Karl Kummant

CATAWBA, OHIO — Karl Eduard Kummant died on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015, at the age of 91 after a final battle with stomach cancer. Father, husband, grandfather, great-grandfather, and engineer/businessman, he exemplified the vibrant American World War II immigrant generation, born in Poland between the Great Wars, surviving post-war Europe in hardship, and finally emigrating to North America. After landing in Canada in 1952, Karl made a final move to the U.S. in 1958, where he successfully anchored a family, both his wife and three children directly and other relatives and in-laws indirectly. He spent his professional years in the U.S. with U.S. Steel, moving between Lorain Works and Pittsburgh. His three children, Inge, Peter, and Alex completed high school in Amherst, Ohio. Karl's wife, Alix, passed away in 2000 in Pittsburgh.

Karl was born in Lodz, Poland, on Nov. 28, 1923. Lodz, at the time, was the second-largest city in Poland. Karl was born into both English and German heritage, his mother, Clara Greenwood, the daughter of an English engineer who had emigrated to Poland in the late 1800s and had founded a business designing and building textile weaving equipment. Karl grew up roaming a vintage, steam-engine-driven machine shop and manufacturing plant, where he got his early taste of engineering. Karl's father was of German ethnic heritage, of the Germans who had emigrated to Russia in the 1700 and 1800s. Alexander Kummant was a well-known surgeon in Lodz and his two older brothers were both career officers in the Russian army (both died in World War I). Consequently, both English and German were spoken in the home, while Polish was generally spoken in the street and everyone had a working knowledge of Russian. Karl had two older sisters, Elizabeth and Anna, both now deceased.

World War II, of course, ended this peaceful life. Hoping to save Karl from the coming war, Karl and his mother traveled to Boston in 1939 to live with an uncle. Karl attended Phillips Academy, where among other things, he ran on a cross country team with George Herbert Walker Bush. But after the German invasion of Poland, his father was no longer able to send money for their support. In 1940 Karl and his mother joined his sisters who had been studying in Switzerland, but when the Swiss refused to grant them permission to stay, they were forced to return to Lodz.

The brutality of the wartime Lodz experience is well-documented. In late 1940 or early 1941, a teacher let Karl know that the Nazi party would likely not let him graduate from high school because his family with its English heritage was "unreliable." Even in those days this would have been a lifetime-limiting event. Surprisingly, the family came up with a plan for Karl to move to Vienna for a year under the auspices of a distant family friend but living on his own, and to finish high school there. With the family name unknown in Austria, this is exactly what Karl did.

Upon returning to Lodz, he "volunteered" for the military, which any ethnic German had to do. He ended up as an enlisted man in the Luftwaffe in occupied France, standing guard at an airport. With his language skills, he was moved to an intelligence gathering unit that listened to Allied aircraft radio transmissions — English, Polish, Russian, and some French were all in play, which he could manage. But he largely became the electrician for the group, who kept the technical kit in working order. Karl was fortunate that this unit remained on the Western Front, which led to a group surrender to a British unit in northern Germany and time in a British POW camp.

His family came back together in Vienna, the complicated world of Russian, American, and British post-war occupation, where because of his local Viennese high school diploma, he could study at the university. He studied electrical engineering at the Vienna Technical University, graduating with today's equivalent of a master's of electrical engineering. He then worked on a variety of Marshall Plan projects, including railroad electrification in Austria. The years there were difficult, life for five in small corner apartment where a bomb-hole in the corner room wall was covered with a blanket. His surgeon father could not work because of accreditation problems, functioning as an office-to-office pharmaceuticals salesman. His mother worked as an interpreter first for the British military and then for the Russian. She died there in 1951 of a blood clot after a minor accident. The remaining family, along with the husband and children of his sister Anna, decided to emigrate to Canada in 1952.

In Toronto in 1953, Karl met Alix von Veh, a Baltic German with similar immigrant experience, and they were married after a brief courtship. Inge was born in 1955 and Peter in 1956. Karl worked first for Canadian GE, in rolling mill control systems, in Peterborough, Ontario, and then moved to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, to work for what was then a Mannesman steel plant. After some time unemployed in the next downturn, he found a role at Lorain Works in electrical maintenance, making the move to the U.S. In 1958. Alex was born in 1960, and Karl, his wife, and the older children became naturalized citizens in 1964. Karl remained employed with U.S. Steel until 1983. His most significant role was that of chief engineer at U.S. Steel's Lorain Works from 1969 to 1981, when the plant was the most profitable in the U.S. Steel system. He was especially proud of a project he headed to install large electromagnetic cranes at Lorain Works for handling the pipe inventory. These were much safer than the previous system, and in recent years were still in operation, painted bright yellow. After retiring from U.S. Steel, Karl maintained a consultancy in pipe mill control systems.

Karl was an avid sailor, with much family time spent on Lake Erie on his 28-foot sloop, the White Witch, sailing out of Vermilion. He often told of being taught to sail by fishermen in the Baltic coastal town where his family loved to spend summer vacations. In his younger years he also loved skiing, tennis, and distance running. He read a great deal, and to the end, always enjoyed wide-ranging conversations with friends and family.

Karl is survived by his daughter, Ingeborg Kummant of Marblehead, Ohio; son, Peter Kummant, M.D., of Prestonsburg, Ky. (wife Eileen); son, Alexander Kummant of Brisbane, Australia (wife Kathleen); and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Alix. There will be a private interment in Pittsburgh.

Memorial donations may be made to the Chalet at the Vineyard on Catawba, Ohio, the small assisted living facility where Karl enjoyed the friendship of other residents, the best of care, and many visits from family and friends in the last year of his life. Online condolences may be shared with the family at www.walkerfuneralhomes.com.