Читать книгу Memoirs of Milwaukee County, Volume 5 - Josiah Seymour Currey - Страница 26

Frederick Charles Meinhardt, secretary and treasurer of the Milwaukee Motor Products Company, Incorporated, was born in this city August 16, 1880. His father, Fred John Meinhardt, is also a native of Milwaukee, born here in 1856, where he still makes his home and is engaged in the boat building business. His father was Charles F. W. Meinhardt, a native of Saxony, Germany, who. came to the United State in 1846, and at once established his home in Milwaukee. He made the trip to the new world alone when a young man of twenty-six. He represented one of the old families of Saxony and he became the founder of the family in the United States. Born and reared in Milwaukee, Fred John Meinhardt, after reaching adult age, married Margaret Schiffler, a native of this city. Her father was Michael Schiffler, a native of Bavaria, who was brought to the United States by his parents in 1851, when a child of fifteen years, the family settling in Oak Creek, or what is now South Milwaukee. They afterward became farming people of Minnesota and from Minneapolis, Michael Schiffler returned to Milwaukee about 1880. Thus in both the paternal and maternal lines Frederick Charles Meinhardt is a representative of old families of this city. After acquiring a public school education, he entered the employ of Landauer & Company, with whom he remained for four years, starting in the position of elevator boy and working his way upward until he was a salesman in the notions department. He was afterward employed in the United States engineering department as stenographer in connection with river and harbor improvements and devoted nineteen years of his life to the government service, rising to the position of auditor. Colonel William V. Judson, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A. who, as American attaché with the Russian army during the Russo-Japanese war, was captured by the Japanese at Mukden and returned to the United States. Mr. Meinhardt was the stenographer who took down and assisted Colonel Judson in the arrangement of the report on the Russian army maneuvers. In 1916 he had charge of the office at Nogales, Arizona, being there situated during the troublous times when the city was fired upon by the Mexicans and it seemed that war with that country was imminent. At Nogales he was in charge of the engineer's office, having control of railroad operations into Mexico in case of war, for Pershing and his troops.

In June, 1918, Mr. Meinhardt resigned from the government service and became office manager for the Milwaukee Auto Engine & Supply Company, which on the 1st of December, 1921, adopted the name of the Milwaukee Motor Products Company, Incorporated. In June, 1920, he became secretary and treasurer of this company and in his official position has since bent his energy to administrative direction and executive control. With his return to Milwaukee, Mr. Meinhardt became a teacher of bookkeeping and accounting in the evening sessions of the South Division high school in 1918 and in 1919 taught the same branches in the West Division high school. He is now a lecturer in the Marquette University on the subject of auditing, theory and practice, in connection with the third year course of certified public accounting. Mr. Meinhardt has always been a student himself and has devoted much time to the study of law, business administration, salesmanship, philosophy and psychology, being well versed along all these lines. He is a deep student of human nature and keenly interested in those mental processes which are analyzed through the science of psychology. He loves a good book and reading is his hobby. He likewise greatly enjoys swimming and takes long hikes, finding keen pleasure in the out-of-doors.

On the 5th of May, 1902, Mr. Meinhardt was married to Miss Clara Meyer, a daughter of Henry Meyer, a native of Germany and formerly a Milwaukee carpenter. They have become parents of four children: Lucile, who is now a student in the Normal School at Milwaukee and possesses marked musical talent, while she has also written an acceptable play adopted by the North Division high school. She is prominent in local dramatic circles and has given many readings before Milwaukee audiences; Alan, a student in the Washington high school; and Fred and John, who are pursuing the work of the grades.

Mr. Meinhardt has never been active in politics except during the period of the World war, when he was prominent as a worker in the Wisconsin Loyalty Legion. He was also a member of the registration board in the twenty-first ward, local division No. 10. He is a Mason, belonging to Damascus Lodge, No. 290. The nature of his interests are further indicated in the fact that he is a member of the Office Managers' Association of Milwaukee and chairman of its membership committee, also a member of the City Club and of the Association of Commerce. No activity or project looking to the benefit and welfare of the city seeks his aid in vain. He stands at all times for progress and improvement in relation to the community, to the commonwealth and to the country. He is of the third generation of the Meinhardt family residing in Milwaukee and throughout the period representatives of the name have been forceful factors in upholding high civic standards and interests.