Professor Hamilton's Diary: Jan. 7, 1935

The Hamiltons enjoy a college faculty dinner; German industrialist made his mark

Gustav Overlaender in 1936, from the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Classes met in the morning and afternoon as usual this Monday, but when the day ended Margaret Hamilton met her husband at a faculty dinner at Alrbright College. Guests included a Dr. and Mrs. Oberlaender, which likely referred to Gustav Oberlaender, a philanthropist whose holdings included the massive Berkshire Knitting Mills in Reading. The high school’s chorus performed selections from the operetta “Naughty Marietta” — do you remember that Thelma and Lowell went to see it in New Orleans? Afterward, the Hamiltons and two other couples continued their evening together, staying out until 11 p.m. On a Monday!

The story of Gustav Oberlaender, a German immigrant who became a successful captain of industry, is worthy of a Horatio Alger novel. I had never heard of him before noticing his name in today’s diary entry. Paid subscribers can read on about this complicated man, whose newspaper obituary erroneously described him as a “close friend” of Adolf Hitler.