Regitz Early Life
Bill Regitz was born in 1939 to Mary Ellen Regitz (born Mary Ellen Enders) and Frederick Regitz in the small town of Locustdale, Pennsylvania. The fourth child out of six, Bill lived with his parents, two brothers, and three sisters.
Frederick Regitz worked at the Locustdale (Potts) Colliery as a miner, despite his father's disapproval. Frederick's father never wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. However, as Locustdale was primarily a coal mining town in the midst of the Anthracite Coal Region, Frederick knew there were few job opportunities available. Growing up, Bill remembered the story his father told about his first day working in the mines. After returning home from his shift, Frederick recounted how "Grandfather Regitz threw a double bladed axe at [me], saying, 'I told you not to go to work there.'" Bill's mother, Mary Enders-Regitz, worked as a homemaker, raising the children. Educationally, Mary only completed up to her sophomore year of high school and Frederick only received an 8th grade education.
Bill's parents worked hard to provide for their children and to instill values that shielded their children from ending up in the same low-paying profession as Bill’s father. To ensure each child graduated from high school, they emphasized the importance of education and the necessity of achieving high marks in class in order to build a better future for themselves. At home, this resulted in a strong emphasis on the value of discipline and hard work. For Bill, these early life lessons sparked the personal motivation and drive that allowed him to achieve his future goals. However, higher education seemed out of the question due to his family's financial situation.
Similar to many mining families living in the Anthracite Coal Region, Bill's family struggled financially. The Anthracite Coal Region in Pennsylvania encompassed six counties: Carbon, Columbia, Lackawanna, Luzerne, Northumberland, and Schuylkill. Locustdale is a small census designated place located on the border of Columbia and Schuylkill Counties, split between the two. Bill's family lived in the part of Locustdale that fell within Conyngham Township in Columbia County, Pennsylvania.
Due to the anthracite coal deposits in the area, mining became the dominant source of employment. However, following the end of World War I, the anthracite coal industry declined as people increasingly turned to oil, natural gas, and other fuels. The Great Depression further destroyed the coal industry, leading to cuts in production, lower wages, and increased lay offs for employees.
The slow demise of the coal industry became visible in the way it impacted the miners. Between 1917-1930, Pennsylvania's coal production fell from 100 million tons to 69 million tons. As a result, this led to a decreasing number of employed miners and of the hours offered to them for work. By the late 1940s, while some men received three days of work a week, many received none.
For the first three years of his education, Bill attended elementary school in Locustdale before starting at a nearby school in Centralia. From seventh grade to twelfth grade, Bill went to Conyngham-Centralia Joint High School in Aristes, Pennsylvania. In high school, Bill discovered a passion for his math, science, and manual training classes. In various oral history interviews, he shared that a lot of his free time was spent in the manual training shop creating and building various objects out of metal and wood. It was in these high school classes that Bill learned he particularly enjoyed projects that required hands-on involvement.
Bill and his siblings also found little ways to earn money for themselves where they could. Bill, along with his brother, ran a “business” building wooden objects and selling them around their neighborhood. Not only was this a way to earn money, Bill also learned that he enjoyed crafting. This helped him gain experience in sales early in life.
Tragically, in 1954, at the age of 15 and a freshman in high school, Bill lost his father to Black Lung Disease. His passing left Mary Ellen to raise Bill and his siblings on her own. Still the Regitz family never lost their spirit to care for each other. To help support his mother, Bill searched for any job available. At home he picked up odd jobs like delivering newspapers, cutting grass, cleaning a local garage, and becoming a short-order cook and dishwasher at the Boulevard Drive-In. Bill’s mother became the most influential person in his life at this time. The tenacity and strong-will she showed in raising her family taught Bill that if he wanted to achieve something in life, he needed to work for it.
After grade school, he took part in many job opportunities. College was still off the table for him, so he moved to New Jersey to stay with his older sister. He worked at a screwdriver factory making handles, at a GM roller-bearing plant on the recommendation from his brother in law, and when he was laid off in 1958, found another job working construction.
He was digging a ditch in southern Lancaster County when he finally decided "this [wasn’t] the way it [was] going to be for the rest of [his] life." Going home that night, as if by fate, he found an envelope from DeVry Technical Institute.
