Alexander Slowey Jr.
Rank: Private First Class, U.S. Army
Serial: 32241945
Unit: 592nd Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment
Entered service from: New Jersey
Born:
Died:
Burial: New St. Mary’s Cemetery, 515 West Browning Road, Bellmawr, New Jersey
Alexander Slowey Jr.
Private First Class Alexander Slowey Jr. was born on October 8, 1916, and lived at 519 Lester Terrace in Camden NJ. He worked as a machinist’s helper at the New York Shipyard before his induction on February 25, 1942. One of seven children, his father was a leatherworker in a Philadelphia factory. He had previously lived at 2454 South 7th Street.
After 18 months of service in the South Pacific, including action in New Guinea, Slowey was hospitalized in California, then in Luzon, and later in a Philadelphia hospital. He received a medical discharge on June 6, 1944, and came home. He died on September 29, 1944, and was buried at New St. Mary’s Cemetery in Bellmawr, New Jersey.
2 Camden Boys Held With Stolen Machine on Way to Hartford
Camden Morning Post —
Sadder and presumably wiser, two Camden boys who started for Hartford, Conn., Saturday night in an automobile reported stolen were brought back yesterday in the same car with detectives accompanying them. They are Alexander Slowey, 17, of 2454 South Seventh street, and Alexander Wasneuko, 18, of 818 Mechanic street, a cripple minus a leg.
At 10.30 p. m., Saturday, Frank Maloney, of Mt. Ephraim pike, Bellmawr, reported to Camden police that his sedan had been stolen from in front of 3044 Essex street, Camden. Maloney is a brother of Harry L. Maloney, mayor of Bellmawr and Democratic state committeeman.
Early yesterday morning the attendant at a gas station in Newark, N.J., caused the arrest of the boys. Detectives Joseph Carpani and John Kaign [sic] were sent to bring them back. They will have a hearing before Police Judge Pancoast this morning.
Vet Hangs Self; Mother Finds Body in Cellar
Camden Courier-Post —
Brooding Man Silent on War in Pacific; Unable to Work
The war ended on D-Day—for Pvt. Alexander Slowey, Jr., of 519 Lester terrace.
He was given a medical discharge June 6 and came home after 18 months in the South Pacific. But he wasn’t the same. He never talked about the action he’d seen or his illness in two hospitals before his discharge.
Morose, he couldn’t work, spent most of his time in his room. He never discussed the war with his parents.
Yesterday, his mother, Anna, went to 10 a. m. Mass at Sacred Heart church, Broadway and Ferry avenue. When she returned, she found him hanging in the cellar. She called her son-in-law, Alfred Capaldo, of 786 Line street, who hurried to the Slowey home and cut Alexander down.
Rescue squad 2, 1813 Broadway, responded to the call and worked on Alexander until 5.10 p. m., when Dr. Allan Rosenberg, West Jersey hospital interne, pronounced him dead. Twenty firemen from four engine companies tried to revive the soldier in vain with an inhalator and continuous artificial respiration.
The firemen were under direction of Battalion Chief Erickson who said Alexander had tied one end of a piece of clothesline to a pipe and laid the pipe across a hole in the dining room floor. He then went into the cellar, stood on a small box, tied the other end of the rope around his neck and kicked the box from under him.
The effort of the rescue squad to revive him was one of the longest on record in the city.
Alexander, who was 27, worked as a machinist’s helper at the New York shipyard before induction Feb. 25, 1942. After service in New Guinea he was hospitalized in California, then at the Lyons Veterans hospital. One of seven children, his father is a leatherworker in a Philadelphia factory.