This note is a variation of the theme of "poor German immigrant boy makes good". The variation is that we change "boy" to "girl".
Anna Behr was born in Wuerzburg in 1815. Her father was a businessman, but he could not give Anna a university training. So at the age of 21 she emigrated alone to America. She did have a brother already here in Niagara County, on a farm. But, the farm life was not for her. She made the acquaintance of young Jacob Uhl, married him, and moved to New York City. Uhl was employed by the New York Staatszeitung , a small weekly newspaper produced at a book printing plant. The young couple economized and saved their money, and within a few years were able to buy half of the printing plant on the installment plan.
Shortly thereafter, they became totally responsible for the entire Staatszeitung operation, and made it into a daily German language newspaper, one of the best in America. Anna was editor and secretary, and assisted in the typesetting. If the need arose, she would even distribute the papers.
Uhl died as a young man, in 1852, and Anna rejected all offers from prospective purchasers of the publishing operation. In 1857, she married her collaborator, Oswald Ottendorfer, and, under their direction, both the paper and the printing operation grew. She remained active in the business but she turned her energies to helping other people. In 1875, when she was 60, she founded a nursing home for women. It was named for her daughter, Isabella, who had died in 1873.
She then founded the Hermann Uhl Memorial Fund in honor of her son, Hermann, who died in 1881. The purpose of the fund was to aid German schools, and to help teacher seminars in America. She also made a large donation to the German Dispensary, which is now Lenox Hill Hospital. She endowed the German Hospital in Newark. When floods wrecked havoc in Germany in 1882, she sent relief money.
She did all of these things quietly and without any fanfare. Her husband, Oswald, remained in the background. After she died in 1884, he made large contributions himself. These include an endowment of a
Library of German Topics
at the University of New York. And the Ottendorfer branch of the New York Public Library is named after him.
(26 Sep 03)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.