German Surgeon in a
Swedish Regiment goes on to become Renowned Physician
Perhaps it was an independent streak that
led young Hugo Max Starkloff to leave his family in Germany to come to America,
or perhaps like so many intellectuals of the time he had become disillusioned
with the failure of the uprising in 1848.
Certainly he’s asserted his independence before, turning his back on his
family’s rich military tradition by leaving the infantry regiment that he’d
been assigned as a cadet to in order to study to become a doctor instead. His studies took him to universities at
Tuebingen, Heidelburg and Prague before he finally received his degree in medicine
as an 18 year old in 1852.
A few months later he arrived in New York
City, planning to head out to the “wild west” that he’d read so much about to
make his fortune. He almost drowned
before he left the Great Lakes. He had
signed on as a deckhand on the steamer Griffith,
which caught fire while making its way across Lake Erie. The craft burned to its waterline, but its
passengers were fortuitously rescued by a passing ship, which set the hapless
folk it had rescued ashore in Cleveland.
From there young Hugo made his way eventually to California, where he
found employment as a surgeon with John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company.
The difficulties of setting up a practice
for a “greenhorn” doctor were best evidenced by his movements between 1853 and
1861. After a stint in California he was
next heard from attempting to establish practices in Palmyra and Hannibal,
Missouri. He found little success there,
but did find a wife. He married a
beautiful widow, Hermine August Reinhart, and their first child, a son, Johan,
was born in 1855. He died in the spring
of 1857, just a month before the birth of Emil Arthur. Their third child, Maximillian Carl, was born
near the end of 1858.
Dr. Starkloff’s efforts to establish a
practice took him to Quincy and then to Galesburg. A biography of his daughter Irma, states that
Dr. Satarkloff was in St Louis in 1861, and witnessed the Camp Jackson affair,
which saw loyal Union militia surround and force the surrender of southern
militia that had been bent upon seizing the weapons from the Federal Arsenal. An
angry mob gathered and began to throw rocks at the Union troops, who were
marching the captured rebels to prison.
As the crowd degenerated into a threat to their safety, the harassed
militiamen fired into it, wounding many and killing fifteen of the
stone-throwing attackers. Despite the
bloody aftermath of the confrontation at Camp Jackson, this success of the
Unionists, many of whom were Germans who felt a loyalty toward their adopted
country, may have spurred Dr. Starkloff’s intention to enlist. He returned to Galesburg and became a surgeon,
with the rank of Captain, of Company C of the 43rd Illinois
Infantry, a regiment which travelled to Camp Butler and was mustered in on
October 12th, 1862. The
regiment consisted of 100 Swedes and 3 Germans, one of whom was Dr. Starkloff,
who assumed the role of the regimental surgeon.
In February the 43rd boarded
the steamer USS Memphis, which was taking them to Tennessee to aid General
Grant in vanquishing Forts Henry and Donelson.
They arrived too late to participate in those Union successes, but were
soon billeted with the rest of Grant’s army at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.
As dawn arrived on the morning of April 6th,
1862, it was accompanied by the yells of rebel troops and the staccato of
musket fire. The rebels had launched a
surprise attack, hoping to drive the Union army up against the Tennessee River
to force their surrender. A shell came
screeching overhead. It slammed into the
limb of a tree, which landed upon Louis Nelson of Galesburg, disabling
him. A Union officer later described the
rebels as being “thicker than fleas on a dog’s back.” The 49th Illinois, which was to
the left of the 43rd, had already broke and fled, leaving the 43rd
in a vulnerable situation with its left flank exposed. Company C was one of 5 companies ordered to
move to the left to fill the gap left by the flight of the men of the 49th. The five companies held firm for about 10
minutes, then had to fall back. They
reformed about 1000 feet further back, then attempted to hold again. They were able to hold the rebels back for a
short time due to the superiority of their Belgian rifles, which had a range of
about 200 feet farther than the firearms that the rebels carried. Confederate numbers drove them back again
though, eventually about a mile. Grant
personally inspected their lines and ordered up reinforcements to bolster the
position. At the end of the day the
regimental officers took stock of their losses.
Out of 500 men the 43rd had suffered 206 casualties in killed
or wounded. Company C lost 17 men. Lars Bergloff, Claes Danielson and Charles
Samuelson, all from Andover, died during the desperate conflict. Daniel Chase, also of Andover, went
missing. Company C’s Captain Edvall died
on May 7th, succumbing to a wound received during the April 6th
battle. Yes, the men of the 43rd
would have cause to remember that horrible day’s fighting, which took the name
of a log church that occupied the bloody ground. They would remember “Bloody” Shiloh.
Dr. Hugo Starkloff would remember the
battle as well. As a child his daughter
Irma listened to her father tell horror stories of the Union doctors running
out of essential medical supplies in the aftermath of the conflict, which had
proved more destructive of lives and limbs than any type of warfare that those
responsible for laying in supplies had anticipated.
Bloodied now, the regiment went on to
participate in the Siege of Corinth, in battles with General Nathan Bedford
Forrest, in Little Rock, and in the assault at Prairie D’Anne and Camden. At Jenkin’s Ferry, Company C was part of 4000
Union troops that held off an assault launched by Confederate general Kirby
Smith, whose attacking force of 20,000 men were beaten back with 2,000
casualties compared to 700 casualties on the Union side.
Dr. Hugo Starkloff’s competence as a
surgeon led him from his assignment as the company’s surgeon to the eventual
post of Medical Director of the 1st Division of the 7th
Army Corps. Yes, as had the troops of
the 43rd who had established their reputation for bravery in
numerous engagements against the enemy, Hugo Starkloff had made his reputation
as well, as a knowledgeable medical man, one worthy of promotion to more
responsible positions. He finished the
war with the rank of “Major.”
The end of the war saw Dr. Starkloff
return to Carondelet, a suburb of St. Louis, to become a respected member of
the German community there. He had no
ambition for political office himself, but as a German who had fought loyally
for the Union, he felt a loyalty toward the party of Abraham Lincoln, so he
became active In Republican politics. He
also joined the local Freethinkers’ Union and the “Schiller Union,” a club
dedicated to the poet whose eloquent verse made him the spokesman for German
liberty. He also was a member of the
German-American National Alliance and the Turnerbund. He also took an interest in education,
becoming a member of the St. Louis School Board. Dr. Hugo Starkloff had an open mind for
educational innovations; he was a member
of the school board that ushered in the first public school kindergarten in the
United States, modelled upon its German Predecessor.
Dr. Starkloff’s support of the
Kindergarten initiative wrought change in his personal life as well. His wife Hermione had died in 1875 of an
“inflammation of the brain,” Arriving with kindergarten faculty from Germany
was Emma Kuhlmann, a young woman who soon caught the eye of Dr. Starkloff. They were married in 1876. The doctor’s new wife was 18 years his
junior, and soon became a valued business partner as well as his wife. She managed his accounts, supervised the
household staff, and managed the stream of patients that arrived at all hours
with all sorts of ailments and emergencies that had to be dealt with
immediately. Emma had an independent
streak as well; she had a gift of debunking irony that served as a foil to
sometimes deflate the pomposity of her husband, and a mind open enough to be
receptive to the wiles of the Women’s Movement.
Dr. Starkloff’s medical practice continued
to flourish. By 1883 he took his son,
Max Carl Starkloff as a partner in a practice located on Main Street in
Carondelet. To avoid a redundant
repetition of the last name, I will refer to the father as “Hugo Max,” and the
son as “Max Carl.” This was a sign of
rapprochement between father and son, as young Max Carl had earned his father’s
wrath in 1879 by marrying a penniless Irish girl, a match that his father felt
was beneath him. In 1883 Dr. Hugo Max
moved to larger home, a prestigious residence on a hilltop that overlooked the
river at the corner of Lounghsborough and Michigan Avenues. He also made certain that his office was
connected to his residence by one of the new inventions of that era, a
telephone.
With the election of Republican Benjamin
Harrison in 1889, Dr. Hugo Max lobbied for a reward for his quarter century of
service to the Grand Old Party. He was
rewarded with a consulship in Bremen, Germany.
The doctor’s family enjoyed the opportunity to travel about Europe, and
the opportunity to meet many of their relatives from both parents sides who had
chosen to remain in the old country.
In 1892 Dr. Hugo Max Starkloff’s mettle as
a physician was tested when an outbreak of cholera spread from Russia to
Hamburg and eventually to Bremen. The
city acted to quell the spreading epidemic.
Dr. Starkloff and the North German Lloyd’s shipping line, which
controlled traffic from Bremen, undertook screening of the passengers bound for
America. The eminent bacteriologist,
Robert Koch, the man whose research led to the discovery of the causes of
anthrax, tuberculosis and cholera, met with the German doctor and together they
suggested measures which included monitoring of the emigrant hotels and
boardinghouses, two day detention of all arriving travelers, and strict
examination and disinfection of all steerage passengers and their luggage
before they were allowed to continue on their journey. Within weeks the outbreak was completely
contained without a single traveler carrying the disease out of Bremen to
spread elsewhere. Dr. Starkloff earned
much renown for successfully preventing a multinational epidemic.
The solid reputation he had earned for
his efforts led the Democratic President Grover Cleveland to retain him in
Bremen in 1892 when the Portly President returned to the White House. Age and health issues were catching up with
the doctor though, and in 1894 he asked to be relieved of his duties as consul
in order to return to the United States.
Recovering his health after his return to St. Louis, he lived on until
1914, enhancing his well-deserved reputation as a surgeon and filling the Chair
of Orthopedic Surgery in the Marion Sims College of Medicine and Surgery. He was one of the highest ranked medical
educators in the country. He continued
his interest in education as well, serving as a public school director for St.
Louis Schools for fifteen years. He
rests in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis along with his wife Emma, who
lived until 1931.
That’s not the end of the story. It is said that “the evil that men do lives
after them.” So does the good. Dr. Starkloff’s commitment to education
served as an example to his son Dr. Max Carl Starkloff, who became a hero in
St. Louis after a tornado ripped through the city in 1898. Despite suffering a broken arm, he put aside
his own pain and worked tirelessly to tend to many of the thousand people who
were injured when the twister passed through.
Those efforts paled in comparison though to his efforts during the 1918
influenza epidemic. By this time he was
in his fifteenth year of what would be a thirty year tenure as City Health
Commissioner. He acted quickly, urging
the mayor of St. Louis to order the closing of all public places, in order to
isolate the public from each other in order to contain the spread of the deadly
flu. Thanks to his efforts the death
rate in St. Louis was kept down to 2.8 per 1000 residents, compared to 8.0 in
Pittsburgh, 7.6 in San Francisco and 7.1 in Kansas City. In recognition of Dr. Max Carl Starkloff’s
efforts, St. Louis’s City Hospital was renamed in his memory. Dr. Hugo Max and his wife Emma’s daughter
went on to make her mark in life as well.
Irma Louise Starkloff Rombauer went on to write the widely renowned
cookbook, “The Joy of Cooking,” a book that was brought to life during the
Depression, and that is still in print.
Like the “Betty Crocker Cookbook,” it has evolved and seen numerous
changes since Irma’s first edition of it.
The Starkloff family: another case of
newcomers to America who returned their opportunity to begin a life in a new
land with labors that impacted the lives of so many of their adopted countrymen
for the better.
Bibliography
Hugo Max Starkloff Find a Grave Memorial
Muench Medical and Cookbook Heroes Meunch Family Association
Stand facing the Stove
Anne Mendelson, 1981
The Swedes of Knox County Internet site
The Swedish Element in Illinois
Ernst Wilhelm Olson 1917
Galesburg Company at Battle of
Shiloh Q C Online article by Marilyn Gantt
