Max Guggenheimer Jr. - Cemetery Research Assignment

 

Cemetery Research Blog

Tyce Shank

    Name of Deceased: Max Guggenheimer Jr.

    Date of Birth: May 19, 1842

    Date of Death: August 29, 1912

    Location in Cemetery: Guggenheimer Circle, front left.

Max Guggenheimer Jr was born in Bavaria Germany to Sigmund and Clara Guggenheimer on May 19, 1842. His family was Jewish and he had seven siblings, including Cilli Guggenheimer and SimonGugenheimer. In 1856 Guggenheimer traveled across the Atlantic to come to America to study English,arriving in New York and then moving to Lynchburg that same year. Originally, he planned to return toGermany after a couple of years, but ended up joining his brother-in-law Nathaniel Guggenheimer to helprun the Guggenhiemer dry goods store as a bookkeeper and clerk. Their store would become the largestdry goods retail business in Virginia.

In 1856, he became a charter member of the Lynchburg Home Guards. Two years later he would

enter the Confederate army at the age of 19, although he would be discharged from service a year in due

to a “disability”. He would soon after return to work with his brother-in-law until his death in 1866, at which

point he closed down the dry goods store and began the first wholesale distribution house for shoes and

boots in Lynchburg, called Witt and Watkins (which sold dry goods as well) in 1870. These endeavors

would prove successful, with Guggenheimer being credited as the “father of Lynchburg’s wholesale

business” and shoe factories, going on to start Guggenheimer & Co as a wholesale business. 

In 1877, he married Bertha V. Roseburg from Richmond, Virginia. They had a daughter together

named Cecile Guggenheimer, to which he later would dedicate the city playgrounds and a kindergarten

to. Bertha would go on to become an international philanthropist in her later years. Guggenheimer is

believed to have carried on his Jewish faith, as at one point he was president of the local Jewish

congregation.

In 1888, Max Guggenheimer Jr. opened the second exclusive wholesale shoe house with John

Craddock, A.P. Craddock, and T.M. Terry: the Craddock-Terry Company. A wholesale distribution center

for “boots, shoes, and rubbers”, it would grow and become the Craddock-Terry Shoe Corporation in 1901,

and was notable for building the first shoe factory south of the Mason-Dixon Line. This was in addition to

Guggenheimer’s previous work founding the George D. Witt Company, organizing and serving as

President of the Lynchburg Cotton Mill, becoming the director of Lynchburg National Bank, and being

elected to the Lynchburg Land Company Board of Directors in 1889. He was also elected to Lynchburg

city council, and is credited with helping redeem finances, fund schools, and start paving streets. At one

point, Guggenhiemer Jr was even president of the opera company. Such a successful and beneficial life

earned him the nickname of “Lynchburg’s First Citizen” in his later years. While on a trip to Carlsbad, California in the late summer of 1912, Guggenheimer Jr caught an

illness that he carried with him back home to Lynchburg. After a few weeks, he passed away on August

29, 1912 at the age of 70, widowing his wife Bertha. The Guggenheimer family home would become the

Guggenheimer Memorial Hospital in 1931.

“(From The Daily Virginian, July 16, 1889).” Kipp Teague's RetroWeb. Kipp Teague, n.d. Accessed March 28, 2021. http://www.retroweb.com/lynchburg/articles/1889_07_16_DV_West_Lynchburg.html.

“25 City Facts.” Lynchburgva.gov. The City of Lynchburg, n.d. Accessed March 28, 2021. https://www.lynchburgva.gov/25-city-facts.

“Biographies in Campbell County Virginia.” Genealogytrails.com. Genealogy Trails, n.d. Accessed March 28, 2021. https://genealogytrails.com/vir/campbell/bios_g.html.

“Diamond Hill: The Neighborhood at a Glance.” Lynchburgmuseum.org. Lynchburg Museum System, n.d. Accessed March 28, 2021. https://www.lynchburgmuseum.org/new-page-1.

“Max Guggenheimer.” Myheritage.com. MyHeritage, n.d. Accessed March 28, 2021. https://www.myheritage.com/names/max_guggenheimer.

“Max Guggenheimer.” Newspapers.com. Ancestry, February 14, 2019. Last modified February 14, 2019. Accessed March 28, 2021. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28430768/max-guggenheimer/