In Memoriam
EDUARD ALTHAUSEN who died on December 9, 1961 has left a deep
imprint on many facets of German life in Baltimore. His sudden death was
a shock to his many friends for this ever-helpful, modest and friendly man
whom so many affectionately called "Ed" was a part of everything that
was going on between City Hall Plaza and Gwynn Oak Park: Ed Althausen
was always present at German American events in order to make a pictorial
record with his camera. An eventful life, at times romantic and at other
times very hard, a life full of enthusiasm, never blessed with earthly riches
yet never failing in duty and diligence—this was a Lebensweg stretching
from a Lutheran parsonage in Old Imperial Russia over the seven seas to
the port of Baltimore where he sunk his anchor deep enough to find at
last a home after restless wanderings.
Ed Althausen was born in Russia in 1894 in a pastor's family of eleven
children. When he was sixteen, he went to sea. Those were the last days
of the old three-masters and he received his sailor's training on trips around
Cape Horn. World War I surprised the German vessel upon arrival in Chile
where the crew waited out the entire war and two more years aboard until
they were repatriated. Little was left of Germany's merchant marine after
war and reparations had taken their heavy toll. On an ancient boat Ed
found a job and several trips took him to Marcus Hook on the Delaware.
One day in the port of Baltimore he went ashore, looked about himself,
liked the place and stayed.
He found work as a mechanic, and friends in Pastor Hofmann's Bund
Neuland. His magnificent tenor voice lead him to the German singers and
he became one of the founders of the Junge Männerchor. Photography,
originally his hobby, soon became his major occupation. For over twenty
years he recored the big and small events in Baltimore with his lens.
A collection of his pictures of these years should provide a most compre-
hensive record of German American life between the two World Wars.
During World War II Althausen joined the ranks of thousands who worked
in the shipyards. After the war, he continued his old occupation as a
mechanic until a heart disease forced him to slow down his pace of life.
During all his years in Baltimore, he remained a faithful and helpful
member of Zion Lutheran Church. A bachelor, he devoted much of his
free time to the service of others. He was a member of the German Society
of Maryland and, of course, of our Historical Society. Pastor Evers who
conducted the funeral service for his friend, wrote of him in the Baltimore
Correspondent: "Wherever someone needed him, he was immediately
willing and ready and he devoted himself with love to every good cause.
He did not become rich this way but he has enriched so many with his
blessed gifts and his good heart. We have buried a good man. To me,
however, he was much more: a kind and cheerful companion, a dear, true,
unforgetable friend."
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ERNEST J. BECKER, one of the best known educators in the Balti-
more public school system, was born in Baltimore on July 9, 1875; on
August 21, 1960 he died in his native city, where (with the exception of
two years) he had spent his entire life.
His father, John Henry Becker, had immigrated from Frankfurt am
Main. Ernest J. Becker attended one of the best preparatory schools of
the city, Eduard Deichmann's "Englisch-deutsche Klassische Schule,"
whose nine grades followed the model of the German Gymnasium; instruc-
tion was given on a bi-lingual basis in German and English. At Johns
Hopkins University he earned, with a Phi Beta Kappa Key, his B.A.
(1894) and his Ph. D. in English (1898). From 1899-1901 he taught as
Instructor of Modern Languages at Richmond College. In 1901 he returned
to Baltimore to join the Faculty of City College. From 1909 until his
retirement in 1937 he served in administrative positions in two of the
largest schools of the city: 1909-1921 as Principal of Eastern High School,
1921-1937 in the same capacity at Western High School.
He married Sophia Leypold Ditty in 1902, who died in 1955. They
had no children.
Not many of the Baltimore teachers of the first third of the century
had such enthusiastic and devoted followers as Dr. Becker. When it became
known that the City School Administration planned to move him from
Eastern to Western High School, pupils, faculty, and alumni of Eastern
organized a real campaign to prevent the transfer. As Principal of Western
he was largely responsible for the construction of the school on its present
grounds; he revised the school curriculum and organized special courses for
exceptional good as well as for slow and slightly retarded pupils. He never
tired in his efforts to weld faculty, pupils and parents into a working unit;
education for him was not an assignment from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., it was an
around-the-clock undertaking.
Dr. Becker was active in various educational organizations, in the
Edgar Allan Poe Society, in the Maryland Historical Society, and in the
Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland. In the latter he held
various offices as President (1907-1911), Vice-President (1911-1917) and
as member of the Executive Committee (1939-1949), i.e. in the very
decade, when the activities of the Society were revived and when his counsel
was most urgently needed. In those years when the Executive Committee
met more frequently than in any other period in the history of the Society,
no other member attended more faithfully and participated more actively
than Dr. Becker. His interest is evidenced by the fact that he agreed to
write a history of the first sixty-five years of our Society, published in the
Twenty-eighth Report (1953). We could not have chosen a more competent
chronicler.
Dr. Becker's first contribution to our publications was his "History
of the English-German Schools in Baltimore," (Twenty-fifth Report, 1942),
again a chapter of Baltimore history which nobody else could have presented
with as much knowledge and authority as he. Other articles of his are to
be found in the Baltimore Sun, the Journal of Educational Administration
and the Clearing House.
In his outward appearance, his meticulous habits of dressing, with his
crisp politeness and his gentle but slightly formal manners he looked to us of
the younger generation like a venerable figure of the nineteenth century.
Physically frail and delicate, he was hard as steel in his convictions. He
held a sentimental and friendly interest in the country where his parents
were born, but he watched with concern and finally indignation the turn
[95]
of events in the Germany of the 1930s. He was not the man to dodge
the issue with embarrassed silence, he raised his voice in anger and protest.
On November 12, 1938, after the anti-semitic programs, the Evening Sun
published his open letter which still holds a place of honor in the history
of the Baltimore Germans. "As a German-American I protest with all the
vehemence I can muster, against what is going on in Germany today.
I can't disclaim my ancestry, nor do I wish to. I am proud of the Germany
that was. But I denounce . . . the Germany that is. I denounce its
negation of the dignity and liberty of the individual."
He was a self-assured man without ever being immodest. In meetings
he had an uncanny gift of pulling back into focus a discussion which
began to become rambling and scattered. We enjoyed his dry, tart humor
and his caustic laconic wit. Taking leave of him is not easy. We shall
always remember him with admiration and affection.
DIETER CUNZ
ERNEST FADUM. When Ernest Fadum died of lung cancer on
November 11th,1961, a long, useful, and exemplary life of seventy-one years
had reached its end. The roots of his family tree were deeply implanted
in the soil of America and of Maryland. Both, the greatgrandfather on his
father's side, and the grandfather on his mother's side came to this country
from Darmstadt, Germany. Both, his father's and his mother's people were
charter members of Martini Lutheran Church, in which Mr. Fadum held
membership from his birth to his death. It was to Martini Church that he
was carried for baptism in his infancy, and it was to the same Martini
Church that his mortal remains were carried for his funeral service.
After his elementary schooling, Ernest Fadum attended McDonogh
School, and after graduation, he entered Baltimore Law School, receiving
his law degree in 1910. His career as a lawyer was crowned with success.
His private practice of law was once interrupted for a span of seven years
when he served the City of Baltimore as Assistant City Solicitor during
the administrations of Mayors Broening and Jackson. In the face of certain
defeat he also permitted his name to be placed on the ballot in opposition
to that of Herbert O'Conor, at the height of the latter's popularity,for the
office of State's Attorney. For many years Mr. Fadum was President of
the Brehm Building Association. His interest in his German background
brought him into our Society. He also was a member of the German Society
of Maryland. But foremost in his activities was his church to which he
gave generously of his time, serving Martini Church as a member of the
Council, as Secretary and as Delegate to the Synod as well as a member
of various committees. His memory will remain fresh with his many friends
and associates.
E. F. ENGELBERT
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WILLIAM F. HILGENBERG, a leader in Baltimore business and civic
life, died on December 22, 1959 at the age of only 56 years. At the time
of his death he was State Banking Commissioner of Maryland and President
of the Baltimore Fire Board. Born on May 20, 1903 in Highlandtown,
East Baltimore, he was the son of an immigrant couple who operated a
hardware store for many years at Eastern Avenue. He attended High-
landtown Public School, and studied for one year at the Polytechnic
Institute before he had to leave school and go to work. Until 1927 he
worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad and then for a seafood company.
In 1930 he established his own business, the Seaboard Fish Company,
which he developed successfully over the years. He considered it the duty
of a prosperous businessman to give the utmost of his time to organiza-
tions working in the public interest. He was a steady contributor to a
great many charities. Among the numerous civic organizations which
benefitted from his active participation were the Police Boys Clubs, the
Baltimore Chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the
American-Israel Society and the Advertising Club. He was on the board
of governors of Washington College and on the board of trustees of the
University of Baltimore. In recent years he joined the Society for the
History of the Germans in Maryland because he was ever grateful for the
opportunities which his parents had opened up for him by having chosen
Baltimore as their home. Mr. Hilgenberg often said he came up the hard
way and that "anything I have was made possible by this city."
Upon the news of his death, Governor Tawes said: "The State of
Maryland has lost one of its finest citizens. Bill Hilgenberg was known
throughout the State for his kindness, his geniality, his generosity and his
devotion to public duty. He never shirked a responsibility. No task was
too difficult for him to undertake. His benefactions were legion. He was a
noble person and a great public servant. The entire State mourns his loss."
JOHN G. JOHANNESEN. On January 19, 1962, the German Society
of Maryland presented John Johannesen with a medal inscribed "Award
of Appreciation for Meritorious Service to the General German Orphan
Home." It was delivered while he was a patient in Memorial Hospital
(NYC) and most gratefully received. Although, modestly, Mr. Johannesen
questioned why it should have been given to him when he was not even of
German descent, he was told: "It is a well-desrved recognition of a big
contribution to the children of Maryland ... by a big man who felt
always close to the German institutions of the State."
A Norwegian-American, Mr. Johannesen came to Baltimore from his
birthplace, Grimstad, Norway in 1890, aged 9. Within one year he and
his two younger brothers were full orphans and were received in the General
German Orphan Asylum. He was to spend a bit over two years there—
and give, in return, some 58 years of loyalty, devotion and hard work for
other needy children.
In 1894 he won a scholarship to McDonogh School, then a farm school
for boys needing an education and financial aid. During the four years
he spent there, in addition to a heavy study schedule, John Johannesen
trapped rabbits, muskrats, was the school barber and did many other
chores, all to earn a bit of spending money for carfare he needed in order
to visit his brothers still at the Home—and for the occasional treat so
important to every boy. Mr. Johannesen repaid his debt to McDonogh
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School by a lifetime of devotion to the cause of increasing the number of
free scholarships available for needy boys.
In business he became known as "Big John." Armed with skills he had
studied at McDonogh, he got a job as stenographer and typist at $3.50
weekly. Some months later a new job and more responsibilities brought
his salary up to $8 weekly. Then in 1904 a great many things happened
to him all in the space of one year. He got married, lost his job the next
day in the big Baltimore fire, had a son and began his long and most
successful career with the General Electric Company.
In 1946, then living in New York City, Mr. Johannesen retired as Vice-
President of the General Electric Supply Corp. His business life was most
successful. The following years were busy right up until the last moment.
Mr. Johannesen travelled, kept up with friends and hobbies and gave the
biggest percentage of his time to community service. His record of service
to the General German Orphan Home speaks for itself. It is being recounted
in Otto H. Franke's article on the Home in this Report.
John Johannesen is one of those responsible for developing the Home
into what the Maryland Welfare Dept. calls one of the best child-caring
institutions in the State. His contribution was outstanding, his leadership
particularly significant in face of changing times. In July, 1961 on the
occasion of his 80th birthday, Mr. Johannesen was honored by the directors
of the Home and some 300 friends. One year later, to the day of that
party, he was buried. At rest after several years of an extraordinary fight
against cancer—a fight to live and give. Typically, during this time he
continued to perform his duties as President of the Home. To it he gave
his last full measure of devotion.
JANET GIBBS
JOHN C. KUMP. At the age of 83, John Charles Kump died on
October 11, 1961 in Maryland General Hospital. Mr. Kump, who was
admitted to the bar in October, 1899, was active up to the time he was
stricken about a week before his death. He was born September 1, 1878,
in the 900 block of Hanover Street, the son of John and Katherine Kump.
He attended Baltimore public schools and graduated from City College.
He studied law at the old Baltimore School of Law. After his admission
to the Baltimore City Bar, he was associated with the law firm of Louis P.
and Percy C. Hennighausen. After four years he opened his own office at
215 St. Paul Street. Later he had his office at 231 St. Paul Street.
At an early time he became interested in the General German Orphan
Association. From 1913 on he was a director on the executive board and
ever since 1922 he placed his professional skill as an attorney at the service
of the German Orphan Home. Many other organizations and institutions
profited from his activities. For many years he was associated with the
Caroline Street Permanent Building Association, and the Paca Building
and Loan Association. He was president of Long Point on the Magothy,
Inc., a development corporation. A sportsman and boating enthusiast, he
was a member of the Maryland Sportsmen Luncheon Club, the Maryland
State Game and Fish Protective Association, the Patapsco River Power
Squadron and the Long Point Association.
[98]
LEWIS KURTZ was truly a Baltimorean. He was born in Baltimore
on October 8, 1883, he was baptized and confirmed at the Zion Church
on City Hall Plaza and he received his education in the Baltimore public
schools. Both there and at home he learned to speak and write German
fluently. He went to the Baltimore City College for a time, but had to
leave this school before he became a senior, because he had to earn his
living, since his father had died when he was a young boy. At the age
of eighteen years he started to work for Fahnestock & Co., investment
brokers, and was employed there for fifteen years until 1916, when he had
to stop working for one year due to ill health. He then became connected
with the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. and represented this
company until he died on September 1st, 1961.
Lewis Kurtz was of German descent on both sides of the family. His
mother was a Strassfort and her father Ludwig Strassfort had come to
Baltimore in 1839 as a young man. In the decades before the first world
war the German-American circles had a prominent part culturally and
socially in the life of our city and Lewis Kurtz grew up in these circles.
The Germania Maennerchor was one of the prominent singing societies of
that time, which he joined as a young man.
In 1910 he married the charming and beautiful Wanda Heckman.
Soon afterwards they moved to Catonsville which at that time was a rather
remote suburban village connected with the city by a suburban railroad.
They had no children. Whenever the opportunity offered itself he and his
wife would attend the opera. They were regular patrons of the concerts
at the Lyric and at the Peabody Institute, which offered the best in music
in its Friday afternoon concerts.
They became devoted listeners of local amateur chamber music groups.
When Mr. Fahnestock, the former employer of Mr. Kurtz died in 1939,
he left a cello and a violin to him. It did not surprise his friends when
they heard afterwards that Mr. Kurtz had taken up the study of cello
and Mrs. Kurtz who played the piano well, the study of violin. It was
not long until they both were able to play in a string quartet themselves,
quite an achievement at their age and it showed their great love for music
After a happy married life of 44 years Mrs. Kurtz suddenly died of a heart
attack in 1955. Four years later, in November 1959, while attending a
concert at the Peabody Institute, he suffered a stroke. The last year and
a half of his life he spent in the Keswick Home.
The General German Orphan Home now in Catonsville was one of the
organizations which were close to his heart and to which he gave much of
his time and interest. With indefatigable energy he worked for the Building
Fund Campaign of the Home in 1922 to raise money for building the new
Orphan Home in Catonsville. He became a member of the board of the
Home in 1923 and had been a vice-president since 1935. The German
Society of Maryland was another organization which he actively supported
over a span of many years. Klaus G. Wust wrote in his book Pioneers in
Service, a history of the German Society of Maryland: "In January 1942,
following the death of Karl A. M. Scholtz, Lewis Kurtz, a native Balti-
morean and an active member since 1911 was chosen president. This was
but a few weeks after Pearl Harbor. Although public opinion was less
incensed against fellow-citizens of German extraction than in 1917, much
tact and a personality above suspicion were required to lead the Society
through the war years. Lewis Kurtz had both. His long personal friendship
with leading men of the community, his unwavering patriotism and the
[99]
prestige which he enjoyed everywhere made it possible for the Society to
function normally during World War II."
The Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland also benefited
from his active support during the years from 1926-1954, when he was a
member of the executive committee and a vice-president. Lewis Kurtz
was a member of the Merchant Club and the Baltimore Lodge No. 210,
AF and AM. One of his outstanding qualities was his loyalty to his friends
and to the institutions he supported. He kept his membership in the Zion
Church in spite of the fact that he was a freethinker and agnostic, due to
the loyalty to the church where he was baptized and which he considered
one of the cornerstones of German-American traditions in Baltimore.
Herbert F. Kuenne, president of the German Society of Maryland expressed
the feelings of his friends when he wrote: "Lewis Kurtz represented the
finest traditions of the German heritage. A gentleman in appearance,
manner and quality, he was respected and appreciated by all who knew
him. I deem it a personal privilege to have been numbered among his
many friends."
O. H. FRANKE
WILLIAM F. LAHNER died 68 years old on June 26, 1960. A retired
Philadelphia real estate broker, he moved to Carroll County, Maryland,
with his wife, Mrs. Hermina Thom Lahner, three and a half years earlier.
He was a son of the late John G. and Katherine Schurg Lahner. At the
time of his death he was a member of St. Paul's United Church of Christ,
Westminster, and a member of the Fernwood Lodge, 543, Ancient Free and
Accepted Masons, Philadelphia.
Mr. Lahner was vice chairman and a director of the Carroll County
Chapter, American Red Cross, a member of Carroll County Historical
Society and the Society for the History of Germans in Maryland.
William Lahner was of German descent on both sides of his family.
His father's people came from the Lahn valley in Hessen. Besides his wife,
the deceased left two children, William F. Lahner, Jr. and Mrs. William T.
Snyder, a grandson and a brother, Edward Lahner of Philadelphia. He was
laid to rest in the Meadow Branch Cemetery in Westminster, Maryland.
JOHN C. MUNDER was born in downtown Baltimore where his father
operated a German tavern. He died on February 25th, 1960 after a long
career in his native city which comprised years as a restaurateur, as an
insurance agent, varied activities in political and athletic circles. John C.
Munder, Jr. was a graduate of Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and Balti-
more Business College. His athletic career won him many laurels. He was
an all-Maryland guard on St. John's College football team and also a, South
Atlantic A. A. U. heavyweight boxing champion. From 1923 to 1927 he
was an athletic instructor for the Baltimore police force. As a veteran of
World War I, Mr. Munder was active in the American Legion. Several
fraternal organizations joined our society in deploring the loss of this
exemplary and versatile member. For more than thirty years, John Munder
was also active in political life. In 1952 he was appointed a substitute
magistrate. At the time of his death he was a member of the Democratic
State Central Committee.
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JOHN A. POTTHAST who was a long-time member of this society
during the prime of his life, died on July 16, 1962 at the venerable age
of 91. John Potthast was born in Burgholz (Westphalia) where he received
a solid and comprehensive training as a cabinet-maker in his father's work-
shop. In 1892 he landed in Baltimore where he joined his brothers William,
Vinzenz and Theodore in founding the well-known furniture establishment
to which he devoted a lifetime of effort and craftsmanship. John Potthast
was endowed with many of the typical virtues and qualities of his West-
phalian homeland. Many German American organizations, notably the
German Society, benefited from his activities. He was laid to rest at the
Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery. The company which he helped to establish,
Potthast Brothers, Inc., stands as a monument to the contribution he and
his brothers made to their adopted homeland.
OTTO H. SCHAUERMANN, a native of Sielbert (Hessen), died after
a long illness on February 18, 1962 in Baltimore. He was 86 years old.
He received his early training in retail business in Germany. At the age
of 29 he left his homeland and arrived in Baltimore in the year 1905. Most
of his life was spent in Maryland where he was engaged in the food business
for several decades. During his later years he worked as a bookkeeper and
accountant until his retirement in 1941. Although he worked very hard
all his life, he did always find time for participation in German American
and other community activities. He was a faithful member of the German
Society of Maryland and of Zion Lutheran Church. After his retirement
he also joined the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland.
He will be remembered by its members as an earnest and modest friend.
EDWIN A. SPILMAN was born in Baltimore on July 5, 1877. His
father, Charles Spilman, had come from Hessen-Darmstadt to Baltimore
as a young man. After several other business activities, his father founded
the Citizens Savings Bank. Edwin Spilman's mother was Mary Elizabeth,
nee Wildermuth, born of German parents in Baltimore. Edwin Spilman's
education was thorough and extensive. His father sent him to the Deich-
mann School in Baltimore, Bronxville Concordia School, New York, and
Concordia College in Milwaukee. He studied languages at Johns Hopkins
University where he graduated in 1899. Then he started working in his
father's bank while studying law at night school at the University of
Maryland. In 1903 he obtained his law degree.
Upon his father's death in 1925 he became president of Citizens Savings
Bank. He held this position until 1953 when Citizens Savings was merged
with the Central Savings Bank of which he remained Chairman of the
Board until his retirement in 1957.
He was interested in many different fields. His musical gifts found their
expression in choir singing and piano playing. Mr. Spilman spoke German
and French well and he had a good knowledge of several other tongues.
He was an active member of the German Society of Maryland and served
as its treasurer from 1922-1935 and as chairman of its finance committee
until 1952. He was the treasurer of the first Lutheran Hospital Drive and
devoted much attention to the Augsburg Home. He was very charitable
and particularly elderly people benefitted from his help and advice. His
interest in Maryland history led him to join the Maryland Historical
Society and our Society to which he belonged for several decades. He died
82 years old on November 27, 1959.
[101]
BRUNO STEIN was for more than a decade the faithful chronicler of
the annual meetings of our Society. His detailed reviews of the lectures
and his understanding reports on the business of the Society always
appeared on the front page of the Baltimore Correspondent. While we shall
miss him at our meetings, the German-language press of the United States
has suffered a great loss with the passing of one of its most versatile scribes.
Bruno Stein died on January 13, 1962 in Sinai Hospital after a long and
severe illness which he bore with great courage. He was a native of Saaz
in Bohemia where he was born to German-speaking parents in 1890. His
early training was directed toward a career in business. He attended the
Export-Handelakademie of Vienna and served as an apprentice in an export
firm in England when World War I broke out. At the last moment he was
able to return to Austria where he volunteered for the army. His war record
was one of the many significant facts of his life about which even his
closest friends never heard from him. He was decorated six times for
bravery. At the war's end he wore the uniform of a lieutenant senior grade
but the defeat and subsequent dissolution of the Empire left him without
much hope for a future in his homeland, now part of Czechoslovakia.
In 1921 Bruno Stein left for the United States where an uncle in New
York provided shelter and his first job. It was at that period when the
German press in America was at its lowest ebb and when few people had
the courage to revive it that Bruno Stein decided to become a German
American newspaperman. After initial work in New York City, he was
called as an editor to the venerable, liberal Philadelphia Gazette which he
helped to revitalize and modernize. From 1926 until 1929 Stein worked in
Philadelphia, the birthplace of the German press in America. Then Valen-
tine J. Peter succeeded in bringing Bruno Stein to Buffalo, New York.
For eighteen years (including the difficult days of World War II) Stein
edited and managed the Buffalo Volksfreund which was then one of the
largest German newspapers. His contributions to the German community
life in Buffalo were manifold and his departure for Baltimore in 1947 was
generally regretted. But Peter needed a competent man to take over the
Baltimore Correspondent. Despite many difficulties, Bruno Stein made a
success of the aging Correspondent. But it was not only his hard work
which spelled success for Bruno Stein. His amiable personality, his exem-
plary tolerance and his noble modesty drew people to him. He was liked
by most people who had contact with him. Those who could win his
friendship were indeed fortunate for he was a man to whom the word
"friend" had never lost its real value. His place at the Correspondent has
been filled by another grand gentleman. The Correspondent goes on. Yet
its continued existence was largely made possible by the years Bruno Stein
had devoted to it. He will be missed at so many events of the German
community of Baltimore where he was a regular guest. Few people knew
that he was already seventy years old when he last attended our meeting.
He never mentioned anything about Bruno Stein—there were so many
other things in this world to talk about.
Rabbi Shustermann, himself a frequent contributor to newspapers,
described Bruno Stein as a man with a generous heart, a brilliant mind
and a helpful hand. He was a courageous soul too. And all his life, he
remained attached to the German cultural heritage and the spirit of
mutual tolerance which prevailed in much of the Donaumonarchie. Bruno
Stein left a permanent mark on the German-language press in the three
cities where he spent thirty-six years in the editors' chair.
KLAUS G. WUST
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KARL F. STEINMANN. On July 13, 1962 a heart attack suddenly
ended the life of a man whose name was inseparately woven into the
political, commercial, cultural and civic pattern of Baltimore. He was a
true Baltimore boy and the 62 years of his life were spent in his home
town. Karl Steinmann was the youngest of three sons of Adolf Gustav
Steinmann, an immigrant watchmaker from Bodman on Lake Constance
(Cf. A. E. Zucker, "Adolf Gustav Steinmann," 30th Report, SHGM (1959),
pp. 29-35) who settled in Baltimore in 1871. Karl was born on August 8,
1899 and he spent his childhood and early youth between Belmont Avenue
where his family lived and West Camden Street where his father's jeweler
shop was located. He studied law and became one of Baltimore's leading
lawyers. His activities were varied and in most cases very successful. As
an attorney, Mr. Steinmann represented the Blaustein interests in American
Oil Company transactions. For a time he also represented the Baltimore
News-Post and Sunday American and radio station WBAL.
He bought the Tower Building at Baltimore street and Guilford avenue
in 1942 and moved his law offices there in 1948. He also owned the radio
station WCUM in Cumberland for several years, and his son, Eldred
Steinmann, was its general manager.
Mr. Steinmann was especially interested in the planting of trees in
downtown Baltimore. In 1959 he initiated a program for planting trees
around the Tower Building on Guilford avenue and Baltimore and Fayette
streets.
Like his father, he took an active part in the city's civic and cultural
life for many years. He was a member of the Advertising Club and a
member of the board of governors of the Baltimore Civic Opera Company.
Mr. Steinmann was appointed to the State Aviation Commission by the
late Gov. Herbert R. O'Conor in 1944 and served through the Governor's
second Administration. He also served on a commission named by former
Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro, Jr., in 1957 to draw up a new zoning code
for Baltimore. In his political contacts he never tired of stressing the
importance of the German element in the development of Baltimore and
urged his fellow citizens to give the immigrants their rightful credit.
His attendance at meetings of the Society for the History of the Germans
in Maryland will long be remembered by fellow members for his forceful
words about the place history should have in our present lives. For him,
history of the immigrants was not a chapter based on dead records but
a living part of the world around us, an ever continuing process of which
he felt an active partner. He saw the hard touch-and-go of his father's
struggle for a better life as the ground upon which his success could be
built. In this spirit Karl Steinmann initiated the publication of the first
Membership Roster of our Society in 1957 including the professional and
business affiliations of all members so that they may not only attend a
historic lecture once a year but work together for each others' and the
community's benefit.
In 1947 he and his wife, Gerdaline Young Steinmann, and his mother,
Mrs. Mary Steinmann, established a foundation to promote charitable,
educational and scientific activities in the city. This Society was the bene-
ficiary of a grant from the Steinmann Foundation which contributed toward
the publication of the 30th Report in 1959. Karl Steinmann's colorful and
wholly unsophisticated presence will be missed by many. His two sons,
Eldred and Frederick Steinmann will carry on his work where he had to
leave off.
K. G. W.
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EDUARD UHLENHUTH. On May 5, 1961, Dr. Eduard C. A. Uhlen-
huth, died in Vienna in his native Austria after several months of illness.
He had been a member of our society for many years until 1957 when,
upon his retirement from the University of Maryland Medical School,
he returned to live in Austria.
Professor Uhlenhuth was born in Austria in 1886. He received his
doctorate in zoology in 1911 from the University of Vienna and then became
a biology research assistant at the Research Institute, Vienna. In 1914,
Doctor Uhlenhuth came to the United States on a fellowship to the Rocke-
feller Institute for Medical Research, New York. He later became an
Associate of the Institute. Dr. Uhlenhuth became a naturalized American
citizen in 1924, the same year he came to Baltimore as a guest in the
department of anatomy of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medi-
cine. He rose through the ranks of the anatomy department; professor of
gross anatomy, 1931; professor of anatomy, 1933; chairman of the depart-
ment of gross anatomy, 1936; chairman of the department of anatomy, 1949.
Dr. Uhlenhuth retired first in 1955, but continued his activity as a
research professor until 1957, when he reached emeritus status. Among
the subjects in which he had deep interest were tissue transplant, the
thyroid, the nervous system and the anatomy of the human pelvis. He
had published more than 200 scientific articles and in 1953 was author of
a book, "Problems in the Anatomy of the Pelvis."
In 1936, he had won the Van Meter Prize of the Association for the
Study of Goiter for his discovery of the thyrotropic hormone, which is
secreted by the front lobe of the pituitary gland. During his European
travels, Dr. Uhlenhuth indulged his hobby, the study of cathedral archi-
tecture, to a great extent. He was an authority on the subject, and had
built several models, including the Cathedral of Limburg, Germany, and a
typical Romanesque cathedral. He used tiny building stones, resembling
the originals, and used no mortar or adhesive in the replicas.
Dr. Uhlenhuth was highly regarded as a teacher by both students and
colleagues. He exacted maximum industry from his pupils and brooked
no nonsense.
He was the founder and a former president of the University of Mary-
land Biological Society, a Fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and a member of the Society for Experimental
Biology and Medicine.
He was also a member of the American Association of Anatomists, the
Harvey Society and the German Society of Maryland.
CARL WAGENFUEHRER died May 28, 1961 after one year of illness.
He was born July 4th, 1900 at Selbitz, Oberfranken (Bavaria). In 1915
he started his apprenticeship as an electrician and obtained his master's
license in 1921 in Nürnberg. He married in 1922 Rosa Babinger also of
Selbitz and immigrated together with his wife to the U. S. A. in 1923 and
settled in Baltimore, Md. Working as an electrician for many years in Balti-
more, Mr. Wagenfuhrer received the master electrician license in 1935
and started his own business, the Community Electric Company of Balti-
more. In his very busy life he found time for active participation in many
German organizations of Baltimore. He was a member of the Eichenkranz
Gesang-Verein, the German Society of Maryland, the Verein Deutsche
Geselligkeit, the Boumi Temple, the Germania Lodge No. 161 A.F. and
[104]
A.M., was master of Germania Lodge in 1947, Grand Inspector of Grand
Lodges of Maryland for 10 years, member and director of the German
General Old Age Home, charter member of the Club Fidelitas and was a
member of our Historical Society for many years.
HENRY J. THAU
OUR CONTRIBUTORS
DR
. DIETER CUNZ,
Chairman of the German Department at Ohio State
University, is the author of The Maryland Germans and of numerous articles
on German-American immigration history. From 1939 until 1957 he taught
at the University of Maryland. -
MR
. KLAUS G. WUST,
Language Specialist
for international government and non-governmental agencies, has made case
studies in immigration history in the United States, France and Mexico.
He is the author of Zion in Baltimore and Pioneers in Service. Since 1954
he has also been the editor of the Washington Journal. -
MR. OTTO H.
FRANKE
has long been associated with the cultural, charitable and social
institutions of the German element in Baltimore. He is a past President of
the German Society of Maryland and the President of the Society for the
History of the Germans in Maryland. - Dr. A. E. ZUCKER,
Professor
Emeritus and former Chairman of the Division of Humanities and Head
of the Foreign Language Department at the University of Maryland, is a
well know scholar in the field of Americana-Germanica. A few years ago
he edited a cooperative volume: The Forty-Eighters, Political Refugees of
the German Revolution of 1848. -
DR
. WILLIAM ROGERS QUYNN,
Professor
of Foreign Languages at the University of Maryland, has published nu-
merous articles on the history of Western Maryland. He is the official
Historian of the Frederick County Historical Society. - JOHN STEWART,
a native of Vienna, Austria, is Assistant Professor of Foreign Languages
at Madison College. He has collaborated on several research projects con-
cerning the German elements in the culture of the Shenandoah Valley of
Virginia. - DR. ELMER L. SMITH,
Director of the Division of Social
Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Madison College, has written several
publications on the Mennonites and Amish. -
DR
. GEORGE FENWICK JONES,
Professor of German, University of Maryland, has published copiously in
the field of medieval German literature. He is a native of Savannah,
Georgia, where his family has been in contact with the Salzburgers since
Noble Jones surveyed their original settlement in 1734.
[105]
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