report42McClain1522 - page 1 of 1<title><script language="javascript">

code

.... this page has full text in html for Google spidering - the html will be removed when the site d=goes live.

code

.... this page has full text in html for Google spidering - the html will be removed when the site d=goes live.

SALUTE TO THE GERMAN-AMERICAN

ENTERPRISES AND INSTITUTIONS OF

BALTIMORE: PART II

by William H. McClain

n this issue of the Report the Society for the

History of the Germans in Maryland

salutes Von Paris Moving and Storage, a

prominent Maryland business with German

roots, and two of Baltimore's Catholic institu-

tions, Saint Joseph Hospital and the College

of Notre Dame of Maryland, both of which

owe their beginnings to the vision, dedica-

tion, and tireless efforts of small groups of

German nuns. We thank both institutions and

the Von Paris family for sharing with us the

archival materials on their German origins.

ST. JOSEPH'S HOSPITAL

The institution that later became Saint

Joseph Hospital came into being in Novem-

ber, 1864, when a civic-minded Baltimorean

named Catherine Eberhard donated to

Mother Mary Agnes of the newly established

Third Order of the Sisters of Saint Francis of

Philadelphia¹ three two-story houses in the

100 block of North Caroline Street for use as a

hospital. By working diligently, Mother Mary

Agnes and the two members of her congrega-

tion who had accompanied her to Baltimore

were able to receive their first patients early in

1865. Since the three houses were located in a

section of Baltimore where many German-

Americans resided, the new hospital filled

important needs in the German community

as well as in the city as a whole and soon had

more patients than it could handle in the

cramped space in which the sisters had to

work. In 1867, the Board of Trustees, consist-

ing of six lay members and three priests, drew

up plans for a larger and better equipped

facility. Land was acquired on Hoffmann and

Caroline and Spring and Oliver Streets from

Noah Walker in 1869, according to the hospi-

tal's archives, and ground was broken soon

after that. The corner stone was laid in 1871 by

the Very Reverend A. B. Coskey, Vicar

General of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The

year before, an act of incorporation had been

drawn up authorizing the Sisters of Saint

Francis to establish in the City of Baltimore a

hospital "for the reception and medical

treatment of the sick, distressed, and feeble."

Reverend Joseph Clauß, one of the three pri-

ests on the Board of Directors,² persuaded his

fellow board members to name the new hos-

pital after his patron saint, Saint Joseph. The

Board also decided that since the sisters who

would manage the new hospital and provide

all nursing care were German nuns who said

their prayers in German it was appropriate

that it be called Saint Joseph German

Hospital.

The first patients were admitted to Saint

Joseph German Hospital in 1872, and soon it

had become one of the city's busiest health

care providers.³ The work load was further

increased when, in 1891, the United States

Government designated Saint Joseph Ger-

man Hospital as the center for the care of all

sick or wounded sailors entering the port of

Baltimore. The hospital continued to serve in

this latter capacity until the Marine Hospital

opened its doors in 1887.

Until the turn of the century the Sisters of

Saint Francis administered Saint Joseph

German Hospital and provided all nursing

care. From 1901 on, welcome assistance

became available from the members of the

Women's Auxiliary, but the shortage of nurses

was ultimately relieved only when the school

of nursing established in 1901 began turning

out nurses. The first graduation exercises

were held, according to the records of Sister

Mary Zita, Treasurer of the Hospital, in the

new hall on Oliver Street on December 6,

1904. The five diplomas awarded at the

ceremony were presented by Cardinal

Gibbon.

Saint Joseph Hospital kept its German

identity until the United States declared war

on Germany in 1917. Anti-German attitudes

propagated at that time by radical patriotic

groups finally convinced the Board of Direc-

-15-

I

tors of the hospital that as a matter of expe-

diency the word "German" should be

dropped from the hospital's name. This was

done on February 22, 1918.4

During the post-war years and on into the

1950's Saint Joseph Hospital continued to

provide excellent medical care. By 1950, how-

ever, it had become evident that the plant was

antiquated. A crisis arose in 1955 when the

hospital was denied a license because certain

parts of the Caroline Street building failed to

satisfy current Fire Department regulations.5

To deal with the emergency a special lay

board was appointed. Thanks to the board's

efforts the fire hazard was eliminated and

other improvements were also made. It was

apparent, however, that the real need was for

a new building. A search committee was given

the task of finding a suitable site and eventu-

ally recommended the present site in Balti-

more County. Ground was broken on March

18, 1963,6 and soon the new Saint Joseph Hos-

pital was ready to admit patients and also to

provide a wide range of medical services

which had been impossible in the old plant.

The centennial of the hospital was celebrated

in the new building in 1971.

Over the years the physicians of Saint

Joseph have pioneered many programs in

various medical fields. Among the most

recent is an innovative three-dimensional

straightening process which helps to give

both greater mobility and a more normal

appearance to individuals afflicted with scoli-

osis. This straightening process represents

only a part of the comprehensive orthopedic

program at Saint Joseph Hospital, which

includes the world-renowned treatments

developed at the Center for skeletal Dysplasia

for patients suffering from dwarfism. Such

programs amply demonstrate the progressive

and scientific expertise of the medical staff.

They also offer proof, however, that the

strong sense of social service and the special

concern for the disadvantaged which inspired

the first nursing staff of German nuns to

devote their lives to caring for the sick and the

distressed are still very much alive there.

The College of Notre Dame of Maryland

The College of Notre Dame of Maryland

enjoys the distinction of being the oldest, and

also one of the most progressive of America's

Catholic liberal arts colleges for women. It

can also boast of having been the first

Catholic college to offer, from 1895 on, a four-

year program of liberal arts studies designed

to prepare Catholic young women for gradu-

ate study. Today, it is difficult to believe that

this thriving institution was born, as the Rever-

end Charles A. Hart recalls in his address on

the occasion of the college's golden jubilee in

1945, "of the boundless energy of a small

band of immigrant religious teachers who

never faltered in their desire to bring to their

students the highest and the best that Catholic

institutions could offer."7

The immigrant teachers to whom Father

Hart refers were German nuns who belonged

to a religious community originally founded

in 1598 in Mattaincourt, France, by Father

Pierre Fourier, who was later canonized.

Father Fourier's hope in instituting the com-

munity was that the new order, by making

available to young women of all social classes

the kind of education that would prepare

them for their later role as spiritual guides in

their respective families, might be able to help

counteract the wave of heresy then sweeping

over France. The congregation, which be-

came known as the Poor Sisters of Notre

Dame because the sisters so rigidly observed

the vow of poverty, spread during the two

centuries following its foundation to various

parts of France and also into Germany. One

of the German convents was situated in the

City of Stadtamhof on the Danube River in

the diocese of the Bishop of Regensburg. In

the school in Stadtamhof which the Sisters of

Notre Dame administered one of the pupils

was a young girl named Karolina Gerhardin-

ger, the only daughter of Willibald Gerhar-

dinger, a shipmaster on the Danube and a

prominent member of the shipmasters' guild.

Karolina was bright and liked going to school

and was keenly disappointed when the decree

ordering the closing of all religious schools in

Bavaria ended her school-days in 1809. This

decree, which implemented in Bavaria the

policy of secularizing ecclesiastical property

initiated in France during the Revolution and

extended to German states by the Treaty of

Lunéville, resulted in almost total suppression

-16-

of Catholic educational institutions at all lev-

els and accordingly caused great hardships.

Father Michael Wittmann, who supervised

Catholic education in the diocese of Regens-

burg, was disconsolate when the Sisters of

Notre Dame were obliged to close their

schools and at once began to consider possi-

ble ways of reopening the schools so that the

girls in his diocese could continue to receive

the kind of liberal education which would

prepare them for their future role as manag-

ers of Catholic households. The solution he

finally hit upon was a rather daring one: he

proposed to Karolina and two of her able

young friends to allow themselves to be

trained by a master teacher so that they might

learn the pedagogical skills which would ena-

ble them to take over the teaching duties for-

merly fulfilled by the departed sisters. The

girls willingly accepted the challenge and set

to work. At age fifteen Karolina had attained a

sufficient level of pedagogical skill to qualify

for a government certificate authorizing her

to teach. Not long after that she decided to

become a nun. Father Wittmann, who in the

interim had become Bishop of Regensburg,

told Karolina at that point about his idea of

reconstituting the Order of the School Sisters

of Notre Dame as the kind of community

envisioned two centuries earlier by Pierre

Fourier: a congregation of teaching sisters

who would not be confined to a convent, but

would go out into the world, thus making

education available even to those living in

remote rural areas. When the Bavarian gov-

ernment permitted the reopening of convents

run by nursing or teaching sisters, Bishop

Wittmann at once took steps to realize his

plan and enlisted the aid of Karolina, who

had taken the name Theresa of Jesus at the

time of professing her final vows. Sister

Theresa later became the head of the first

community of School Sisters, which was estab-

lished in 1833 in Neunburg vorm Wald, a

small city about forty-five kilometers north-

east of Regensburg. The educational director

of the new convent was Reverend Matthias

Siegert, whom Bishop Wittmann had com-

missioned to study the pedagogical ideas

of the Swiss educator, Johann Heinrich

Pestalozzi.

For a number of reasons, not least of which

was the difficulty of attracting there the kind

of recruits the congregation needed, Neun-

burg vorm Wald proved to have been an

unfortunate choice for the first motherhouse.

It accordingly seemed almost an act of Provi-

dence when the Archbishop of Munich

invited her to bring her community to the

Bavarian capital. She at once accepted the

invitation and was delighted by the generous

offer of King Ludwig I. to finance the remod-

eling of the convent which the Archbishop

had offered to Sister Theresa.

In Munich the community flourished, for

the sisters' services were much needed there.

Soon the sisters were active in many areas of

educational endeavor and were also render-

ing social services of various kinds, such as

operating day-care centers, looking after

children in orphanages, assisting in the reha-

bilitation of wayward youngsters, and even

running technical and vocational schools.

Always alert to new educational trends, the

sisters tested all new ideas, adopting what

seemed useful and fruitful.

Word of the School Sisters' work in Munich

spread rapidly. Soon calls were coming in

from other cities. Twenty years after the estab-

lishment of the first convent in Neunburg

vorm Wald the community had fifty-two

houses in Bavaria, and communities had also

been established in Württemberg, Westphalia,

Silesia, Bohemia, and Austria. Young women

were continually joining the community, but

Sister Theresa soon found it impossible even

so to fill the many requests for sisters. In 1841

she wrote, "More than forty school districts

have recently asked for sisters, and we have to

put them off indefinitely."

In spite of the continual calls for sisters in

Germany and Austria, Sister Theresa was will-

ing to help when a call came from the

Redemptorist Fathers in New York. In 1847,

accompanied by five members of her congre-

gation, she set sail for the United States, again

with the financial support of King Ludwig I.,

who even had his personal physician prepare

a medical kit for use during the voyage.

Disappointment was in store for the sisters

when they arrived in New York. For after hav-

ing sent for them, the Redemptorist Fathers

-17-

had realized that the community to which

they had planned to send the sisters, the

remote German settlement of St. Marys in the

forests of western Pennsylvania, was not a

suitable place to start a motherhouse and a

school. A letter explaining the decision to

abandon the St. Marys project had been sent

to Munich, but Sister Theresa had not

received it. Having no mission for the sisters,

the Fathers suggested that they return to

Germany. Sister Theresa, however, convinced

that God had called her to the New World to

do important work, decided instead to set out

on her own for St. Marys. During the long

journey by ox-cart one of the sisters died, but

with the others Sister Theresa finally arrived

at her destination. The little German com-

munity gave the sisters a warm welcome, put a

log-house at their disposal for use as a con-

vent, and had soon erected for them a one-

room school next to the convent. Shortly after

their arrival the sisters were thus able to begin

teaching.

Since St. Marys was in the diocese of Pitts-

burgh, Sister Theresa decided to pay the

Bishop a visit. The Bishop received her coolly

because she had come into the diocese with-

out an official invitation and with not letter of

reference from the Archbishop of Munich.

He nevertheless permitted the sisters to con-

tinue their missionary work in St. Marys, but

with evident reluctance.

A way out of this strained situation

presented itself opportunely when the Arch-

bishop of Baltimore, at the suggestion for

Father Neumann, then Provincial of the

Redemptorists in America, invited Sister

Theresa to come to Baltimore to take charge

of instruction in the German schools run by

three churches, St. Michael's, St. James's, and

St. Alphonsus, all three of which were staffed

by Redemptorist priests. Father Neumann

also offered Sister Theresa the opportunity to

acquire for use as a motherhouse the

Redemptorist novitiate house adjacent to St.

James Church. Sister Theresa wrote at once to

Munich to request funds for the purchase of

the novitiate house and to ask for additional

missionaries to assist with instruction in the

three German schools. Both requests were

granted.

When Sister Theresa had finished the task

of staffing and organizing the three German

parish schools she hoped that before her

return to Munich she would have an oppor-

tunity to see other parts of this vast mission

country. She was accordingly only too happy

to accept Father Neumann's invitation to

accompany him on a visitation tour of some of

the northern and western states to which he

hoped to extend the Redemptorists' mission-

ary work. Thanks to this tour, which took five

weeks and in the course of which Father

Neumann and his party covered five hundred

miles by ox-cart, steamboat, and various

horse-drawn vehicles, Sister Theresa ac-

quired first-hand experience of some of

America's remoter areas which enabled her

to map out several future projects for her

sisters.

Because of the turbulent political situation

in Europe sister Theresa received urgent

messages to return to Munich in early 1848.

She finally departed in July, but not before

she had set up an orphanage for abandoned

German children in Baltimore which was

later known as St. Anthony's Orphanage. To

the sister who had accompanied her on the

visitation tour with Father Neumann, Sister

Karoline Friess, one of her original compan-

ions from Munich, she entrusted the respon-

sibility of supervising the three German par-

ish schools and also of directing all future

educational enterprises of the School Sisters

of Notre Dame on the North American

continent.

The schools which Sister Theresa had so

ably organized and staffed continued to flour-

ish after her departure, and soon pupils

began to come to the sisters in their convent

on Aisquith Street. The school which they

established there later became the Institute of

Notre Dame when the new building was com-

pleted in 1863. In the early records of the

Institute one reads that "the happy years

quickly passed, bringing prosperity to the

school, until every attic room had its occu-

pant." Soon the sisters realized that in order

to be able to accommodate their numerous

pupils they would have to have additional

space. Attempts were made to purchase

neighboring property, but land values had by

-18-

then become so high that the idea of adding

on the Aisquith Street school had to be

abandoned.

In the spring of 1871 the sisters acquired a

property on North Charles Street and con-

tracted to have a building erected on that site.

The new building, called The Collegiate Insti-

tute, opened in 1873 with Mother Mary Bar-

bara Weinzierl, one of the original group of

sisters from Munich, and Sister Ildephonsa as

spiritual and educational directors. Mother

Theophila Bauer, the second Provincial of

the School Sisters, established the mother-

house on the campus of the Collegiate Insti-

tute in a small building called Montrose. The

third Provincial, however, Mother Clara

Heuck, protesting that North Charles Street

was "too far away from the city," moved the

motherhouse back to the Institute on Aisquith

Street.

To help Catholic young women prepare for

the new role that women were beginning to

play in American life during the waning years

of the nineteenth century, the School Sisters

of Notre Dame established on the Charles

Street campus in the last decade of the century

a four-year liberal arts college for Catholic

women which was the first of its kind in the

United States. The new institution was char-

tered in 1895 as the College of Notre Dame of

Maryland and held its first commencement

exercises in 1899.

For the next six decades elementary and

secondary school pupils as well as college

students came daily to the Charles Street

campus. In 1959, however, the School Sisters

decided that a new school should be built on

another site for the elementary and second-

ary school pupils. The institution which came

into existence as a result of this plan was

Notre Dame Preparatory School on Hampton

Lane.

The year 1959 was also marked by another

event of moment for the college and prepara-

tory school. On January 31 of that year the

validity of the process of beautification of the

foundress, who not long after her return to

Munich had finally been accorded the title

"Mother," was proclaimed in Rome.

Today, the members of the congregation

which Mother Theresa helped to establish

number more than seven thousand sisters

who live and work in twenty-one provinces in

Europe and North and South America.

Although the community is now world-wide,

the spirit of oneness, which has from the

beginning united its members, is still strong,

thanks to the work of the Generalate in Rome.

The sisters' sense of oneness enabled the

community to survive the Kulturkampf in the

1880's and also the two great international

conflicts of our century. One of the most mov-

ing examples of the spirit of unity which has

always united the sisters is without doubt the

telegram from the Commissary General in

Milwaukee to the Superior General in

Munich at the end of World War II, transmit-

ting the simple, but infinitely reassuring mes-

sage: "Wir bleiben treu. Fidelis."

VON PARIS MOVING AND STORAGE

The founder of the B. von Paris Moving

and Storage Company, one of Baltimore's

oldest and most successful German-American

business enterprises, was Eligius von Paris, a

young Hessian who had emigrated from

Germany to the United States in 1875. Like

many of his recently arrived compatriots, he

settled in East Baltimore, where he soon

found work in one of the breweries that supp-

lied beer to amusement parks and picnic

grounds in those days. A leader rather than a

follower, he was busy before long as an organ-

izer of the Brewery Workers Guild, of which

he later became president. Eager to have a

business of his own and quick to size up busi-

ness opportunities, he saw early on that he

could establish a profitable business by pro-

viding moving and hauling services to brewer

families and other families moving from one

residence to another and by offering a carting

service to contractors in need of help in get-

ting their materials to building sites. Early in

1892 he decided to take the plunge. With his

wife's approval he gave up his job at the brew-

ery and with his savings bought a team of

horses, two dump-carts, and a double team

wagon and started a moving and hauling bus-

iness in his residence at 3325 Foster Avenue.

Income from moving household goods was

at first sporadic, but cart-contracting proved

profitable. For a time, von Paris's main work

-19-

was hauling clay for brick-yards and building

materials for contractors, and, in winter,

transporting ice from ponds and streams to

brewery cellars for year-round refrigeration.

In 1894, von Paris's eldest son, Bonaventure,

left school at age twelve to help his father,

making the business a family enterprize.

Movement of household goods gradually

displaced cart-contracting over the next

decade and finally became the chief activity.

Bonaventure von Paris, who had meanwhile

become practically a partner and who like his

father was forward-looking, decided that the

family business, while progressing nicely,

could be made much more profitable, if he

and his father could learn the latest methods

and techniques of moving and hauling. To

familiarize himself with these, Bonaventure

set out for New York in 1905, with his father's

blessing and took a job there with one of the

more up-to-date moving and storage firms,

learning while he worked the various ways in

which the firm had increased the efficiency of

its moving and storage operations. Fortified

with his new knowledge, he returned to Bal-

timore to apply to the family business the

methods and techniques he had been able to

observe in New York.

An important test of the von Paris Com-

pany's strength and resourcefulness was a

contract-offer in 1907 for a long-distance

move from Baltimore to the District of

Columbia. The successful execution of this

move, which involved two wagon loads with

double teams and required two full days, con-

vinced father and son that the firm had

reached the point of being able to compete

successfully in the new and challenging field

of long-distance hauling.

Eligius von Paris's health having begun to

fail at this point, Bonaventure von Paris was

obliged to assume an ever larger share of the

responsibility for managing and operating

the business. With his greater responsibilities,

of course, came also the chance to test out

some of his own ideas concerning the future

course of a firm such as theirs. Steady growth

in volume had already made it clear that

expansion beyond the limited Foster Avenue

space was essential. After having explored the

various possibilities, Bonaventure von Paris

found a larger property in the 400 block of

First Street, later known as Highland Avenue,

which seemed suitable and which with the

help of a small loan from his father he was

able to acquire. Until his marriage in 1909 he

continued to operate the business out of the

Foster Avenue location; but when he and his

wife Theresa went to housekeeping, B. E. von

Paris, Jr. writes in the family chronicle which

he prepared in 1982 to commemorate the

firm's ninetieth anniversary, Bonaventure

"transferred the hauling shingle" to the First

Street property.

The main building on the First Street prop-

erty had three stories, one of which had been

occupied by a bar. By converting this area into

a warehouse Bonaventure von Paris was in a

position to offer his clients storage facilities.

The firm thus became at this point a moving

and storage business. Both the business and

Bonaventure's family flourished in the new

location. "All told," B. E. von Paris reports in

his chronicle, "nine sons and daughters,

many of whom were still owners and opera-

tors of the family business in 1982, came into

the world in the Highland Avenue house."

The firm's steady growth in terms of busi-

ness volume between 1912 and 1914 eventually

obliged Bonaventure von Paris to build a new

warehouse, purchase additional horses, and

put another wagon into service. In 1915 the

firm acquired its first motor van, which Balti-

moreans called "the house on wheels," and

which was one of the most popular exhibits at

the 1915 Automobile Show. The acquisition of

this vehicle marked the beginning of the

motorization of the von Paris company. By

the end of 1919 the firm had disposed of all of

its horses and wagons.

Between 1915 and 1919 the von Paris Com-

pany pioneered long-distance moving in the

Middle Atlantic States, a venture which posed

a formidable challenge even to a firm with

up-to-date equipment, for, as B. E. von Paris

recalls in his chronicle, "Route 1 was bad, the

Philadelphia Road was a gravel and mud

heap, and Route 40 had not even been

thought of at that time." In spite of handicaps

such as frequently being stuck in the mud,

however, the von Paris vans managed to get to

their destinations, completing deliveries at

-20-

times even in places where roads were practi-

cally non-existent.

Investment losses, coupled with the hope of

establishing a profitable real-estate enter-

prize near the farm which the family had

meanwhile acquired as a summer home,

almost persuaded Bonaventure von Paris to

abandon the moving and storage business in

the early 1920's. After three unsuccessful

attempts to divest himself of the moving and

storage operation, however, he decided to

keep the business. He also decided against

further expansion at that point so that he

could continue to offer his clients the kind of

personalized service in which he so strongly

believed and also have more time to be with

his family.

During the late 1920's and early 1930's four

of Bonaventure von Paris's five sons and four

of his daughters entered the business, his

sons starting out by working in the ware-

house, then helping with the vans, and finally

becoming drivers, while his four daughters

assisted in various ways with the office work.

The depression of 1929 "struck the business

and family with all the force of a typhoon,"

B. E. von Paris recalls in his chronicle, and

everyone had to work long hours and accept

privations in order to keep the business from

going under. Conditions improved during the

middle and late 1930's, and the four sons who

had entered the firm — Bonaventure, Jr.,

William, Joseph, and George — decided, at

different times, to make a career of the busi-

ness and eventually became involved in the

management of its various operations.

During World War II Bonaventure, Jr. and

William served in North Africa and Italy;

Joseph saw action in New Guinea and the

South Pacific; while George did his tour of

duty on Attu in the Aleutians. Fortunately all

came back. In 1947 the firm was incorporated

as the B. von Paris and Sons Moving and

Storage Company with Bonaventure, Sr. as

Chairman of the Board, Bonaventure, Jr. as

President and General Manager, William G.

and Joseph as Vice-Presidents, and George H.

as Secretary of the Board.

Growing demand for long-distance and

worldwide moving services after World War II

prompted the von Paris Company to apply to

the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1951

for an extension of authority which would

enable the firm to expand its services into the

Midwest. Again moving with the trends of the

times, the Company developed in the 1950's

facilities for large office moving and was soon

in the forefront of firms specializing in this

kind of service. Also with an eye to the future

the firm applied in 1956 to the Civil Aeronau-

tics Board for a Certificate of Public Conven-

ience and Necessity as a forwarder of air-

freight. When this certificate was awarded the

company was able to offer speedy service to

any point in the world capable of handling

air-freight.

In those years of dynamic development

another milestone was the acquisition of an

important competitive enterprize which for

several years had been an agency of North

American Van Lines. The merger was thus

not only a major expansion, but also made

possible a new role for the von Paris Com-

pany as an agency of North American Van

Lines. To lighten the burden of additional

responsibilities entailed by the merger and

the affiliation with North American Van Lines

the Board of Directors decided to divide all

operational responsibilities among the four

von Paris brothers on the Board. Each,

accordingly, assumed the presidency of one

of the four corporate entities into which the

company had earlier been divided, with

George H. von Paris serving as President of

the parent company.

Until the mid-1960's the von Paris company

operated out of four different locations — on

Highland Avenue, Erdman Avenue, Haven

Street, and Parole outside of Annapolis. By

that time, all warehouses were at nearly 100%

of capacity. To provide the sorely needed

additional storage space the company leased

early in 1965 a 16,000 square foot warehouse

at 1920 York Road in Timonium. All went well

for a while. Then, in the spring of 1968, came

the announcement that North American Van

Lines had been acquired by Pepsico. For the

von Paris Company the merger marked the

beginning of a long period of frustrations and

problems resulting in the main from the fre-

quent turnovers in executives and manage-

ment personnel at Pepsico's Fort Wayne

-21-

headquarters and from what B. E. von Paris

characterizes in his chronicle as "the philos-

ophy of operating a van line like a food and

beverage business." The problems with Pep-

sico were not finally resolved until the mid-

1970's when Pepsico at long last appointed to

the presidency of North American Van Lines

an executive experienced in running a

household goods moving operation and capa-

ble of empathizing with the agents and their

problems.

In the fall of 1970 the von Paris Company

transferred all of its East Baltimore opera-

tions to the spacious new quarters on York

Road in Timonium. Consolidation and the

attendant restructuring helped to sharpen the

firm's competitive edge, as did the leadership,

creativity, wisdom, and productivity of the

family members and the other able individu-

als who became members of the Board of

Directors at various times during the 1970's.

A unique opportunity for further expan-

sion arose in 1975 when North American Van

Lines publicized its decision to divest itself of

its company stores. Among these was its

profitable Potomac service and warehouse

facility for which it was willing to offer the von

Paris Company first acquisition rights. The

price was high, but the acquisition of an outlet

in the busy Washington metropolitan area

enabled the company to realize what B. E. von

Paris describes in his chronicle as "the great-

est growth in our history."

From B. E. von Paris, Jr.'s chronicle of the

family history it is clear that the von Paris

Company owes its continuing success in the

main to the ability of its managerial staff to

couple innovativeness with reliability. Never

content to rest on its laurels, the company has

always striven to offer top quality service, and

it has been able to do so because its managers

have always known that perfection requires

attention to detail. They have also known that

caring about customers also means caring

about your employees. Their concern has led

to a dedicated work force that is anxious to

give its best. In 1992 the company will cele-

brate its centennial. Doubtless at that time the

Board of Directors will once again rededicate

themselves, as they did on past anniversary

celebrations, to the principles which, as B. E.

von Paris, Jr., points out in his chronicle,

"brought the company successfully out of the

Gay Nineties through many eras into the

Space Age," the principles of service, courtesy,

and customer satisfaction.

NOTES

1

The Third Order of he Sisters of Saint Francis was

founded in 1855 in Philadelphia at the instigation of the

Venerable John Nepomucene Neumann, then Bishop of

Philadelphia. The first Superior General was Reverend

Mother Mary Francis Bachmann, a native of Bavaria,

whose maiden name was Anna Boll. At twenty-two Anna

Boll married Anton Bachmann and subsequently emi-

grated with him from Germany to the United States. The

couple settled in Philadelphia and were members there

of St. Peter's Catholic Church, which at that time had a

predominantly German-speaking congregation. The

Bachmanns had four children, three of whom later took

holy orders. After the death of her husband, Anna

Bachmann became a nun.

2

Reverend Clauß was Rector of St. Michael's Church.

The other two priests on the Board of Directors were the

Reverend Kleineidam, Rector of St. Alphonsus Church,

and a priest from St. James Church. All three priests were

members of the Redemptorist Congregation (CSSR),

founded in 1732 in Naples by Alfonso de'Liguori, who

was later canonized as St. Alphonsus of Liguori. The

Redemptorists were active in the field of education and

also provided social services, even ministering to prison-

ers. The Redemptorists of German origin in the United

States supervised instruction in German parish schools in

addition to ministering spiritually to their German-

American parishioners.

3

Sister M. Pierre, O.S.F., offers an account of the hospi-

tal's first one hundred years in an article entitled "History

of Saint Joseph's Hospital," Maryland State Medical Jour-

nal, Vol. 6 (July 1957), pp. 333-336.

4

Dieter Cunz reviews major problems confronted by

German-Americans and German-American institutions

and organization from 1917 on in The Maryland Germans

(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1948), pp.

395 ff.

5

Sister M. Pierre discusses the crisis and its eventual

resolution in "Saint Joseph's Hospital Looks Ahead,"

Maryland Medical Journal, Vol. 9 (April 1960), pp. 178-179.

6

As reported in the Baltimore Sun, March 19, 1963.

7

Charles A. Hart, "The Concept of a Catholic Liberal

Arts College," in Fifty Golden Years: A Series of Lectures on the

Liberal Arts College, commemorating the Golden Jubilee

of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland (Baltimore:

The College of Notre Dame of Maryland, 1946), p. 22.

-22-