Picatinny: Family Job Machine

Margaret Paulus (nee Williams) b. 1887; d. 1972
Russel Shultz b. 1909; d. 2007
Edna Shultz (nee Paulus) b.1911; d. 1995
Frederick Paulus, Jr. b.1913 d. 1984
Margaret Paulus (nee Webber) b. 1915; d. 2002
Alvin Paulus b. 1915 d. 1995
Bruce Cheney b. 1917
Elizabeth Cheney (nee Paulus) b. 1919; d. 2009


What do the above 8 people have in common? Besides being family, they all worked at Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County, New Jersey. Of the Paulus family - parents (Margaret and Friedrich) and their four children and their spouses - only two did not work at Picatinny Arsenal (Friedrich Paulus; and Lee Paulus, nee Vanoli - married to Alvin Paulus).

Picatinny Arsenal, founded in 1880 as a powder depot (starting in 1749 it was used as a forge and during the Revolutionary War was manned by Hessian prisoners and served the Continental Army), the Arsenal would become a major location for munitions storage, production, development, and training. During its height in World War II, when my ancestors worked there, the arsenal employed 20,000 people.

You'll notice that 4 of the above mentioned are women, and Picatinny hired 10,000 women. In fact, it was one of the first plants to use women for tasks such as, "machine operators, smokeless powder workers and carpenters."

While ultimately the work would prove safe, the explosion of 1926, which killed 19 people, injured 38 others, and destroyed all buildings within 3,000 feet, must have made workers 15 years later a little nervous.

The explosion was caused by a lightning strike to one of the magazines that stored 670,000 pounds of munition which then caused a second magazine with 1,600,000 pounds of TNT to explode. Damage was estimated at $1,265,000 and the WPA would spend $2,953,920 to rebuild during the 1930s. Congress would authorize another $8 million during World War II and in 1945 another $7 million.

In future posts we'll learn what our relatives did at the Arsenal, starting with the matriarch, Margaret Paulus (nee Williams). And we'll see that some worked there longer than others.

Sources:
Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey; Images of America Series. by John W. Rae, Aracdia Publishing, Charleston, SC. 1999.