwood Memorial Park in what was then Delaware Township (present-day Cherry Hill), New Jersey. He was survived by his parents, his brother Ralph Jr., and his sister Catherine.

AUDUBON'S TRIBUTE TO THOSE WHO SERVED IN WWII