Ethnicity:
His father is Frank Auth, was German. He was born in Pittsburgh, United States. His mother is Edith Ainsworth, was English. She was born in Hanley. She emigrated to Illinois, United States at the age of nine.
Eugene was born on November 4, 1907 in Decatur, Illinois, United States. He grew up in Decatur, Illinois, United States. Son of Frank Auth and Edith Ainsworth.
Eugene Auth graduated from Decatur High School in Decatur, Illinois, United States. He attended what is now Millikin University, then College, in 1926, planning to major in electrical engineering. He joined SAE fraternity his freshman year. Unfortunately, he had to drop out of college before starting his sophomore year to financially support his father and mother. From then on his education was totally on the job, where he was constantly studying railroading, especially signaling equipment, to control the movement and assembly of trains and all forms of transportation safety.
Eugene Frank Auth and his wife Mildred and first two children, Ronald and Dennis, moved 17 times between the parents' marriage in 1930 and move to Wilmette, Illinois in 1945. Most of these moves were to advance Eugene up the hierarchy inside the Pennsylvania Railroad, with most family moves east of the Mississippi River. All during World War II, Gene continued to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad (19 years total, starting in 1927), toward the end of the war in the Chrysler Building in New York City. The last 11 years of his 30 years in the railroad industry, Gene was constantly traveling all over the United States selling railroad equipment built by the General Railway Signal Company, to many different railroads through their buyers.
Everyone liked and trusted Gene Auth. HIs best friend, Arthur L. Essman, became President of the merged Burlington Northern Railroad after Gene's death before it merged with the Santa Fe Railroad to become the largest railroad in the United States (now owned by Berkshire Hathaway). Another of Gene's buyer buddies, Rex-Waller, became a President of the L & N Railroad, also after Gene's death. Another of his close friends helped build a railroad through Iran during World War II, which helped win the war like my Father's efforts as a civilian. When he died in 1956, Gene had a list among his papers of 1956 sales of General Railway Signal Company equipment totaling ten million dollars. His office at almost the end of his life was in the tallest building in the world, the Prudential Building in Chicago, moving in when it opened. Son David L. Auth, the author of this biography, remembers his office was on approximately the 21st floor when I proudly visited his father when he was 11 years old. At the time of his death in December 1956, Gene had agreed to become president of a competing railroad supply company, the Railroad Accessories Company of America (RACO), necessitating another move back to Manhattan, New York City. A fatal heart attack due to smoking too many cigarettes and living under too much stress for too long ended this plan and began very different histories for his wife and three children.
Physical Characteristics:
Gene died of a heart attack in his home in Deerfield, Illinois, leaving his wife Mildred and his three sons. Ronald and Dennis were in the United States Army at the time of his death and son David was eleven years old.
Eugene married to Mildred Gladys Breeding in Lockport, Missouri, United States on May 13, 1930. They had three children: Ronald Eugene Auth, Brice Dennis Auth, David Leslie Auth.
