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.... this page has full text in html for Google spidering - the html will be removed when the site d=goes live.
IN MEMORIAM
HAROLD JANTZ
(1907 -1987)
Those of us who remember Harold Jantz
stimulating and elegantly formulated centen-
nial address in April 1986 received with disbe-
lief the sad news of his death on February 27,
1987, in Durham, North Carolina, where he
had been Emeritus Professor of German
since his retirement from the Johns Hopkins
University in 1972.
Harold Jantz was a native of Ohio. From his
hometown, Elyria, he went to nearby Oberlin
College and received his B. A. degree in 1929.
A year later he began graduate work at the
University of Wisconsin and wrote his doc-
toral dissertation on problems in literary his-
toriography under the direction of the cele-
brated Germanist, Alexander Hohlfeld.
Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio,
offered Harold Jantz his first teaching post in
1933. Not long after he had met his first
classes he fell in love with one of his students,
Eleanore Whitmore, and married her in 1935.
Meanwhile, he had been appointed Assistant
Professor of German at Clark University and
wrote while there his first major book. In the
New England historical societies in which he
worked during his years at Clark he discov-
ered numerous unknown poems by early New
England poets. His anthology and critical sur-
vey of the work of these poets, The First Century
of New England Verse, in 1944, revolutionized
the field of American literary studies by offer-
ing copious evidence that poetry of high qual-
ity had been written in America long before
the date given in standard histories of Ameri-
can literature.
Shortly before the appearance of The First
Century of New England Verse, Harold Jantz had
joined the faculty of Princeton University. At
Princeton he was promoted to the rank of
Associate Professor of German. In 1947,
Northwestern University called him to Evans-
ton as Professor of German, and he taught
there until appointed Professor of German
and Chairman of the Department of German
at the Johns Hopkins University in 1956. Prior
to the call to Hopkins he had served at both
the University of Hamburg and the University
of Vienna as guest professor of American
Studies. Eleanore and he were particularly
fond of Vienna, and their apartment in the
Hörigasse often served as a home abroad for
American colleagues on sabbatical.
The anthology of American verse was fol-
lowed by a number of studies on aspects of
German-American literary relations which
gained for Harold Jantz widespread recogni-
tion as an authority. A frequently cited publi-
cation in this field is his comprehensive sur-
vey, Amerika im deutschen Dichten und Denken,
in 1962.
Because of his publications on German
Renaissance and Baroque literature and his
Goethe-studies he had by then already been
recognized as one of the foremost American
Germanists of his day. His first major Goethe-
book, Goethe's Faust as a Renaissance Man:
Parallels and Prototypes, in 1951, presents a new
reading based on the drama's Graeco-Roman
and Renaissance backgrounds. Outstanding
among his later Goethe-studies are his origi-
nal translations and explication of Goethe's
enigmatic Soothsayings ofBakis and his mono-
graph on The Form of Faust which reflects a
lifetime of thought about structures and pat-
terns that operate in the drama and help to
inform it.
For bibliophiles, the name of Harold Jantz
is associated with one of the finest Baroque
collections in the nation. For many years the
collection, to which he gave his students free
access, was housed in his study in the house
on Highfield Road which so many of us
remember. It is now part of the collections of
Duke University Library.
Among the many honors that came to him
over the years Harold Jantz was especially
proud of his election to membership in the
American Antiquarian Society and in the
Massachusetts Historical Society in recogni-
tion of his American and American-German
studies. He also treasured, of course, the
[ 64]
Goethe-medal in Gold awarded him by the
Goethe Institute in 1969.
Those of us who had the privilege of know-
ing and of working with Harold Jantz as col-
leagues, fellow editors, students, and as
members of the Executive Council while he
was President of the Society for the History of
the Germans in Maryland remember him not
only as a nationally and internationally
renowned scholar, but also as a good friend
who was always willing to listen, and with
whom it was always a delight to converse
because he knew so much about so many
things. He enjoyed nothing more than shar-
ing information and ideas, and happily he
was able to do so almost to the last, for only a
few weeks before his death he delivered what
no one at the time realized was to be his last
public lecture. His work lives on, as he always
hoped it would, in the publications of his
students. The qualities that endeared him to
us live on in our warm memories of our asso-
ciation with him.
William H. McClain
BERNARD G. PETER
(1909 -1989)
Bernard G. Peter was a native of Omaha,
Nebraska. He graduated from Creighton Pre-
paratory School and, in 1932, from the
Creighton University Law School. He moved
to Baltimore upon graduation from law
school to manage the publication of the Bal-
timore Correspondent and an associated print-
ing business.
In 1939, Bernard was honored by being
appointed Assistant State's Attorney for Bal-
timore City. He continued in that capacity
until 1947, when he resigned to take a more
active role in the family publishing business
and engage in the private practice of law.
During the late 1940's, he was a partner in an
early FM radio station, WMCP-FM, which
began broadcasting on March 17,1948.
Upon the resignation of his brother Theo-
dore in November 1967, Bernard proceeded
with the liquidation of the printing corpora-
tion which had been founded by his father.
He also assumed the management of the Cor-
respondent, although the paper itself was
printed in Omaha from 1967 to 1971, at which
time the Correspondent was sold to the New
York Staatszeitung, which continued to print it
until December 28,1975, when the two papers
were merged into one. In 1968, Bernard
retired from the news business.
Bernard G. Peter was a member of the
National Council of Juvenile and Family
Judges, and a member for 55 years of the
Baltimore City Bar Association. He also
belonged to the Maryland State Bar Associa-
tion, the District of Columbia Bar Association
and the American Bar Association. On June
21, 1971, he was appointed a Master in
Chancery, Juvenile Court for Baltimore City.
He retired under the Judiciary Mandatory
Retirement Laws on August 28,1979, his 70th
birthday.
Randall Donaldson
FREDERICK J. SINGLEY,JR.
(1913-1988)
Frederick J. Singley, Jr. died on April 24,
1988, at the age of 75. Judge Singley served as a
member of the Court of Appeals of Maryland
from October 25, 1967, through October 31,
1977, the last several years as Senior Judge. He
was author of 333 reported opinions of the
Court of Appeals as well as five opinions while
assigned to the Court of Special Appeals.
A1930 graduate of Baltimore City College,
Frederick Singley, Jr. matriculated at The
Johns Hopkins University where he majored
in history. Due to his completion of City's
renowned Advanced Academic Course, Hop-
kins conferred its degree upon him three
years later. Young Mr. Singley continued on to
the University of Maryland School of Law,
where he was admitted to the Order of the
Coif, a distinction which neatly comple-
mented the Phi Beta Kappa key he had
earned at Hopkins. Upon graduation from
law school, he passed the bar examination
and was admitted to practice by the Court of
Appeals of Maryland, all in 1936.
That same year he began work as an asso-
[ 65 ]
date lawyer with a firm which, by the close of
1936, was known as Hinkley, Burger & Sing-
ley, later to become Hinkley & Singley. The
firm traced its unbroken roots back to 1817,
and the "Singley" in Hinkley & Singley was
Frederick J. Singley, Sr., who admonished his
son that a lawyer should always wear a hat,
never have a drink before lunch, and never
be seen at a racetrack. The junior Singley was
to spend his entire career as a practitioner
with that office until his appointment to the
Court of Appeals.
He did take the time, however, to receive
his commission from the United States Navy
in 1939, from which he retired six years later
with the rank of Commander. He also dis-
played his characteristic good sense by many-
ing Margaret G. Kaestner in 1942. Ever the
scholar, Judge Singley was a long-standing
member of different law clubs and a lifetime
member of the American Law Institute,
whose annual meetings he looked forward to
as sessions of a super law school. His diverse
interests encompassed art, music, travel and
landscaping.
In his private life, as in his professional and
public life, Judge Singley gave freely and self-
lessly without expectation of return and most
often with complete anonymity. His was
indeed a remarkable life and he is remem-
bered by his family and friends with loving
devotion and abiding affection.
Glenn E. Bushel, Esq.
(excerpted with permission from Memorial
Minute, presented before the Court of
Appeals of Maryland, Thursday, October 20,
1988)
GEORGE J. WITTSTADT, JR.
(1906-1990)
Col. George J. Wittstadt, Jr., 83, of
Cambridge died on February 21,1990, in the
Harrison House of the Delm'ar Nursing
Home.
Born in Baltimore on October 18, 1906,
George Wittstadt was a son of the late George
John Wittstadt, Sr. and Hannah Bozman Witt-
stadt. Raised and educated in Baltimore, Mr.
Wittstadt moved to Cambridge where he
established Wittstadt and Son Inc. Auctions in
1946. He married Thelma Estelle Warfield on
December 1,1940.
Mr. Wittstadt was a member of St. Paul's
United Methodist Church of Cambridge,
Masonic Lodge 66 AF & AM, Chesapeake
Forest 115 Tall Cedars of Lebanon, Hayward
Chapter 29, Zabud Council 9, Cambridge
Commandery 14 Knights Templar, York Rite
and 32nd degree Scottish Rite, AAONMS
Boumi Temple of Baltimore, the Eastern
Shore Shrine Club, the Eastern Shore Scottish
Rite, the Cambridge Moose Lodge 1211, A. Lee
Poole Legion of the Moose, American Legion
Post 91 of Cambridge, a life member of the
Cambridge VFW Post 7460, a life member of
the DeMolay, a life member of the National
Auctioneers Association and a member of the
Rescue Fire Company.
Mr. Wittstadt is survived by a son, Thelman
G. Wittstadt of Cambridge, his sister, Helen
Schultze, a brother, Glenn L. Wittstadt, both
of Baltimore, a granddaughter and numerous
nieces and nephews.
Randall Donaldson
[ 66]