Wolf Dieter Fuhrig

1925 - 2023

Wolf Dieter Fuhrig
Arlington, VA - Wolf Dieter Fuhrig, 98, died peacefully on July 12, 2023, at home in Arlington, Virginia. He was born on May 16, 1925, in Schweidnitz (Swidnica), in the German province of Silesia, the son of Georg and Alice Richter Fuhrig. He was preceded in death by his parents, younger brother, Jürgen, and son-in-law, Richard Murphy. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Anne Marie, and their children, Tecla Alice Murphy and Frank (Lynda) Fuhrig, all of Arlington, and grandchildren Paul Murphy and Adeline Murphy, both of Washington, D.C., and Alexander and Maximilian Fuhrig, both of Arlington. Wolf also leaves devoted caregivers.
Wolf's parents were forced to quit farming during the Great Depression and moved in 1932 from Schweidnitz to[ Oppeln (Opole), capital of Upper Silesia, where he attended elementary school and preparatory high school (gymnasium). In May 1943, he enlisted in the civilian Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst, comparable to the US Civilian Conservation Corps) to avoid conscription into the Nazi regime's wartime military. In the final days of the war in May 1945, his Labor Service unit fled west ahead of the Red Army, crossing the Elbe River to reach the safety of British military occupation in Lower Saxony. Wolf's parents and brother had fled Oppeln in January as Soviet forces entered eastern Germany, and he only learned many months later that they were alive in a refugee camp in western Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, Silesia had been awarded to Poland at the 1945 Potsdam Conference, most remaining Germans were expelled, and the Fuhrigs never returned to the region where they had 400-year roots.
Wolf spent about a year working on a farm outside Uelzen, Germany, before enrolling in teacher's college, graduating with honors in 1948 and teaching classes from first grade through middle school. In 1951, he was awarded an internship with what was then known as the U.S. Office of Education to study American education, and, under the direction of education faculty at Ohio's Miami University, spent the 1951-52 academic year visiting elementary and high schools in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. He enrolled at Miami University in 1952, earning master's degrees in educational administration ('53) and history and economics ('54). Wolf enrolled at Columbia University in New York in 1954, later completing a PhD ('65) in public law and government. In 1955, he taught American history for a year — even as a new immigrant — at Lemon-Monroe High School in Middletown, Ohio. Along the way, he spent summers working in a steel mill in Ohio and loading refrigerator cars in California.
Wolf taught from 1956-67 in the Department of Social Science at Michigan State University, where he honed his animated speaking style while lecturing to large auditorium classes. In 1962 he married Anne Marie Voge, a graduate assistant teaching in MSU's German Department. The family moved in 1967 to Jacksonville, Illinois, where Wolf became chair of the department of political science at MacMurray College and founded the criminal justice department in 1972. Wolf and Anne Marie led annual tours of MacMurray students from 1971-94, eventually taking "EuroMacs" to every country in continental Europe on both sides of the Iron Curtain, except Albania.
Wolf was president of the Jacksonville Rotary Club from 1974-75, named a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International, coached a Rotary-sponsored boys soccer team to a league championship and led a Rotary Group Study Exchange tour to India in December 1978-January 1979. He was a long-time member of Jacksonville men's literary society The Club, co-founded the World Affairs Council of West Central Illinois and was a Malone Fellow with the National Council on US-Arab Relations. Wolf was a weekly columnist for the Jacksonville Journal-Courier for more than 35 years starting around 1980, including syndication through Freedom Communications from 1995-2012. He founded a student exchange starting in 1985 between the Herzog-Ernst-Gymnasium in Uelzen and Jacksonville High School, which has continued for 38 years, forging hundreds of personal connections between the two cities. After retiring from MacMurray in 1996, Wolf continued speaking regularly to community groups around Central Illinois while teaching courses at Illinois College and Lincoln Land Community College and instructing Salem Lutheran School pupils in German. He founded Jacksonville's Prairieland Chautauqua in 1999 and for 16 years organized and directed the multi-day event, which continues annually, and was active in the Morgan County Historical Society and the Springfield chapter of DANK (Deutsch Amerikanischer National Kongress), including stints as president of each organization. Wolf received a lifetime achievement award from the Illinois State Historical Society in 2009. He was a member of First Presbyterian Church in Jacksonville for more than 50 years, serving as an elder and leading the Inquiry Class for many years. As a refugee and naturalized American, the community that became Wolf's home for more than 50 years honored him in 2012 with induction into the Jacksonville Area Hall of Fame.
A memorial service will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 5 at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Virginia. A remembrance service in Jacksonville, Illinois, is planned for autumn. Arrangements are being made through Murphy Funeral Home in Arlington. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions are encouraged to the MacMurray Foundation & Alumni Association (https://www.macalumfoundation.org/support), PO Box 47, Jacksonville, IL 62651.