Notes in re the various Oscars -
Oscar Anton Bilharz 1831 - 1917
A Mining Engineer and professional Consulting
Engineer in Germany.
Always referred to in family as simply Oscar. Used
the monogram
'OB'.
Used as a professional signature - Oscar Bilharz.
Signed paintings as OB and as OBz. Patents signed
Oscar Bilharz.
Refs: monogrammed china, silver, watercolors,
patent
originals in possession of OWB, RFB. Also family
correspondence.
Oscar Carl Maximilian Bilharz 1863 - 1923
A Mining Engineer in Belgium, Mexico, Alaska, and
independent
operator in the US. (S.E. MO & N.E. OK); O. M. Bilharz
Mining Co. Inc.
Referred to in family as Oscar Max, by Blanche as
Max. Used the
monogram 'OMB'. Used Oscar Maximilian and O.M. Bilharz
professionally.
Refs: Monogrammed watch in OWB posession,
family
recollections. Also, National Cyclopedia of American
Biography pp488.
Oscar William Bilharz 1895 - 1972
A mining Engineer, independent operator (s.e KA &
n.e. OK), and
consultant to US Govt. O. W. Bilharz Mining Co. Inc.
Referred to in family as Bill. Used the monogram 'OWB'.
Professional and business signature invariably OWBilharz
with initials contiguous.
Refs: family correspondence, personal
recollections.
Oscar William Bilharz 1923 -
Nuclear engineer and experimental physicist,
consultant to US Govt.
Referred to in family as Bink, among friends and
associates as Stretch.
Signature prior to 1972 usually O.W.Bilharz Jr.
After 1972
business signature usually Oscar W Bilharz.
Personal recollections and family letters agree in that
Oscar Anton, Oscar
Max and Oscar William all could not easilly abide
growing sons, and
early shipped them out to boarding schools well away
from home. Home
thereafter was a place to occasionally visit, and, once
educated and
self-supporting, relations between the son and his father
were cordial. My father was
sent to Culver Military Academy at 12, Lake Forest Academy
at 14,
thereafter to college. I was sent to Lake Forest Academy at
14 and after that was
rarely back home to Kansas. Oscar Max was sent to Gymnasium
in Aachen, with
a boarding family, and remained there to a BA, then went to
the Royal
school of Mines, Freiberg, for his EM degree. The childhood
history of Oscar
Anton is not available. Familial custom of those times and
social strata
included children being cared for and raised by governess
and tutor without
much parental contact or bonding. I think that was due to
the high
mortality of infants and children in those times.
Family letters speak of Oscar Anton having brown eyes,
as if that
were new to the family and unusual. Brown eyes followed
thereafter anyway,
through Oscar Carl Max, Oscar William (and sibs), and myself
and sibs.
However, our four children all are blue-eyed, and I, in my
late 60's, lost the
brown pigmentation so that my eyes are now blue-green. My
mother had grey
eyes. All of the Oscars, except for myself, were
talented artists in
watercolor, oils, and in photography. This was an advantage
to a mining engineer
when many employees did not read or write.
OWB