The proceeding reconvened at 2 p.m.
Mr. JENNER. On the record.
Before we start on the next phase of your life, I would like to go back
a minute to your father.
You left there about 1931 or 1932?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; but I came back many times.
Mr. JENNER. You came back to see him?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; almost every summer vacation.
Mr. JENNER. Now, what happened to your father, with particular
reference to World War II?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. He was living in Wilno, the same town that I went
to school in, during the war, and I arranged for his visa to come to
the United States at the time.
Mr. JENNER. Now, is this at a time when you were in this country?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; I was in this country, and I knew that--this
was before the outbreak of the war. I arranged for the visa to come to
America, and he did not take advantage of it.
Mr. JENNER. That invasion was in September of 1939.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. 1939; yes.
Mr. JENNER. And you made these arrangements before September 1939?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Before September 1939. And instead of that, you
know, he did not take advantage of those arrangements. Maybe he was too
old, decided not to come to the United States. And then there was the
German invasion of Poland and the Russian invasion on the other, and he
happened to be in the Russian part of Poland, and naturally went into
hiding.
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me. You mean Russian part in the sense that the
Russians invaded Poland?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. To meet the Germans who were invading Poland from the other
side?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. So he then became engulfed by the Russians?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is right. He became engulfed in advance of
the Russian Army and had to go into hiding because he had a sentence
of life exile to Siberia against him. And at that time the Germans and
the Russians were not at war yet, so the Russians and the Germans made
an agreement that all the people of German or Baltic or Swedish origin
could go to Germany, and they could declare themselves openly and go to
a special German commission set up for that effect in various towns.
Mr. JENNER. You say declare themselves openly. What do you mean by that?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Declare themselves that they they are willing to
go and live in Germany, instead of living in Russia.
Mr. JENNER. Declare allegiance to the German Government?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is right--declare allegiance to the German
Government, and declare themselves Volkdeutsche, which means of
Germanic origin. Russia had many millions of people of that type, an
enormous German colony. So the Germans did it in order to get all those
Germans from the Volga Province into their own country. And all the
other people, like my father. And he declared himself willing to go to
Germany, and the Germans took him into Germany. He would rather be with
the Germans than with the Communists, and spent the rest of his life----
Mr. JENNER. Was your father still anti-Communist?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; very strongly anti-Communist----exceedingly
strongly anti-Communist, almost fanatically so. Naturally, he had the
sentence against him. And then he spent the rest of his life in Germany
and was killed at the end of the war in an air raid, as far as we
know--some air raid hit that place where he lived.
Mr. JENNER. Do you know what town it was?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; I don't know the town, but it is an old
castle in Oldenburg. It is near the Danish border. My brother is going
to go right now there to visit his tomb, because neither of us had the
time to go and see that place. But he is in Europe now, and he will go
and see the place where he was buried.
Eventually, we received some of his papers and documents and letters
through some German friends who stayed there with him.
Mr. JENNER. Now, I take it he was--we can at least fairly say that he
had sympathies, or was sympathetic with the German cause?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No; I remember we exchanged letters with him
during the war through some friends in Argentina and in Japan, before
Japan got into the war. My father wrote me a letter in which he said,
"George, the Nazis are no good, and Germany is going to lose the war,
but I prefer to be in Germany than in Soviet Russia. At least I am free
and nobody is bothering me."
It was the policy of the Germans to protect the people who had some
positions in Czarist Russia. But he never became pro-Nazi. He was too
clear thinking for that. He liked the Germans all right, but he was not
pro-Nazi. But he hated Communism. That was his life's hatred.
Mr. JENNER. Now, we have you back in New York City--this is when we
went to lunch--around 1953--1952, 1953.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Your partnership with Mr. Hooker had terminated.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No, no; still active. I think it was in
1952--because I was not married--we still had the partnership. I was
visiting Ed Hooker in New York at that particular time, and through him
I met my next wife, my last wife.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Now, who was she?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Wynne Sharples.
Mr. JENNER. She at that time was a student?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. She was just graduating from the medical school
at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. That
was her last year. And she was late in her studies. She was 28 or 29
years old at that time. So she had missed a couple of years, you see.
And we fell in love with each other and decided to get married.
Mr. JENNER. Tell me about the Sharples family.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. The Sharples family is from Philadelphia,
Philadelphia Quakers. He is in the centrifugal processing business and
also in the oil business. And I had dealings with his nephew for many
years.
Mr. JENNER. What is his name?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Butler, Samuel Butler, Jr. He runs the oil end
of Mr. Sharples' operations. And they had a small interest in Rangely
Field. That is how I got acquainted with Mr. Butler.
So we knew about each other before--my wife's father, and so on and
so forth--and--the daughter asked his advice, whether she should
marry such an adventurous character like me, and the father said, all
right--obviously had sufficient good information from Butler about me.
Butler was my best man at the wedding.
Mr. JENNER. Best man at your wedding to Miss Sharples?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; Sam Butler.
There were several ushers. He was one of the ushers. I don't remember
who was the best man. My brother was the best man. He was one of
ushers. So we got married.
Mr. JENNER. Was the Sharples family wealthy?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Very wealthy.
Mr. JENNER. Socially prominent?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Socially prominent. But not too interested
in society, because they are Quakers, you know. But my wife is
interested----
Mr. JENNER. She has a nickname?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; Didi.
Mr. JENNER. Some of the people apparently--voluntarily--they know her
with that nickname--Didi.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. That is right. We got married, I think, after her
graduation immediately in the Unitarian Church in Chestnut Hills.
Mr. JENNER. What is that--a suburb of Philadelphia?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. A suburb of Philadelphia. And she moved to
Dallas, and I moved to Dallas, also, from Abilene, where I used to
live, so she could continue her work in the medical field, and to
take her residence in the hospital in Dallas. She was a resident
physician----
Mr. JENNER. In what hospital?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In the Baylor Hospital.
Mr. JENNER. Baylor University?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Was it university connected?
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I don't remember. But it is Baylor Hospital, in
Dallas. It is not the same as Baylor University. It is called Baylor
Hospital.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. And she stayed there as a resident. I worked very
often in my office in Dallas, instead of Abilene, and continued my
partnership with Ed Hooker. But there developed a tremendous animosity
between Ed Hooker's wife and my wife, Didi.