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Ervin (also “Irwin” on his birth certificate) Scharf was born on May 16, 1922 in Wishek, North Dakota. His family, on his father’s side, can be traced back to the 1600s to the small village of Burgstall in Baden-Wurttemburg near present-day Stuttgart, Germany.
He was the last child to survive to adulthood out of seventeen born to George Scharf (1874-1936) and Dorothea Stickel (1875-1962). Several of his siblings died at a young age or were stillborn. Ten children, including Erivin, grew to adulthood.
George and Dorothea had immigrated to the United States in 1899 from one of the German Russian colonies near the Black Sea called Wittenberg. They made their way to Kulm, North Dakota were George’s uncle Gottlieb Scharf had already settled.
Ervin’s father passed away in 1936 when he was 16 years old. He quit school not long after to work in the Wishek grocery store to help support his widowed mother.
It was about this time that he earned the nickname of “Moon” based on a popular comic strip of the time entitled “Moon Mullens.” The name stuck with him for the rest of his life.
Following the start of World War II, he was inducted into the army in April of 1943. And, after completing basic training at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, Ervin was sent to the European Theater of Operations in November of 1943 as a Private First Class.
Participation in the Normandy Campaign and the Northern France Campaign earned Ervin the American Theater Ribbon, World War II Victory Medal, European Theater Ribbon with Two Bronze Stars and a Good Conduct Medal.
He was wounded in action on March 12, 1945 in Reims, France, which later resulted in his discharge from service in November of that year.
He later recalled the many places he saw including Paris and a performance at the Paris Opera House with his army buddy. Overall, however the war left him, like many other soldiers, with negative memories that led to bouts of depression throughout much of his later life.
After returning to Wishek he would begin dating Violet Schwind who he married in 1948. Three children resulted from this marriage: Thomas (1949), Donald (1951) and Sherry (1955). He also took a position with Montana-Dakota Utility Company and later moved with his family from Wishek to nearby Napoleon, North Dakota.
In 1957 the family moved again to San Diego, California where Ervin took a job with National Steel and Ship Building and later with the U.S. Post Office.
At times his depression got worse along with other illness as a result of the war injury that left him with several pieces of bullet fragments still inside his body. His death at age 54 came much too soon.
Ervin enjoyed his family’s return vacation trips to Wishek, Napoleon and Moorhead, Minnesota throughout the 1960s and 1970s. These visits brought him back to the family and people he grew up with and were the source of much enjoyment.
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1922 - 1976 (53 Jahre)
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