CHARLES FRANCIS STEIN, JR.
(1900-1979)
Exactly eight years have passed since the death of one of our most active
and most dedicated members. Charles Francis Stein, Jr. died on January 29,
1979. The REPORT 38, in which a full tribute to him was to have been pub-
lished, appeared without the usual lists of officers and members and also without
any obituary notices because it was at a time when our Society was briefly
operating without a secretary and without a chairman of the executive com-
mittee. Somewhere, and here the editor is ready to take the blame, the copy
for this tribute was lost between the Hudson and the Shenandoah. Sure, it is
very late to render homage to the activities of Charles Francis Stein but among
all of us who shared concern for our Society with him for decades, the memory
of him is still fresh. In his kindness, which matched his extraordinary abilities,
Francis might have forgiven us for this blunder.
Back in 1949, before I had ever met Charles Francis Stein, I read in the
REPORT 24 his narrative of the life of Leopold Stein with excerpts from the
diary and letters of the family. As a newcomer, these observations of other
greenhorns, albeit 116 years earlier, absolutely fascinated me. That was history
to my liking. Here was the story of Franz Leopold Stein, son of the Grand
Duke of Baden's physician at Schwetzingen and Rastatt. This young man was
involved in the democratic student movement at Freiburg University in 1832
and forced to cross over into Alsace to escape arrest. In the following year, in
April 1833, Leopold Stein left Strasbourg for Le Havre where he boarded the
ship Lexington for New Orleans. His mother, two sisters and a brother accom-
panied him. On their way up the Mississippi to Ohio, his mother died of cholera.
Late in June they arrived in Cincinnati but Leopold soon decided to turn east
and—as the last diary entry states—he settled in Maryland: "Baltimore, July
25th, 1833. Temperature 110 degrees Fahrenheit." Three years later Leopold
married Miss Young who came from one of the old southern Maryland families.
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Thus were the beginning of the Stein family in America and in Baltimore.
Leopold was the great-grandfather of Charles Francis, Jr. Through his marriage
he found entry in Baltimore society which was then rather tighly knit and
not too willing to receive newcomers. Charles Francis was born into a com-
fortable milieu on June 19th, 1900. His father was a judge. He was educated
at the Calvert and Park schools and then went on to Johns Hopkins University
and received his law degree from the University of Maryland Law School. In
his eminently successful legal career, Stem specialized in wills, estates and real
property. For many years he was a partner in the well-known law firm of
Hennighausen and Stein, founded by Percy C. Hennighausen and his father.
During World War I he served in the army. In the Second World War he was
on a local draft board.
Charles Francis Stein joined our Society in 1934 and remained a very active
member for forty-five years. In 1936 he was elected to the Executive Commi-
tee and became our treasurer in 1938. For almost thirty years he served in this
position while always placing his legal knowledge at the disposal of the Society.
From 1967 until 1971 he was second Vice President and at the annual meet-
ing of 1971 he was unanimously elected President. For many years the law
office of Stein and Jett was also the office of our Society and the hospitable
home of Charles Francis and Jean Renneburg Stein on Midvale Road was the
meeting place of the Executive Committee. He remained active on the latter
until he became ill in 1978. Our Society owes much of its present strength to his
tireless activity. Through him we felt connected to other kindred organizations.
From 1966 until 1970 he was President of the German Society. For many years
he was Secretary of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Maryland. At
the time of his death he was its president and likewise President of the Huguenot
Society of Maryland. Earlier he had headed the Southern Maryland Society
and the Society of the War of 1812.
In the course of his life he became increasingly interested in Maryland his-
tory. Among his many published works was a well-researched account of The
Star-Spangled Banner: Our National Anthem. His two most valuable contri-
butions to state history were the comprehensive books, A History of Calvert
County, Maryland and Origin and History of Howard County, Maryland. For
the bicentennal of the American Revolution Stein gathered material from a great
variety of sources in order to present for the first time the story of The German
Battalion of the American Revolution, actually a full regiment raised among
the German-speaking settlers of Maryland and southern Pennsylvania. The
results of his research were first published in The REPORT 36 and in 1976
as a separate booklet. For the 50th anniversary in 1964 he wrote A History
of The Southern Maryland Society. His intense dedication to the Concordia
Lodge is reflected in his last work, a history of the Masons in Maryland since
about 1955 which appeared after his death.
Among the activities that will long be remembered by his numerous friends
was sailing on the Chesapeake Bay; He enjoyed starboat racing and when-
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ever he could not be found in his office or at home, he was probably cruising
the bay on his own sloop. His wife, Jean Stein, and his son, Charles F., III,
as active members of our Society, perpetuate the involvement of the family
which has lived for the ideals that forced Leopold Stein to leave his oppressed
homeland in 1832.
Klaus Wust
EDWARD H. SEHRT. On November 20th, 1986 died in his 99th year the
well-known Germanist, Dr. Edward H. Sehrt. He was a native Baltimorean.
In 1907 he graduated from City College and in 1911 from the Johns Hopkins
University where he received his doctorate in 1915. He began his life-long career
in Germanic studies as a research fellow at Hopkins. In the years following
the widespread suppression of German language courses in American colleges,
Sehrt was instrumental in the efforts to maintain the study of German litera-
ture and language wherever it was possible. He taught at the University of
Delaware, Bryn Mawr College, Washington College and Gettysburg College
before he received the call as professor of German at George Washington Uni-
versity. From 1926 until his retirement in 1953, Edward Sehrt remained at
George Washington, where he became chairman of the department of Germanic
languages and literature. He was an expert on Germanic linguistics and
philology. His best known works dealt with the remarkable writings of the
medieval monk of St. Gall, Switzerland, Notker the German. Sehrt produced
many articles in professional journals and in German-language newspapers. In
1931 he became one of the founding members of the Goethe Society of Mary-
land and the District of Columbia in which he remained active until recent
years. He joined our Society in 1940. His home was in McLean, Virginia. His
first wife, Cecilia Shane, died in 1960. He married Helen Ludwig who is sur-
viving him. Tributes at the time of his death came from organizations to which
Edward Sehrt had contributed much through his research and active involve-
ment, the Modern Language Association of America, the Medieval Academy
and the Linguistics Society.
GORDON M. F. STICK, SR. The illness and subsequent death of Gordon
Malvern Fair Stick, Sr. deprived many historically-minded Maryland organiza-
tions of a man who left no stone unturned when it came to preserve the past
of the community. He was one of the leaders in the efforts to save and restore
the frigate Constellation long before Baltimoreans even dreamed of having the
inner harbor turned into one of the city's attractions. Now the venerable ship
is the centerpiece of the renewed life of the old part of the Maryland metropolis.
Gordon was very proud when he was told one day that post-graduate students
of 18th century history made a special trip to Baltimore to experience what it
was to be on a ship of that period. The experience made it easier for them to
describe the sea voyage of years long pst. For years he served as chairman of
the ship's restoration committee after it was returned to Baltmore from Boston
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and placed in the custody of the Flag House. A combination of private and
public funds eventually made possible its berth in the Inner Harbor. The frigate
became the headquarters of the Maryland Naval Militia. As founder of that
group, he received the title "Admiral of the Chesapeake" from Gov. J. Millard
Tawes.
He also was an early promoter of the successful move to make June 14th a
public holiday as Flag Day, a move that began in Baltimore. Gordon Stick
also served as president of the Comptrollers' Harbor Committee for Baltimore
City, appointed by city Comptroller Hyman A. Pressman. He was both state
and national president of the Society of the War of 1812 as well as both state
and national president of the Society of Sons of the Revolution. He also was
a member of the Society of Colonial Wars and the Sons of the American Revo-
lution. He held memberships in the Military Order of Foreign Wars, the Military
Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S., the Navy League of the U.S., St. An-
drew's Society, St. George's Society, the American Clan Gregor Society and
the German Society. This array of memberships and activities was entirely
natural for Gordon Stick. He liked to refer to his ancestry as that of the "old
stock," comprising English, German, Scottish elements. His German part found
expression in his many years of service in the German Society of Maryland which
made him an honorary member of its Board of Directors. Our Society also
benefited at various times from his dedicated abilities. Gordon Stick was a
splendid fund raiser for projects he considered worthwhile. But he never shunned
the little tasks of meticulous bookkeeping either. The Society for the History
of the Germans in Maryland does not only gratefully remember his long years
on the Executive Committee but also his service from 1971 to 1978 as treasurer
when it was really necessary to have our finances put back on a healthy founda-
tion so that our printer's bills could always be paid on time.
His activities since his retirement in 1954 were so versatile that few of his
younger friends ever knew what he had done before. His educational and busi-
ness career was just as versatile. Born in Nagoya, Japan, Gordon Stock was the
son of a Lutheran minister and missionary and recalled to friends that as a
child he was a playmate of the young Japanese Emperor Hirohito. The family
returned to the United States in 1913. He graduated from Baltimore City
College and in 1926 from the Johns Hopkins University, where he was a mem-
ber of the Omicron Delta Kappa honor society, the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity
and the Tudor and Stuart Club. He later became curator of the Lacrosse Hall
of Fame at the Johns Hopkins Athletic Center.
He was first employed as a representative of Hynson, Wescott and Dunning,
a Baltimore pharmaceutical firm, and then was a stockbroker for a time. He
later was master of ceremonies for McCormick & Co. Inc.'s Radio Cooking
School of America, a traveling show heard on the radio in cities throughout the
United States. He then joined the F. X. Hooper Co. in Glenarm—later a divi-
sion of the Koppers Co.—as sales manager, retiring as executive vice president
in 1954 after 25 years with the firm.
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Gordon M. F. Stick, Sr. died on October 24th, 1986 of cancer in his home on
North Charles Street. A large gathering of family and friends in his memory
was held on November 4th at St. David's Episcopal Church on Roland Avenue.
He is survived by his second wife, Evelyn LeFevre Sherwin Stick, whom he
married in 1982; a daughter, Anne Howard Stick Mackenzie of Bel Air; two sons,
Gordon M. F. Stick Jr. of Roland Park, and Thomas Howard Fitchett Stick of
Philadelphia; and ten grandchildren.
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