WWI soldier finally gets grave marker

In October 1918, a 19-year-old soldier from Chelsea serving in the First World War volunteered to pass through an enemy barrage in France to deliver an urgent message to his battalion commander. Shortly after starting out, he was shot and killed.

Although the valor he showed that day during the Battle of Verdun earned Fred C. Dulevitz a posthumous Distinguished Service Cross, for nearly 90 years his burial site at Everett's Glenwood Cemetery contained no stone or marker.

Now, through the efforts of retired Chelsea High School social studies teacher Ernie Sullivan, that omission has finally been corrected.

Using records culled from military archives, old newspapers, and other sources, Sullivan compiled documents showing who Dulevitz was and his service in the war. Using that information, Everett vet erans service officer Joseph F. Hickey applied to the US Veterans Administration to issue a gravestone for Dulevitz. Less than a month later, a marker arrived, and last week it was installed.

On Sept. 14 at 10 a.m., the marker will be dedicated in a ceremony at the cemetery.

"I think it's a terrible thing when you serve your country and you are not commemorated or remembered by a stone or a marker," said Sullivan, who speculated that Dulevitz's family at the time could not afford the price of a stone and that the need for one subsequently "fell through the cracks."

He said it brings him satisfaction to see the stone - which includes a Star of David denoting Dulevitz's Jewish faith, the date of his death, and the fact that he was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross and a Purple Heart.

"It's the fulfillment of a project that you set out to complete," said Sullivan, an Everett resident and the grandson of a late World War I veteran.

The effort was an outgrowth of a five-year initiative led by Sullivan, which identified 41 Chelsea citizens, including Dulevitz, who died in World War I but whose names had been omitted from a bronze plaque erected in 1935 to honor the war dead. A new monument bearing the 41 names and the 58 original ones was dedicated in 2006.

Sullivan said he started placing flags around Memorial Day each year on the markers or stones of some of those forgotten Chelsea soldiers buried in local cemeteries. It was through that effort that he found that the burial plot for Dulevitz contained no stone or marker.

Sullivan said his research indicates that Dulevitz was born in Russia and immigrated to the United States with his family in the early 1900s.

Records indicate the family lived at one time in Newburyport. But Sullivan said it is clear that at least as of 1919, the family lived in Chelsea, which was home to a large Jewish immigrant population. Newspaper accounts from the time list him as among the city's war dead, and when his body was returned from France in 1921, it was waked at his mother's home in Chelsea.

Sullivan said Dulevitz, who ran away from home to enlist in the Connecticut National Guard in 1917 - his unit a week later was made part of the Army's 26th (Yankee) Division - was among many young immigrants who served and fought for their adopted country. They did so, he speculated, because "this country took them in when most other countries didn't want them."

Among those planning to be on hand for the Sept. 14 ceremony is Alexander R. Dulevitz, a nephew from Texas. Sullivan tracked him down through an Internet search for relatives of Fred Dulevitz.

Alexander Dulevitz said by phone that his father and Fred's younger brother, Alexander Dulevitz, who died in 2006 at the age of 97, for some reason never mentioned having an older brother.

He said it was only in recent years that the family learned through Internet surfing of the existence of Fred Dulevitz and realized their connection to him. Their phone conversations with Sullivan further confirmed that fact.

Alexander Dulevitz, 68, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel - as was his late father - said he is pleased the memory of his forgotten uncle has now been revived for his family and others.

"It's nice to know that someone like that existed and that he contributed as he did," he said.