WWI vet whose freethinking took him far

William A. Seegers, 106, of Malvern, a retired Linotype operator who fought in the German army during World War I, died of pneumonia July 9 at his daughter's home in Richmond, Calif.

Mr. Seegers grew up in Bleicherode, Germany. In 1918, when he was 17, he was drafted into the army. He deserted because of his family's antiwar views, his daughter Virginia Harrison said, but he rejoined the army when he learned that deserters were being hanged. He was honorably discharged in April 1919.

In 1923, Mr. Seegers' uncle, who operated an ice cream parlor in New York, bought him a ticket to sail to the United States. He walked off the ship wearing lederhosen and carrying a guitar, with his shoulder-length blond hair blowing in the wind, his daughter said.

Mr. Seegers, who was active in the back-to-nature movement in Germany, hitchhiked to Louisiana, where he joined New Llano, a socialist commune.

He met Vinita Thurman while working in the commune's print shop. The couple married in 1924 and moved to Philadelphia, where they found jobs in the composing room of the Public Ledger. They were later Linotype operators at The Inquirer and members of the International Typographical Union.

Mr. Seegers and his wife raised two daughters in Northeast Philadelphia. They divorced in 1951. The next year he married Eleanor Teesdale and bought an acre in Malvern for $1,000. He built a home there, laying out every cinder block and stringing every wire himself, his daughter said.

After he retired from The Inquirer in 1966, he spent his time gardening, and he and his wife taught folk dancing in their home until the late 1990s. His wife had a stroke in 2001, and he cared for her until her death in 2005.

His passions were dancing and being outdoors, his daughter said. He also enjoyed drawing, calligraphy and photography.

Mr. Seegers changed his name from Wilhelm when he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1933. He loved the freedom he found in the United States but, true to his self-sufficient nature, criticized Americans as wasteful, his daughter said.

Robert Young, a researcher with the Gerontology Research Group in Los Angeles who interviewed Mr. Seegers in May, said many of the people he interviewed who were older than 100 tended to be independent thinkers and optimists.

During World War I, Mr. Seegers was hospitalized with Spanish influenza with prisoners of war he had been guarding. The flu epidemic killed more than 20 million people worldwide, yet Mr. Seegers remembered the time with some fondness, Young said. He recalled how Italians, French, British and Germans had made friends and shared stories, music and food packages.

The Gerontology Research Group has identified three remaining World War I veterans in the United States; two fought for the United States and one for Canada. Only one known veteran of the kaiser's army is living in Germany, Young said, and he estimates there are two dozen World War I veterans worldwide.

In addition to his daughter Virginia, Mr. Seegers is survived by another daughter, Ramona Rose-Crossley; four grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and his former wife, Vinita.

Funeral arrangements were pending.