The Schellhase Brothers
Out in the Midwest, one farming family was destined to provide not one, but two of the battalion’s leaders, one eventually serving with K Company. The two brothers, Bernard and Lowell Schellhase, were born in Benton County Iowa in 1916 and 1920. Their great-grandparents immigrating to the United States from then-western Prussia three generations earlier, they naturally gravitated toward the heavily German-populated farming communities of the Midwest, where the boys continued in the family trade.
Unfortunately, their father passed away just two years after Lowell was born, leaving the raising of the boys and their two sisters solely in the hands of their mother Freda. Freda was a child of German immigrants herself, so she was born with that the characteristic confidence and determination necessary to get through such hardship, and so the family managed to make do on the farm under her direction. Still, the children were all put to work at a very young age.
The two boys proved energetic and highly competitive, and no few scraps resulted between the two of them as a result. One notable clash resulted in the younger brother getting a tooth knocked out. Replaced by a gold one, Lowell was always quick to point it out with a smile and tell where he got it, no doubt reveling in his older brother’s embarrassment. But the combination of hard work, competitiveness and even the brawling made the duo as close as any could be, and few dared to come between them, because picking a fight with one surely meant a fight with the other as well. This close and lasting bond was to last for many more years to come, to include when the pair found themselves faced against a different kind of adversary looking for a fight.
The tall and wiry boys loved sports, both of them playing basketball at Urbana High School until Bernard graduated in 1935. After graduation, Bernard continued on at the family farm, as was undoubtedly expected for the family’s oldest male. For Lowell however, baseball was his true passion, and gift. He had a knack for pitching, and soon acquired the nickname “Lefty” after taking to the mound in high school. After graduation in 1937, he went on to play for the town’s semi-pro team for several years, and was even talented enough for the local paper to sub-caption their game announcements with “featuring the Sensational pitcher ‘Lefty’ Schellhause [sic].”
In the Fall of 1940, Lowell went on to sign with a minor league team, the Cedar Rapids Raiders, earning him a contract to play for the team for $75 dollars a month. While not quite yet enough to make a living off of, it was what he needed to continue to collect the attention of even higher-level ball clubs. A year later he signed with the Appleton Papermakers in Wisconsin, a Class D team affiliated with the Cleveland Indians. His contract stipulated that he was to start in the next upcoming season, in the Spring of 1942. Clearly the way ahead was extremely bright and exciting for the young ballplayer, and barring any sort of injury or unforeseen interruptions, both he and his family could not have been more enthusiastic for what his future might hold.
An interruption did come, one Sunday afternoon (central time) on December 7, 1941. Future plans and dreams had to be put on hold for young men all across America in those dark days. It only took the Schellhase brothers no more than the Christmas holiday to make up their minds, both dropping what they were doing and enlisting together on January 6, 1942. The Marines wasted no time with these two, shipping them both off to Boot Camp the same day. Professional baseball would have to wait for the duration, perhaps forever.
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