In March 1942 Harold W. Gaunitz, shown here* with his wife Ethel, took on the duties of commander of the Iowa department of the American Legion, filling out the term of Thomas H. Tracey of Manchester, who had re-entered the army. No one had served Lansing’s Post No. 50 of the American Legion longer or more devotedly than Gaunitz. He was among the fifteen men who applied for post’s initial charter in June 1919. For decades he attended local post meetings and state and national conventions. Gaunitz appears in the yellowed pages of the Post 50 book of meeting minutes again and again participating in the post operations. He held all local offices and was district and Allamakee County commander and fourth district vice commander before ascending to the state leadership.
With a head of auburn hair, Gaunitz was known as “Red,” and almost everyone he met grew to consider him a friend. He was deeply embedded in the life of his community, with membership in the local Masons, the Order of the Eastern Star, and Lansing Kiwanis Club. He served on the school board for more than twenty years and, while he and wife Ethel had no children of their own, was a favorite of his nieces and nephews. With his brother Ernie, Gaunitz owned and operated the Gaunitz Food Market established by their father.
Gaunitz’s military experience began in Canada. He had been working with a railway construction crew in British Columbia when World War I began, and enlisted in the Canadian Army. When the United States joined the war in 1917, he got a release and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Gaunitz was stationed at Camp Taylor, Kentucky, and had the rank of second lieutenant by the time the armistice was signed.
On returning to Lansing, he rejoined the family grocery and married schoolteacher Ethel. She was invaluable to him, helping him sort and respond to Legion correspondence. Ethel joined Lansing’s Legion Women’s Auxiliary and became president of the group.
Gaunitz did still find time amid all his duties to relax. He was an avid reader and golfer and swam in Mississippi River, which flows past Lansing. He hunted ducks with a Browning automatic shotgun in the river bottoms. He was, by his own admission, a good shot.
When Gaunitz was named state Legion commander he immediately joined the election committee to discuss the Legion’s program in Iowa. “Helping establish and maintain national unity should be one of the main objectives,” he said. “Our first objective—the first objective of the American people—is winning the war. And I think the spirit of the American people is going to do much in helping us through this crisis.”
Thus, Lansing’s stalwart “Red” Gaunitz, who had spared no time in enlisting to serve the allies and then the U.S. for World War I, supported the efforts of Iowa’s service men and women entering World War II. He served as commander until July of that year when a new commander was elected to serve the next year. Gaunitz passed away at the Hines Veterans Hospital near Chicago on May 8, 1967. Ethel had preceded him in 1951. They are buried in Lansing’s Oak Hill Cemetery.
*Des Moines Sunday Register photograph
