Children of Ferdinand Schlesinger

Here is my 2012  post on Ferdinand Schlesinger:

http://mayvillestove.blogspot.com/2012/12/northwestern-iron-company-mayville-and.html

I just read this amazing Milwaukee Magazine  story by  B. Ellen von Oostenburg about Schlesinger, and his famous daughter-in-law, Mona Travis Strader Schlesinger Bush Williams von Bismarck-Schönhausen de Martini:         http://www.milwaukeemag.com/2010/02/22/HighSociety/  

While this article does not mention Schlesinger's  Mayville iron works, with their inherited wealth the Schlesinger children, Henry, Armin and Gertrude,  likely had little concern for their Mayville operations after Ferdinand died in 1921.   The von Oostenburg article states Henry was interested in his horses in Kentucky.  Armin is described as an industrialist who retired to Naples, Florida. And daughter Gertrude married Myron T. MacLaren, a vice president of a brokerage company. Gertrude's daughter said that "[m]other alone inherited $$80 million" from Ferdinand. 

      

Mayville Blast Funaces 1917

Here is a pic of a postcard showing  the Mayville blast furnaces at night 1917:

She Watched the Mayville Blast Furnaces in the 1920's

It's hard to find anyone in Mayville who can still give first hand stories about the iron works.   Dolores Ihde, of Mayville, age 95, told me today that as a child  she and her grandmother would sit out on the front porch at night and look  west from their German Street porch to watch  the tops of the two Mayville blast furnaces lighting up the sky.

Credit:  http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/2011/02/10/blast-furnace-spectacle-will-be-fire-and-steel-festival-highlight-84229-28144283/              No,  this is not Mayville in the 1920's, but I'm using my imagination.

Dolores was born in 1918, and the Mayville iron works shut down in 1928.   Dolores' fond memory reminds me of this story of Cleveland:

My father and I made other trips and best were the ones to the blast furnaces.  He explained how the iron ore from the boats was mixed with coal and carried in little cars to the top of the chimney above the furnace. It was dumped in, and as it fell down “a special kind of very hot air” was blown into it.  The coal and iron ore caught fire, and below they fell into great tubs as melting metal, a pinkish gold liquid, incandescent as the sun is when it is starting to set. The man and child were allowed to go rather near the vats, to feel the corching heat and to drown their gaze in the glowing boil. All the rest of the building was dark; the
silhouettes of the men who worked at the vats were black shadows. Wearing long leather aprons, they moved about the vats ladling off the slag. That was very skilled work, my father said; the men had to know
just how much of the worthless slag to remove. For years afterwards, when we could no longer spend Sunday afternoons on these expeditions, we used to go out of our house at night to see the pink reflections from the blast furnaces on the clouds over Cleveland. We could remember that we had watched the vatfuls
of heavily moving gold, and those events from the past were an unspoken bond between us.

“The Blast Furnace” from Home to the Wilderness by Sally Carrighar (1944  Houghton Mifflin Company).

Here you see the blast furnaces at Völklingen Ironworks, Völklinger Hütte (Germany), a  - UNESCO World Heritage site.  The plant closed in 1986.   Today, the Völklinger Hütte is a museum.  You can tour the production areas, or visit the  interactive science center which has ironmaking exhibits.   

Völklingen Ironworks  Credit and many thanks to: flickr.com member mbell1975, shown here
with permission.  This photo and others from the Völklingen photostream 
by mbell1975 are posted at this flickr.com site.

Mayville Hunter

Longtime Mayville resident, David Kern, died on December 31 after a long battle with cancer.  Dave's best friends knew him as "Cobby."  I have learned since I moved here that if you were born before 1960 and grew up in Mayville your boyhood  friends probably gave you a nickname, like Popeye, Brownie,  Strookie,  Lloydie, Stoney, Hub, Rags, Bumpy, Chickie, Melf, Steinie, Nubbie, Bootsie, Mouse, Fuzzy, Deke, Stick, or Cobby.   That's a nice tradition.  Better to grow up in a small town  where they took the time to give you a decent nickname than in a crowded city where you are little more than a number.   I don't know where Dave's nickname of Cobby came from, but you had to love it.  

Because I did  not know Dave as long or as well as many others, here I bring the perspective of someone who saw him around town and admired him greatly.  Dave figured out how to combine  work, recreation and community service into one life.   How did he do that?

My first experiences with Dave began  about 20 years ago,  on our local "muni"  golf course and  at St. Mary's basketball games.  Dave was an excellent golfer who would defeat me in Thursday night league matches, always a gentleman on the golf course and never too serious about it.  (Yes, we did enjoy a beer while out on the course.)  My  fondest memories were at the old St. Mary's gym where I first encountered Dave around 1995 as a referee for  the grade school games,  in which Jack Hurst and I coached.   Dave made the calls, but he also gave quick tips to the kids when he blew the whistle at them, showing them how to pivot to avoid a travel, or how to avoid a double dribble call.   Dave helped the young players avoid line violations on in-bounds passes, and that wasn't easy because the line along the length of our little court was about a foot from where the fans were sitting.  Other refs like Nubbie Dornfeld, and Melf  and Dale Gourlie (also a co-worker at MEC)  helped the kids in the same way, but Nubbie,  Melf and Dale would tell you that the kids really listened to  Dave.  Well, they had to look up to him.  He was tall and wiry, and I'm sure they saw him as a giant.    But for these children  his gift was that he was kind and gentle.

Dave Kern  Duck hunting with Maddy
Credit:  Koepsell Funeral Home obit 

Dave Kern saw a lot of Mayville history over his 60 years, and worked at Mayville Engineering Company (MEC) for 40 of them.   After he got sick he just kept working.  The word "disability" was not part of his vocabulary.   As the obit says, Dave was MEC's reloader division Sales/Customer Service Manager.  The origin of the MEC shotshell reloader product  is a huge manufacturing-hunting Mayville story, which I can't get into here.   

Dave represented MEC  at  outdoor trade events where he would present the MEC product around the country.  He met my brother Jim from Madison, who was selling sportsmen knives for some company, at one of those  events and Jim gets back and calls me asking, “Who was that great guy from Mayville that I met at the sports show in Vegas?”  Dave had gone out of his way to go up to Jim  and make conversation with him,   because he could tell (we look alike) that he was my brother, and of course Dave as always wanted to be friendly.   Dave was not for himself.  He was always reaching out,  as he did here with Jim whom he had never met.

I can't think of a better ambassador that a company could have than  Dave Kern.   With this job with the MEC reloader division  he could take his passion for hunting into the workplace.  Away from work he loved to hunt with his black lab, Maddy, whom you see here with Dave.  

The beautiful obituary talks about the outdoors organizations in which Dave was actively involved, and on top of that Dave helped out with our community organizations as well.  I was privileged to serve on the Mayville Area Chamber of Commerce board with Dave back in the 90's. 

One of the highlights of my Christmas season was at the Mayville Inn last month where I was able visit with Dave Kern at a get together there.    It's hard to find people like Dave, who figure out how to live "the good life"  which means that he mixed work with recreation, and he made time for unselfish community service, always with a smile and a handshake.  Dave's death is a huge loss to Mayville.   But it's a loss much worse for  Sheryl, their children,  Jason and Jaime and their families, mother and dad Hank and Jane,  Dave's  MEC co-workers, and his friends who now have to get along without this amazing Mayville guy they knew as  Cobby. 

Mayville Iron Works - Ferdinand Schlesinger

The Northwestern Iron Company was organized in Mayville in 1854.   Looking at the the first fifty years the key figure was "Captain Bean," but I will not get into that here.   The famous iron man, Ferdinand Schlesinger of Milwaukee, bought the common stock of  Northwestern Iron in 1908 and with this new owner the Mayville works continued to operate and produce pig iron as Northwestern Iron Company.   

In 1919 Schlesinger merged Northwestern and other Schlesinger holdings into their  new structure, The Steel & Tube Co. of America,  a publicly traded corporation formed in 1918  with Schlesinger and Clayton Mark of Chicago as the main stockholders.     One of   Steel and Tube's  holdings was the Indiana Harbor Works located across the canal from the Inland Steel plant in East Chicago.   At that location along the southwest shore of Lake Michigan  Clayton Mark  (Mark Manufacturing)  had just finished construction (in 1918) of a new steel plant, as described in this story.     (Note that this story incorrectly  refers to Ferdinand Schlesinger as a "brother." )  

What happened to The Steel & Tube Co. of America?  Ferdinand Schlesinger died in 1921.  From Mayville's standpoint things went downhill as a result.   Later in  1921 Sheet & Tube  shut down the coke plant in Mayville which had operated across the road and just east of the iron works, and thereafter they used coke for the Mayville furnaces which they brought in from the Schlesinger coke plant in Milwaukee, much to the disappointment of the people of Mayville who lost their coke plant jobs.    

 On June 29, 1923, The Steel & Tube Co. of America  sold the Mayville works to The Mayville Iron Co.,  but it was really a sale to the large Ohio company,   Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. (Y S & T)   which set up and controlled The Mayville Iron Co. as Y S & T's  subsidiary.    This transaction was part of  of Y S & T's  purchase  of  Steel  and Tube's multiple operations, including the Mayville iron works.   The Mayville works was a small piece of this sale, the main piece being the Indiana Harbor Works.   But the community of  Mayville did not see it that way, because the Mayville  Iron Works was the city's main employer. Y S & T officials from Youngstown  came to Mayville on October 12, 1924, and had their picture  taken in front of a new company sign at the Mayville works. That was a big deal.   

Y S & T  blew out the two  Mayville blast furnaces January 17, 1928, and had them demolished for scrap in 1933.   In addition to the sources which I have cited here, this minimal timeline is based on information which you will find in  When Iron was King in Dodge County, Wisconsin by George Frederick (Mayville Historical Society 1993),  which includes references to corporate records.   Also, the Limestone School Museum  operated by Mayville Limestone School Museum, Inc. on North Main Street has an "Iron Country" basement gallery with photos and artifacts.  Mayville Historical Society, Inc. ,  which has a museum on North German Street, owns a collection of iron works photos. 

What is significant about the events in this timeline?     First, any information, fact, artifact, or story of any kind  about the Mayville Iron Works is going to interest me as someone who lives here.   Beyond that, of general interest to all  "steel people" is  this transactional connection between Schlesinger's ownership interest in the small Mayville works,  and his later acquired interest with Clayton Mark in  the huge Indiana Harbor mill.    Ferdinand Schlesinger had his hand in both operations, and I would say that the Indiana move was a courageous one. 

If you look at the timing of events  here, after the death of Ferdinand did  the Schlesinger family  have more than it wanted to handle  with the Indiana Harbor project?    The dates here are compressed.  Mark finishes construction of the huge Indiana Harbor steel mill in 1918.    Schlesinger joins up with Mark in 1918 to  form Steel and Tube, which is Schlesinger's  daring move into the Indian Harbor operation.      Three years  later Ferdinand dies.     Only two years after that Steel and Tube sells  out  to Y S & T.  

My impression is that after Ferdinand died the Schlesinger heirs had no interest in Steel & Tube.  They got out right away.   Why?   At the time of Ferdinand's  death in 1921, were there cash flow issues  at Indiana Harbor now that there was no war to support the iron and steel industry?    If business was slow, it had to be tough to make payments on the debt incurred to build the new steel mill at Indiana Harbor.      Or, without Ferdinand did the family feel as though they lacked the skills to participate with Mark in an operation as large as Indiana Harbor?   My hunch  would be to say no to that idea, because the two Harvard educated  sons of Ferdinand, Armin and Henry, had been active in the Schlesinger enterprises all along and should have been able to carry on.     Or, was the company in good shape, but with Ferdinand out of the picture   facing demands from the  Schlesinger heirs who  just wanted to cash out?      At this point   I don't know enough about the history here to provide any solid answers to these questions.   The answers should come from family members, but as far as I know we don't have that kind of first hand information.   Perhaps it will turn up at some point.    But I will always be curious to learn more of this history leading up to this 1923 sale to Y S & T, and I may come back to this subject in future posts.       You can read some basic information  about the Schlesinger family in this Wisconsin history book at pages 1716-1718.

Why all this talk about Indiana Harbor in a blog which is about Mayville?  Ferdinand must have learned a great deal from his years of ownership and management of the Mayville works.    Yes, Ferdinand had been busy buying land and mining iron ore before he bought  Northwestern in 1908, but from from what I can tell, reading this obituary and other material on the subject, Northwestern in Mayville was his first iron works.   At Mayville  Ferdinand learned the  blast furnace side of the iron business  and that experience  prepared him to jump into the Indiana Harbor project.    

Also, we ask what might have been different Ferdinand had lived and worked beyond 1921.   Perhaps the Mayville coke plant,  which closed months after he died,  would have stayed open.   Perhaps the  sale to Y S & T would not have happened.   It was Y S & T which shut down the Mayville works in 1928.     With Ferdinand as owner of the Mayville works, would we have seen  the Mayville Iron Works continue to operate into the Depression of the 1930's, and then thrive during World War II when iron was at a premium?   I doubt it.  We don't know whether Ferdinand had a determination to keep Mayville open through thick and thin.    And, Ferdinand died at age 70.  Even if he had lived and worked for a few years beyond 1921 his  era was going to come to an end before 1930.    And, most would say that  the Depression would have killed a small operation like Mayville regardless of the owner.   But it's fun to speculate about what might have been. 

Actually, on reflection, I give credit to Y S & T.  They  added Indiana Harbor to their operations.  It was a good fit for them, with its new plant  and excellent transportation facilities on Lake Michigan, and they did well with it.   They kept going through the Depression, and then thrived after that.    Y S & T brought its resources and expertise to Indiana Harbor and made that operation successful, as they competed in the steel business at the highest level, with other huge operations.     The small producers  like the Mayville Iron Works with its two furnaces and no steel producing ability  did not fit the post-1923 mold.   As tough as it was for Mayville,  I can't say that I blame  Y S & T for shutting us down in 1928.     Blowing out Mayville was a matter of facing economic reality.   Rather than focus on  regrets over the shutdown, I prefer to be grateful for Mayville's  80 good years of iron production.   Mayville reaped benefits from the Mayville Iron Works, even after its shutdown, but those will have to be the subject of future posts. 

Preface to W.D. Knight's Study of Mayville Industry

Clock that W.D. "Don" Knight received from the University
of Wisconsin - Madison when he retired in 1986

The clock and plaque  pictured here  is a family artifact  from Madison, but by reference to the years shown on the plaque, I can make a connection between it and the history of industry in Mayville, Wisconsin.

Before I get to that Mayville connection in the next post, bear with this family history preface which is my tribute to W.D. "Don" Knight (1916-1988).   On this blog you will find that   I like to reflect on the history which these kinds of  objects bring to mind, as discussed in previous posts on  the iron parlor stove, and on the five-cent drink token.   This clock is an artifact which is important to Katy, because it was a gift to her father, Don Knight,    given when he retired in 1986  from his job as a Professor in the School of Business at the University of Wisconsin, after 40 years there.  We make fun of these kinds of "inexpensive" parting gifts which employers give out when people retire, but as the years pass, they become important.  Now we are glad that after Don and Maureen died, we  didn't throw out this clock.  The clock with the Badger plaque is hands-on proof for our children of what their grandfather did for a living.

Don Knight grew up in Beloit, Wisconsin located along the Illinois border about 80 miles west of Chicago.   Beloit was a tough industrial city in 1920's and 30's when Don grew up there.  People seeking factory work moved to Beloit  to work at Fairbanks Morse & Company (now Fairbanks Morse Engine), Beloit's largest employer at that time, a huge enterprise which manufactured pumps, industrial supplies, engines, parts, washing machines, windmills  and many other products in Beloit and in other locations.  (The company website reports that the company  was famous for being the first company to successfully market a gasoline engine in 1893.)   At Beloit High School Don used to tutor some of the toughest students in the school.  He taught a boy there how to read, and to say thanks the kid gave Don a book, but he couldn't keep the book because, as it turned out, the kid had stolen it from the library.  Don just dropped the book in the library return box with nothing said.

After high school, and now it's the Depression,  there was no family money for college but Don lived at home  found a way to quickly work his way through Beloit College,  and then with a scholarship he moved on to the University of Michigan where he took a Ph.D. in finance in 1939.   Through these student years Don kept in touch with Beloit, and after finishing school and the military Don married Maureen McKenna who had been working there as an industrial nurse at Fairbanks Morse.

This family history is all good.  Don was a big-shot in the family, to his parents and sisters, and to all the cousins, because he was the first Knight or Quinn (mother's side) to ever attend college.  But what interested us most about the Don Knight early years were the stories of poetry and literature which Don  knew by heart.   He used to recite Shakespeare  in the college bars for drinks.   I first experienced the residue of those lyrical student years about 40 years later at the Knight dinner table, when I would hear him break  into song  from time to time,  but by then the melody was pretty shaky, pretty much at what I would call George Burns level.   At Don's funeral in Madison after he died  on April 15, 1988 I met cousins Don's age  who  came up from Chicago, and I was jarred by that because the cousins looked just  like  Don, tall Irishmen with thick white hair and  broad smiles.

Go back  to the start of the 40 year career which is noted  on the plaque,   to 1946 just after the end of the war when Don got out of the service and started at UW-Madison at age 29.   He took on a  side job which brought him to Mayville where he investigated and reported on  Mayville's industry.   That will be the subject of future posts.

**********

2018 supplement to this post:  In 2018 I finally got to Don Knight's study  of Mayville industry after the closure of the iron works in 1928.  See the three 2018 posts on this subject.
T.S.   12/15/2018