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An Artist Life

Leo RAGS Lathouwers, 1923-2007

Rags’ Artistic Beginnings

He became a soldier in 1941.

Rags enlisted in the US Army during the Second World War in Chicago, Illinois. He was 19 years old, and joining the army was his substitute for high school graduation. He was already showing a natural aptitude for drawing as a student, and at his draft board indoctrination, his talent was discovered.

“Combat Sketch Artist” US Army, Military Pacific Theater, Specialist Title
His love of drawing paved the way for his military specialist classification, “Combat Sketch Artist.” His job was to sketch drawings to record what was happening during combat. As you can imagine, Rags’ keen eye for the passing scene was fine-tuned during this time. His job required it. He knew that he was drawing an important story.

He worked alongside Combat Photographers and journalists reporting for major newspapers back in the States.

An Artist Life

Leo RAGS Lathouwers, 1923-2007

Rags’ Artistic Beginnings

He became a soldier in 1941.

Rags enlisted in the US Army during the Second World War in Chicago, Illinois. He was 19 years old, and joining the army was his substitute for high school graduation. He was already showing a natural aptitude for drawing as a student, and at his draft board indoctrination, his talent was discovered.

“Combat Sketch Artist” US Army, Military Pacific Theater, Specialist Title
His love of drawing paved the way for his military specialist classification, “Combat Sketch Artist.” His job was to sketch drawings to record what was happening during combat. As you can imagine, Rags’ keen eye for the passing scene was fine-tuned during this time. His job required it. He knew that he was drawing an important story.

He worked alongside Combat Photographers and journalists reporting for major newspapers back in the States.

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General MacArthur’s invasion of the Philippines

Rags was attached to the 7th Infantry Division under General Mac Arthur. In his four years with the 7th, he made four major invasions in the Western Pacific theater of operations.

In October 1945, General Mac Arthur made his famous return; the invasion of the Philippines. It was there that Rags had a powerful life-altering experience. He was in the first wave of landing crafts along with two hundred other soldiers in his company. That first wave to hit the beaches took extreme casualties and, tragically, suffered an eighty percent loss of life. Rags was counted in the twenty percent that survived.

The company was pulled back to regroup and hit the beach again the next day with the forty men that were left from his original company. After the next successful attempt to establish the second beachhead, there were exactly seven men left, of which Rags was one. From two hundred down to seven. Rags and six others. A stunning fact.

The number seven

On that fateful day, the number seven had special meaning for Rags. It became a prominent and auspicious symbol. A reminder of the great good fortune he experienced in his young life. It wasn’t just the simple number seven that represented happy omens; it was any equation or arithmetic summing to seven- in words, phrases, places, and people in his life. Somehow, it magically paired with everything he regarded as fortuitous. He felt a mystical reverence for seven as an emblematic sign of that day on the beach in 1945.

He was wounded during the Okinawa beach offensive and was sent stateside to a VA hospital in Indiana, where he spent a year recovering from his wounds. He was awarded the “Purple Heart” and the “Bronze Star.” For his valor in the “Day at the Beach.”

The name, Rags

“Rags,” the name that stuck for the rest of his life, was coined in 1945 on the island of Leyte in the Philippines. During that invasion of the Island of Leyte in the Philippines in 1945, his unit was cut off from US forces. While hiding in the mountains behind Japanese lines, all supplies had to be air-dropped in. Unfortunately, the prevailing winds would not allow the much-needed supplies to reach his isolated unit.

Clothing was very much in demand due to the excessive heat and humidity of the jungle. Being of short stature at 5’4”, clothes were hard to come by when his unit was isolated in the jungle. He eventually found a beat-up straw hat and short Japanese pants called Jinbei, which became his new attire. That scavenged outfit inspired the name he was affectionally and jokingly called from then on by the guys in his unit. And that was it. He was simply known as Rags for the rest of his life and career.

Forever Rags

In fact, the name so endured he adopted it as his artist pen name and signed all his works with it from that point in time on.

Here’s what happened next

Being a ground pounder for Uncle Sam didn’t pay much in those days. $50.00 dollars a month, to be exact. That’s if you were lucky to live long enough to spend it. The war finally ended in 1945 while Rags convalesced at the VA hospital.

Millions of G.I.’s were returning to their lives and jobs back in the States. Rags had to figure out what to do to get back to civilian life. He had been told that the Army Airborne actually paid you $100.00 per month. He thought, “Wow, double the pay, and I don’t have to look for a job that by now probably doesn’t exist anyway.”  So, Airborne it was.

Weekly newspaper, “Paraglide” “Around with Rags” cartoons – 1946-1948

It was 1946 when he was released from the VA hospital and joined the 82nd Airborne Division. They classified him with his Army Specialist rating. By this point in time, he held the rank of a “Technical Sergeant,” and his new rating was “Staff Artist & Public Information Officer.”

The 82nd Airborne Division is headquartered at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It was there that art once again forged another new direction in his career. The division published its own weekly newspaper called the “Paraglide.” His staff assignment for the command was to produce original cartoon art for the paper. It depicted the more humorous side of day-to-day military life. The official byline for his work was called “Around with Rags. This would become his first real commercial work that he was getting paid to produce. His duties there lasted two years 1946-1948.

Forging on as a freelance commercial artist 1948-1950

From the time he left the Army into the 1950s, he took on many odd freelance art jobs. He was still trying to find his niche in the world of art. One of the things that he ended up doing and really enjoyed was painting large glass storefront windows to advertise the store’s sales. During this time, he created a self-portrait to tell his story of painting a front window for a Pizzeria he was working for.

Painting a pizzeria window
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Later in Chicago, IL

Finally, in late 1950 he felt ready to go out and see if he could compete with his contemporaries. He had returned home to Chicago and had his sights set on the advertising empires that lined the streets of Michigan Avenue.

He ended up securing his first job there as an editorial artist for the “Chicago Daily Times Newspaper.” After cutting his artistic teeth with the Daily Times, he went on to become the “Art Director” for the “American Weekly,” a Hearst publication.

After that immersion to further hone his skills, he decided to freelance again for a while until one day when fortune truly came looking for him. He landed the best job of his young life and signed on to be the “Chief Staff Artist” for the Prudential Insurance Company of Chicago. It seemed that paying his artistic dues all the years had finally done the trick.

Santa Barbara, CA

In 1964, after a ten-year run on Michigan Avenue and all his young life growing up in Chicago, Rags and his wife, Shirl, took a leap and moved the family to Santa Barbara, California.  They had finally become tired of the principal seasons the Windy City was famous for, August and Winter. So he asked for a transfer to a Prudential Life office in, of all places, Santa Barbara, California.

Rags and Shirl sold much of what they owned, loaded up my brother Cary and I in the car, and we followed a Bekins moving truck across the country to Santa Barbara. All this in a period of seven days. We went from the “Asphalt Jungle of Chicago to the very small Hedonistic beach community called Santa Barbara in California. Upon arrival, much to Rags’ dismay, the job opportunity he was hoping for was no longer available.

A disappointment, but with his resilient character, he was able to move on without much of a hitch. With his background in newspaper art, he had the confidence to seek employment with a very small paper in that town called the “Goleta Advisor.” We ended up living there in Goleta, the town bordering Santa Barbara.

This paper was so small that not only was he hired to do all the original art for the advertising sections, but it was also his job to deliver all the papers in a broken-down 63 VW microbus at the end of each week. Some departure from the glory days he had forged for himself working on the big art boards for the advertising empires along Michigan Ave in Chicago. But fortune was about to smile upon Rags one more time in his career.

There was to be one last new beginning for Rags’ career in the 1970s. This one he just did not see coming. He landed the position of “Staff Artist for the Santa Barbara County School District” and continued there for the next thirty-two years until he retired in 2002.

Santa Barbara County School District Staff Artist – 1970s

And to think, not only had he never finished High School, and of course, he never went to college or obtained a college degree, never stepped foot inside an art school. Although back in the day, he had to profess more than once that he was a graduate of “The Chicago Institute of Fine Arts” just to get his foot in the right doors. Not at all your typical background prerequisites required for working for a large educational system. He got the job at the county based solely on his creative natural talents and his very upbeat demeanor as an artist. He was a true Alumni of “Life’s School of Hard Knocks.” And in a short period, he became very well-known for the unique and creative approach to the work he executed for all the educational programs that he was tasked to represent.

School Cartoons

To see the life and times of RAGS in a pictorial history, click here.

No computer

This was long before the days of computer graphics and design software were utilized, but Rags wouldn’t have wanted that anyway. It wouldn’t have made sense to him or been organic to his process or style. He needed to draw with his hands and feel the paper’s surface.

Looking back now, it’s funny to think that for Rags, man did triumph over machine. In all the years that he served the County, even with the implementation of Computer technology for every business, Rags’ desk never had a computer on it for all the years he was working there.

One lasting and final mark

We’re proud that there’s a lasting, final tribute to his work as the Staff Artist for the County. He designed the logo for the “Goleta Union School District” back in the late 1970s, and at this writing, that logo our father designed is still in use. It’s embossed in everything that connects the district with the world. From County vehicles to uniforms, letterheads, and all building signage for the school district. It is a simple image of an adult holding the hand of a younger person and pointing the way for them. We think it’s a perfect image for how we feel about our father.

From the time of his retirement until his passing in 2007, Rags still was actively making art. He finally had the opportunity to relax the more conventional attitude he had to apply to his work for others and get back in touch with his personal and somewhat unconventional approach. He continued to produce a large volume of work right up to the time of his passing. He still liked to say he had a “Keen Eye for the Passing Scene.” What a wonderful treasure trove he left for us all to enjoy and marvel at.

Rags passed in Santa Barbara, California, in October 2007.

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