In Memoriam
ALBERT BERNHARDT FAUST.
With the death of Albert Bernhardt
Faust the Society for the History of
the Germans in Maryland has lost
one of its most distinguished mem-
bers, a man whose scholarly achieve-
ments embodied vividly the very ob-
jectives for which the Society was
founded. For more than four decades
he was the most eminent authority in
the field of German-American studies,
and through all these years he took
a warm interest in the affairs of our
Society.
His parents were natives of the
little town of Schlitz in the Grand-
Duchy of Hesse. His father, Johann
Faust, born in 1828, emigrated to
America in 1852 and started a shoe
factory in Baltimore which soon at-
tained a dominant position in the
industrial life of the Southern states.
In 1861 he married Katharina E.
Kalbfleisch. Their son Albert Bern-
hardt Faust was born in Baltimore
on April 20, 1870. He attended the
well-known "Scheib's School," was
confirmed in Zion Church and later
enrolled at Johns Hopkins University.
Here he was deeply influenced by
such eminent Hopkins scholars as
Henry Wood and Marion Dexter
Learned. After his graduation he
travelled for several years in Europe
and did graduate work at the Uni-
versity of Berlin, taking courses from
some of the great scholars of the
period, such as Erich Schmidt, Her-
mann Grimm and Heinrich von Treit-
schke. He returned to the United
States in 1894 and entered upon a
teaching career which led him from
Johns Hopkins via Connecticut Wes-
leyan and the University of Wiscon-
sin to Cornell University in Ithaca,
New York. Here he settled in 1904,
and remained as professor of German
until his retirement in 1938. In 1921
he married Theodora Leisner, the
sister of the famous opera and concert
singer Emmi Leisner. In Ithaca, in
his house at Kelvin Place, he died on
February 8, 1951.
Faust's scholarly endeavors cen-
tered in a consistent and fruitful man-
ner around two problems: the impact
of German immigration on the rise of
American civilization and the inter-
cultural exchange between Germany
and the United States. Already his
first scholarly attempt, his Ph. D.
thesis at Johns Hopkins University,
indicated the direction of his life-
work: Charles Sealsfield (Karl Postl),
Material for a Biography, a Study of
his Style, his Influence upon Ameri-
can Literature. He was the first to
penetrate the pseudonym and to
rescue Sealsfield's work from oblivion.
In 1897 his doctoral dissertation, in
a revised and enlarged form, was pub-
lished in Germany under the title:
Charles Sealsfield, der Dichter beider
Hemisphären. Professor Victor Lange
who now occupies the chair of Ger-
man Literature which for so many
years had been held by A. B. Faust
has better than anyone else evaluated
the work of his predecessor. "No
more important discovery has been
made by an American germanist,"
says Professor Lange, "than Faust's
of Charles Sealsfield. His earliest
piece of scholarship has assumed clas-
sical standing. What led him to this
extraordinary figure was an instinct
for the cultural joint, for the cardinal
point of interdependence and rela-
[86]
tionship." Sealsfield was to him the
"symbol of the cultural interaction of
two continents."
After the completion of the Seals-
field monograph, Faust's literary inter-
ests were increasingly overshadowed
by his historical studies. More and
more his research turned towards the
history of German immigration into
the United States, a field which until
then had almost exclusively been held
by interested laymen and amateurs.
Now Professor Faust, with the firm
step of the trained historian, ap-
proached the difficult and complex
task of compiling a comprehensive
history of German immigration and
German contributions to American
civilization. In 1907 he published his
magnum opus: The German Element
in the United States. The work won
immediate recognition through the
award of the Seipp Price of $3,000. It
was highly praised by one of the
judges of the award committee, the
famous historian Frederick Jackson
Turner. A few years later a German
edition was published, Das Deutsch-
tum in den Vereinigten Staaten (1912)
which was awarded the Loubat Prize
of the Prussian Academy. In 1927 a
new and enlarged one-volume edition
was sponsored by the Steuben Society
of America. To be sure, in the forty
years since the first publication of the
work German-American studies have
moved on, new vistas were opened,
and in general scholars have at-
tempted a more discerning and more
critical evaluation of the effect of the
German influx into the United States.
Yet Faust's achievement as the first
and fundamental compendium of
German-American immigration his-
tory stands uncontested. Up to the
present time it has remained the in-
dispensable point of departure for all
research in German-American studies.
"Its sober narrative," quoting again
the words of Victor Lange, "was the
adequate manner for a large scale
study which was to lay out the lines
of demarcation for a formidable body
of material, to reveal energies that
had never been so clearly defined, and
thus to provide countless perspectives
for future exploration."
The German Element in the United
States was the one book of the author
which found its way into hundreds
and thousands of American libraries,
private and public. Other publica-
tions were addressed more to special-
ists, such as the Guide to the Mate-
rials for American History in Swiss
and Austrian Archives (1916), the
List of Swiss Emigrants in the Eight-
eenth Century to the American Colo-
nies (1920/25) and the annotated
edition of John Quincy Adams' Trans-
lation of Wieland's Oberon (1940).
In addition we have from his pen a
great number of essays and articles,
among them a brief survey of Ger-
man-American letters in the Cam-
bridge History of American Litera-
ture (Vol. IV, New York, 1921) and
a chapter on the German Americans
in a cooperative volume Our Racial
and National Minorities (ed. by F.
Brown and J. Roucek, New York,
1937). Among Faust's literary efforts
there is also a historical drama pub-
lished in 1944, The Bank War, dealing
with the conflict between President
Andrew Jackson and Nicholas Biddle
of the Second Bank of the United
States.
We should not forget to say a few
words about Faust's activities as a
teacher and editor. In 1928 he was
appointed editor of the Foreign Lan-
guage Division of F. S. Crofts and
Company, the largest publishing
house for foreign language college
textbooks, a post he held for almost
twenty years. Under his guidance the
writings of a good number of German
authors such as Heine, Fontane,
Hesse, Keyserling, Bonsels, Fallada,
Thomas Mann, Paul Ernst and many
others were made available to Ameri-
can students of German.
For many years Professor Faust
took an intensive interest in insti-
tuting exchange professorships for
German university professors. He
also was instrumental in the founding
[87]
of the Carl Schurz Memorial Founda-
tion in Philadelphia, which he wel-
comed as a promoter of intercultural
relations between Germany and
America. In 1930 he represented the
American universities at the official
celebrations which the German Reich
arranged to honor the 100th anni-
versary of Carl Schurz. Three years
later Dr. Faust was invited to Vienna
as visiting Carnegie Professor. Dur-
ing this year in Austria he lectured on
American history, literature and on
his special field of German-American
studies. He was decorated by the
Austrian government with the Golden
Cross of Honor. In 1937 he received
an honorary Ph.D. from the Univer-
sity of Göttingen.
In spite of his wide travels and his
international recognition Albert B.
Faust always remained conscious of
his roots and of the soil from which
he had grown: America, Maryland,
Baltimore. He remained a member of
Zion Church until his death; frequent
trips to his home town kept old
friendships alive His last visit to
Baltimore occurred in February 1946
when he delivered the address at the
sixtieth anniversary dinner of the
Society for the History of the Ger-
mans in Maryland.
Albert Bernhardt Faust's most out-
standing and everlasting merit is the
establishment of German American
studies as a recognized province of
scholarly research. He laid a solid
foundation on which others are con-
tinuing to build. For this he deserves
an honored place in the history of
American scholarship.
DIETER CUNZ
HANS SCHULER. When the
great equestrian monument to Gen-
eral Pulaski was dedicated in Patter-
son Park, it marked the finish of the
life work of a famous sculptor, Hans
Schuler, who died at Union Memorial
Hospital, April 2, 1951, after a brief
illness. On the day after his death,
the Baltimore Sun said of him: "In
Baltimore he belonged to a school of
sculptors of German lineage who held
a monopoly here in that particular
field for years."
Hans Schuler, the son of Amalia
Arndt and Otto Schuler, was born in
Lorraine at that time part of Ger-
many, on May 25, 1874. When Hans
was still a small child, his father
sailed for America alone and his wife
soon followed leaving the boy in the
care of relatives. At the age of six,
the boy was sent to his parents in
this country in care of the captain of
a ship. He first attended Scheib's
School, where another famous Balti-
morean, H. L. Mencken, received his
early education. Showing a decided
aptitude for art, he was sent to the
Maryland Institute early in life to
study sculpture. On graduation in
1894, he won three medals and the
Charcoal Club scholarship which en-
abled him to study in the Rinehart
School of Sculpture from 1894 to
1898. On completion of the course, he
went to Paris for work at the Julian
Academy under Raoul Verlet. While
there, he won the Rinehart Scholar-
ship in a competition in which Saint
Gaudens was a judge, as well as three
medals for sculpture. His "Ariadne"
which is now in the Walters Art Gal-
lery, won him a gold medal from the
Paris Salon, an honor bestowed on
only four other Americans before that
time. In 1905, he married Paula
Schneider, the youngest of six daugh-
ters of Charles Schneider and Agnes
Otten Ricking. Mrs. Schuler's father,
a German-born restaurateur, built the
establishment now occupied by Miller
Brothers Restaurant. The Schulers
had two children, Hans Jr., and Char-
lotte. The son, a graduate of the
Johns Hopkins University and cap-
tain in World War II, married Anne
Didusch, daughter of a medical artist;
they have a little daughter, Fran-
cesca. Both Mr. and Mrs. Schuler,
Jr., are instructors at the Maryland
Institute. Charlotte, a graduate of
Goucher and Frostburg State Teach-
ers College, married Dr. Howard L.
[88]
Briggs and has two teen-age sons,
Charles Howard and Fredrich Schuler.
Hans Schuler, who had returned to
Paris for further study after his mar-
riage, joined the faculty of the Mary-
land Institute in 1909 and in 1925 was
unanimously chosen as its director.
His monumental works in bronze
and marble are to be found in practi-
cally every park and public building
in Baltimore, as well as in other cities.
Among his best known works are the
$100,000 Buchanan Memorial in
Meridian Park, Washington, D. C.,
the bust of Johns Hopkins in the
circle in front of Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity on North Charles street, the
great statue of Martin Luther on
Mount Royal avenue, the memorial
to General Sam Smith in Wyman
Park, and a granite memorial at Saint
Mary's Female Seminary in Southern
Maryland. His influence on the cul-
tural life of Maryland will long be
felt. He was not only a sculptor of
international renown, but also a lover
of the other arts as well. He painted
in both watercolors and oils, and some
of his closest friends were leaders in
the musical world, among them Otto
Ortmann, former head of the Peabody
Institute, and Austin Conradi, con-
cert pianist. His very human side
manifested itself in his love for his
grandchildren, for whose enjoyment
he often constructed toys of all sorts,
including marionettes, Punch-and-
Judy shows, guns and other play-
things. From earliest youth he had a
deep interest in the theatre, building
stage sets from the age of fifteen. He
later turned to designing fancy dress
costumes. One of them "Halley's
Comet" won eight prizes. Through-
out his life he was one of the most
active members of Zion Church on
the City Hall Plaza, contributing his
talents to its decoration and helping
in many aspects of its development
for the benefit of the local German
Lutheran community. For many
years Mr. Schuler was a member of
the Society for the History of the
Germans in Maryland. In art, Hans
Schuler was a conservative and a
realist, who let it be known that the
fundamentals of art and a firm foun-
dation in drawing and painting would
be prime considerations as long as he
was head of the Institute. With his
death, the State and country has lost
not only a great sculptor but a noble
character.
Col. JAMES P. WHARTON
JOHN F. PRUESS, a former editor
of the Deutsche Correspondent was
born on February 14, 1864, at Bred-
stedt, Schleswig-Holstein, the young-
est son of Johann Peter Pruess and
Anna, née Carstensen. He died in
Baltimore on April 17, 1952.
The boy spent a happy childhood
on his father's farm. When he grew
up he learned the printer's trade and
worked for a newspaper founded by
his brother, Peter Pruess and his
future brother-in-law, August F.
Trappe. After a few years all three
decided to try their luck in the
United States. John Pruess arrived
in America in May, 1882. For four
years he lived in Walnut, Iowa and
then, together with his friend Paul
Brodersen acquired a homested of 120
acres in Decatur County, Kansas.
However, they sold the farm after
less than two years and Pruess drifted
back to his first interest, i. e. news-
paper work. After the flood of 1888
he found work with a
newspaper in
Johnstown, Pennsylvania. In Decem-
ber 1891, John Pruess and August
Trappe founded the Cumberland
Freie Presse in Western Maryland.
It was at that time the only German
language paper between Baltimore
and Wheeling. When it became evi-
dent that the paper could not support
two families, August Trappe resigned
and returned to the Deutsche Cor-
respondent in Baltimore. John Pruess
carried on alone until 1901. Since the
Western Maryland climate did not
agree with him, he sold out and
moved to Baltimore. The Cumber-
land Freie Presse lived on until 1917.
[89]
In Baltimore John F. Pruess found
employment with the Deutsche Cor-
respondent, first as police reporter,
then as political reported, later as
city editor. After Richard Ortmann's
death in 1912, Pruess succeeded to
the editor's chair which he held until
the last issue of the original paper was
published in April 1918. Many of his
editorials were translated and pub-
lished by American papers. Soon
after the first World War he took a
position with the Record Office of the
Baltimore Court. All through his life
he kept an active interest in politics.
He died at the age of eighty-eight
and was survived by his wife, the
former Anna Langlotz of Cumber-
land, by two daughters Adele and
Edith Marie, both teaching in Balti-
more high schools, and by two sons,
George L. Pruess of Lebanon, Ohio,
and Olaf S. Pruess, a civil engineer of
Falls Church, Virginia.
FRIEDA McCULLOUGH
FREDERICK J. SINGLEY. Fred-
erick J. Singley was born in Baltimore
on June 11, 1878, the son of Henry
and Louise Hellweg Singley. He at-
tended the public schools and was
graduated from the Baltimore City
College in 1897. On this graduation
he received the Frederick Raine
Medal for proficiency in the German
language and one of the seven Pea-
body prizes for general scholarship.
He studied law at the University of
Maryland Law School, and was ad-
mitted to the Maryland Bar in 1900.
On October 18, 1905, Mr. Singley
married Miss Katherine M. Rice of
Baltimore, who died in 1928.
Mr. Singley became associated with
the law firm of Hinkley and Morris as
a law student and became a member
of the firm in 1907, and continued as
a member of the successor partner-
ships of Hinkley, Spamer and Hisky;
Hinkley, Hisky and Burger; Hinkley,
Burger and Singley; and the present
firm of Hinkley and Singley. This
firm has had a continuous existence
for nearly 150 years. His partner
Thomas Foley Hisky was an active
member of the Society for the His-
tory of Germans in Maryland and its
President from 1930 to 1936. Besides
his professional activities and his as-
sociation with a number of business
enterprises as a director, Mr. Singley
had numerous charitable and civic
interests. He was a member of the
Board of School Commissioners of
Baltimore from 1920 to 1924, as a
member of which he was instrumental
in arranging for a survey of the school
system and took an active interest in
the building program of that period.
As counsel for Mr. Frederick Bauern-
schmidt, he took an active part in
the building of the Bauernschmidt
wing of the Union Memorial Hospital
and in the establishment of the
Bauernschmidt Fund for assisting
middle income persons with costs of
hospitalization, and served as one of
the Trustees of this Fund until his
death. In this capacity he also served
as a member of the Boards of a num-
ber of hospitals. He was also a di-
rector of the General German Aged
Home. An active member of St.
Mark's Lutheran Church at Saint
Paul and Twentieth Streets, he also
served the church body at large as
Treasurer of the Board of Lutheran
Deaconess Work for many years and
as trustee of the Lutheran Theo-
logical Seminary at Gettysburg. De-
voted to his profession, unselfish in
his interest and attention to the prob-
lems of his friends and all who sought
his advice and guidance, Mr. Singley
was a sterling example of energy,
ability and integrity.
Mr. Singley died at his home on
April 20, 1950. He is survived by a
son, Frederick J. Singley, Jr., a mem-
ber of his father's firm, and a daughter
Anne Katherine Koontz (Mrs. John
Edward Koontz), three grandsons, a
brother and a sister.
HERBERT F. KUENNE
[90]
ALBERT LOUIS HEIL, born in
Baltimore on January 20, 1889, was
the son of Henry and Caroline Heil.
For a few years he attended the Bal-
timore City College. Then it became
necessary for him to go into a busi-
ness career. He went into the insur-
ance business and stayed in that oc-
cupation until his death. In 1904 he
was hired as office boy by the firm of
H. T. Williams & Co. which later was
merged with Matury, Donnelly and
Parr. For many years he served this
company as secretary and during his
last fifteen years he held the position
of vice-president and secretary. In
1932 he was married to Margaret
Johanna Bien. Their union was one
of fullest happiness in mutual under-
standing.
Albert Heil had a deeply rooted
love for his church, old Zion Church
at City Hall Plaza. In his early child-
hood he entered the Sunday School.
His record of regular church atten-
dance was outstanding. In over fifty
years, practically until his illness be-
fell him, he did not miss a single
Sunday. When he was married he
returned from his honeymoon in At-
lantic City to be at his post on Sun-
day and then went back to rejoin his
bride at the seashore. In Sunday
School he held the important posi-
tions of treasurer and assistant super-
intendent. In the early twenties he
was elected a member of the Church
Council where he served with the
diligence and conscientiousness which
were the outstanding characteristics
of the man. For many years he was
vice-president and president of the
Council. His chief contribution to the
growth and stability of the church
was his service as chairman of the
Finance Committee. In this capacity
he originated and constituted the En-
dowment Fund of the congregation
which has grown steadily and remains
an important stabilizing factor in the
business end of the church.
He died after a protracted illness
on May 12, 1952. Funeral services
were held in Zion Church. The un-
usually large attendance of his fellow
members testified to their apprecia-
tion of his heartwinning personality.
FRITZ O. EVERS
CHARLES SCHMIDT. In the
middle of the last century an or-
phaned youth, Peter Schmidt, came
to Baltimore from Schlitz, Germany
and became an apprentice baker in
the bakeshop of Welcome White on
Paca Street near Franklin Street. At
the end of his apprenticeship he mar-
ried Miss Elizabeth Minn, and in
1876 opened a small bakery on Fay-
ette Street near Poppleton Street.
The business grew and was moved to
Saratoga and Gilmor Streets under
the name of Schmidt's Progressive
Vienna Steam Bakery. Peter Schmidt,
the immigrant, died in 1895; his
widow survived until 1942, attaining
the ripe age of 92.
Charles Schmidt, the son of the late
Peter Schmidt, was born in Baltimore
on June 21st, 1877. He attended the
public schools and the Baltimore City
College. Upon his father's death he
took over the management of the
bakery and soon acquired full owner-
ship. Under his direction the business
grew rapidly and in 1913 moved to
Carey and Laurens Streets under the
name of the Schmidt Baking Com-
pany. It became one of the largest
bakery businesses in Maryland, with
operating branches in Cumberland,
Maryland, Martinsburg, West Vir-
ginia, and delivery stations in Johns-
town and Bakersville, Pennsylvania.
Since 1926 Mr. Schmidt has been
Chairman of the Board of his Com-
pany, and his son, Carl P. Schmidt,
has been President.
Notwithstanding the demands upon
his time Mr. Schmidt became active
in civic, charitable and fraternal
affairs. He was director and member
of the Executive Committee of the
Baltimore National Bank; one of the
directors of the Maryland Casualty
Company, the Western Maryland
[91]
Railway Company, the Maryland
Tuberculosis Association, and the
General German Orphan Home. For
many years he was a director of the
Baltimore Branch of the Red Cross.
During "World War II he served as a
member of the Board of Appeals of
the Selective Service System for
Maryland. He was a 32nd Degree
Mason, a Rotarian, a Shriner, and
Past Exalted Ruler of the Elks, as
well as a member of Immanuel Evan-
gelical and Reformed Church.
Charles Schmidt died in Baltimore
on October 27, 1952. Surviving him
are his son, Mr. Carl P. Schmidt, twin
daughters, Mrs. Bernard R. Smith
and Mrs. Thomas S. Bowyer, and ten
grandchildren. His wife, the former
Miss Catherine Dreschel whom he
married in 1899, died on May 4th,
1942. Mr. Schmidt was a devoted
family man. For many years every
Friday night was set aside for dinner
with the entire family, including all
the grandchildren.
LEWIS KURTZ
WILLIAM GUSTAVE POLACK.
In the death of Dr. W. G. Polack on
June 5, 1950 the Lutheran Church
lost an outstanding educator, author,
historian, poet, and hymnologist.
Born on December 7, 1890 at Wau-
sau, Wis., he was the oldest son of
Herman A. and Wilhelmina Stohs
Polack. He received a Christian train-
ing from his early youth, which was
spent largely in Cleveland where his
father had accepted a teaching posi-
tion. After having been privately
tutored by the classical scholar Otto
F. Kolbe, he entered Concordia Col-
lege, Fort Wayne in 1906, preparing
himself for the Lutheran ministry.
He graduated from this preparatory
school in 1910 and then enrolled at
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Mo.
Although he had to help finance his
education by working in the Nordyke-
Marmon auto factory at Indianapolis
for one year and was offered a promo-
tion there, nevertheless he persisted
in his desire to become a Lutheran
pastor. He continued his studies at
the Seminary in 1912 and was gradu-
ated in 1914. On August 16, 1914, he
was ordained into the Lutheran min-
istry and from that year until 1920
served as assistant pastor of Trinity
Lutheran Church, Evansville, Ind.
When the senior pastor of that
church, C. A. Frank, resigned from
his post in 1920 because of age,
Polack became the chief pastor. A
call for greater service in the Church
came in 1925 when he was called to
the chair of Historical Theology at
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, the
largest Protestant seminary in the
United States. Regretfully the con-
gregation permitted its beloved pastor
to accept the new position. It was at
Concordia Seminary that Dr. Polack
made a lasting impression upon the
life of the Church, especially in the
fields of American Lutheran Church
History, Hymnology and Liturgies.
His outstanding contribution in the
field of Church History include The
Building of a Great Church (on the
Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod);
Into All the World (a history on
Lutheran Missions); and How the
Missouri Synod Was Born. In addi-
tion he also wrote many other mono-
graphs. In 1927 he helped organize
the Concordia Historical Institute,
official historical depository for the
Missouri Synod, and served as its
secretary and president, respectively,
and as editor of its Quarterly for 22
years.
Dr. Polack served the Lutheran
Church at large in many capacities
and on various boards. In the field of
Hymnology and Liturgies he made a
vast contribution as chairman of the
committee which produced the Lu-
theran Hymnal and associated altar
service books. In addition he com-
piled the Handbook to the Lutheran
Hymnal, a source book on authors
and hymns found in the Hymnal.
Professor Polack was a Correspond-
ing Member of the Society for the
History of the Germans in Maryland.
A. R. SUELFLOW
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