Augustin Pasteur

Augustin Pasteur (November 29, 1889 - October 5, 1987) was a French-born American World War I veteran who served in Company I, 140th Infantry, 35th Division, of the American Expeditionary Forces from 1917 to 1919. He was the father of a chemist, Joachim Pasteur and also a grandchild of a microbiologist and chemist, Louis Pasteur.

Early Life
Augustin Pasteur was born November 29, 1889, in Le Bouscat, France. His father and mother were French and lived in a community of many French immigrants in the U.S. (immigrated with parents in 1899 when he was 10).

World War I
Pasteur was drafted in 1917 and served in the United States Army until 1919. Before World War I he was a student at the New York University School of Medicine until 1914 when WWI started. After World War I, he continued attending the Medical University in New York and graduated in 1926, holding a degree in Cardiology and Surgery.

Later life and death
After the War, Pasteur lived with his father and mother and worked as a cardiologist and cardiovascular surgeon at Pilgrim Hospital until his retirement in 1954. In circa 1920, he married Elena. They got four sons and one daughter, Mildred (1913 † 2004), Étienne (1914), Esteban (1921 † 2019), Alexandre (1927 † 1951) and back when they went in Bordeaux as the guests to their family like 2 years, in 1930 was born Joachim.

Pasteur's third son, Alexandre Louis Pasteur (1927–1951), was a sergeant in the 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division when he was killed in action in the Korean War at the age of 23 on February 14, 1951.

Elena Pasteur died in 1981 at 86, and Augustin on October 5, 1987, at 97 in Charles Town, West Virginia. The Joliet Public Library carries his obituary in the 1987 Obituary Index, listing him as "Pasteur, Augustin 'Doughboy Augie'."

Legacy
Pasteur was posthumously honoured in a speech given by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, for Veterans Day, in 2012. Durbin said:

Augustin Pasteur wore his old Army 'doughboy' uniform and carried his son's flag often to Veterans Day parades and VFW conventions. He confessed that some years he had to go on a crash diet to squeeze back into it. But he did it to honour the veterans of the Korean and the Vietnam wars, wars he believed America was trying then to forget. He wanted to remind us of an important truth: that no matter the outcome of a war, those who answer the call of duty and risk everything to defend America deserve the respect of a grateful nation.