Josef Garfield Swigart (born John Richard Swigart), father of Aajonus Vonderplanitz, was born on June 23, 1916. He was a U.S. Navy veteran, listed by the Navy Memorial as LTJG, U.S. Navy, and later worked as a mechanical engineer for General Electric Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. A Sigma Phi Epsilon alumni listing places Josef G. Swigart ’39 under Purdue University.
Josef was married to Doris M. Swigart of Dayton, Ohio. They had four sons:
- Donald K. Schweigart of Union, Ohio
- Douglas J. Swigart of Birmingham, Alabama
- Aajonus Vonderplanitz, also known as John Richard Swigart, of Los Angeles, California
- Patrick David Swigart of Englewood, Ohio
In June 1945, while living in Sheffield, Illinois, Swigart filed a patent for a mechanical calculating device titled “Adding Machine for Computing Bearing Angles.” The device was designed to help compute angular measurements and compass bearings in degrees, minutes, and seconds, reducing the tedious and error-prone hand calculations used in surveying and related work. The patent was issued as US2443750A on June 22, 1948.
Patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2443750A/en
Josef G. Swigart died at age 93 on January 9, 2010, in Dayton, Ohio.
