Sunday's Obituary - Adolf Hamann

My Aunt Barbara Hamann Nunn’s father was a prominent citizen of the Niagara Falls community.  It has been fun researching this side of the family, especially when I learned that during the Depression Dupont "loaned" Mr. Hamann to the city to get their welfare operation running.  Below is Mr. Hamann's obituary.

Adolf Hamann Dies in Florida

Niagara Falls Gazette, December 31, 1963 p. 9

Adolf M. Hamann, 75, prominent local industrialist and civic leader, died Monday (Dec. 30, 1963) at his winter home in Deerfield Beach, FL after an illness of several months. Mr. Hamann’s permanent residence was at 628 Mountain View Drive Lewiston Heights.

A native of New York City, he had been a resident of the Niagara Falls area for 50 years.

He was education at the Taft School, Watertown, Connecticut, and at Columbia University, where he studied electrical engineering, graduating in 1910. After three years with General Electric in Schenectady, he came to Niagara Falls to work for the Roessler & Hasslacher Chemical Company.

He became chief engineer before the company was purchased by DuPont. Mr. Hamann remained with DuPont until his retirement about 15 years ago. He began wintering in Florida about five years ago and had gone there this year early in November. 

Mr. Hamann was active in many social, civic and philanthropic organizations in the Niagara Falls area. For many years he was a director of the Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital, and was recently named an honorary director. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Hospital Corporation of Western New York.

He had been active in Community Chest for many years, having served as president and campaign chairman.

He was an early member of the University Club and was a member of the Niagara Falls Country Club and the Niagara Club, a member and past commodore o the Youngstown Yacht Club, and was past chairman of the board of trustees of the Niagara Falls YMCA.

During the depression years Mr. Hamann was loaned by DuPont to the city to reorganize the city welfare operation and train a successor Carlos C. Lacey, Mr. Hamann spent a year with the city welfare department.

Mr. Hamann is survived by his wife, Lynn Arthurs Hamann; three daughters, Mrs. Katherine H. Bernard, Lewiston, Mrs. Harold J. (Barabara) Nunn, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Mrs. J. Monroe (Joan) Albury, Miami, FL; three brothers, Carl F. Hamann, Aurora, Ohio, Edmund H. Hamann, Riverside, Connecticut, and William A. Hamann, Jr. Hastings-on-Hudson; and two sisters Mrs. Emma H. Due, Delray Beach, FL and Mrs. Eda H. Jahn, Boca Raton, FL. His first wife, Lucille Taylor Hamann, died in 1956.

A private memorial service will be held in Deerfield Beach, FL. The family said that donations to the Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital, the YWCA or the Unitarian Church would be acceptable tribute.

Surname Saturday - McCorn of Newfield, NY

On April 25 I posted a wedding announcement for Maggie Weatherell and William A. McCorn of Newfield, NY.  Recently, through my blog, I received additional information from David Marshall on the McCorn family that I would like to share.

Mr. Marshall writes: “I have been doing research on Dr. William Alfred McCorn for a project in which he is a minor character. You might be interested to know that McCorn was born in 1859 in Newfield, New York, and he graduated from Cornell University in 1879 and received his medical degree from the University of Buffalo in 1882. He died prematurely on February 18, 1904 at the age of 45, leaving a wife and daughter. McCorn worked all over the country in what were then called insane asylums, and he lectured and published and translated in the formative years of American psychiatry. Among the institutions with which he was affiliated are the New York City Asylum for the Insane (part of Manhattan State Hospital), the Wisconsin State Prison, the Milwaukee State Hospital for the Insane, the Long Island Home, the River Crest Sanitarium, the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane, and the Elizabeth General Hospital.

I believe that the marriage notice is from about 1879, when McCorn graduated from Cornell and began his medical studies.”

 ***

An interesting aside is that my great-grandmother Katherine Kurtz Nunn was an inmate in the Manhattan State Hospital for 17 years.

Thank you, Mr. Marshall, for sharing this information on the life of Dr. William McCorn. 

Those Places Thursday - Bath, New York

While researching the George Hardenbrook line I took a virtual visit to Bath, New York where Richard Hardenbrook settled and raised his family.  Richard was born 26 May 1809; died 6 April 1882. Richard married Catherine Smith of Queen Anne County, Maryland.  They had five children: Edward (1833); George (1837); Emory (1838); Elizabeth (1839), and Clinton (1847).

Bath is located in Steuben County in New York’s beautiful Southern Tier.  The town sits just south of Keuka Lake’s fertile hillsides that now hosts a number of Finger Lakes wineries.

Bath history states that Colonel Charles Williamson, a land agent for the Pulteney Estate arrived in the area of Steuben County in 1792 then populated by wild animals and a few Seneca Indians.  Controversy surrounds the origin of the town’s name. Some historians say it was because of the similar geography to Bath, England; others say the town was named for Lady Bath, the heiress of Sir William Pulteney of London.  The town was formed on March 18, 1796; the village incorporated on April 12, 1816.

Richard Hardenbrook moved his family from Ovid, NY to Bath where he did some farming and then served as superintendent of the Whiting and McCass Foundry before becoming proprietor of Steuben Furnace Company. 

Wedding Wednesday - Nunn-Maki Nuptials, September 7, 1968

Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Maki
September 7, 1968

It is a happy coincidence that our 43^rd wedding anniversary falls on the day of the Wedding Wednesday prompt.  Our wedding took place at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Ithaca, NY.  

The ceremony was followed by a reception at our family restaurant, Taughannock Farms Inn.  The cake was made with love by the restaurant’s baker, Dottie Wright, and the waitresses helped keep wedding guests well fed and happy.

This was just like our car, except ours was a four door

We felt quite special as we drove off to our honeymoon in Old Forge, NY in our new 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass.  Following two days in the Adirondacks we headed to Lyons, Illinois and our apartment in the lower level of a family home so my husband could commute to his job at Libby Foods in Chicago.

Although much has changed in those forty-three years, one thing has not and that is our love and devotion to each other.  

Those Places Thursday - Niagara Falls, NY

My uncle Bus’s first job, after his one-year stint with the Boston Shamrocks, was as a tour guide at the Niagara Power Plant. It was through his employment there that he met his future bride, Barbara Hamann. Bus and Barbara were married on 29 May 1941 at 4:30 p.m. in the Reception Room of the Niagara University Faculty House. Their attendants were Katherine Louise Hamann and Edward F. Nunn. A reception immediately followed at the home of the bride’s parents in Lewiston Heights, NY.

Bus then went to work for DuPont in Niagara Falls, most probably due to his father-in-law’s position as Chief Engineer with DuPont.  And so the story of Bus’s career begins. 

Sports Center Saturday - Harold Nunn and the Boston Shamrocks

As comfortable on the ski slope as the football field
Harold "Bus" Nunn

I was contacted through my blog for information on my father’s brother, Harold “Bus” Nunn.  The person requesting the information manages a website www.oldestlivingprofootball.com that lists 1,000 living pro football players. The site also provides birth and death dates for over 5,700 deceased players.  The request was for the birth and death date of my Uncle Harold “Bus” Nunn.

Bus played football for Cornell University in the early 1930s.  On November 3, 1935, the New York Times headline read: “Cornell in Draw with Columbia, 7-7. Long pass to Nunn in Final Quarter and Stofer’s Kick Gain the Deadlock.”

Upon graduation, in 1936, Bus played pro football for the AFL team the Boston Shamrocks. His son tells me that players were paid $800 per game, but only if they played; those on the injury list or otherwise sidelined received no pay.

This inquiry prompted me to think about Bus. I wanted to know more about his life, and with the help of his son, I have sketched out Bus’s professional career, which includes his involvement with the Manhattan Project through his employment with DuPont. But that is a story for another day. 

Funeral Card Friday - Angie May Starr

Angie May Starr resides in my hubby’s family line; consequently Angie’s funeral card was in his mother’s possession.  Information on Angie’s life is sketchy and my husband would love to have more information.  We do know that Angie was the third child of John and Harriett McDaniels Harker. She had a brother Fred and a sister Ella Maude.  She married William Miller and in 1902 had a daughter Harriett.  In 1900 William Miller taught school in Newfield, New York.  Angie then married Edwin Wallace Starr on 20 October 1914; it was his third marriage.  Edwin was 65 years old when he married Angie; she was twenty-six years younger.