process. Even though operating or monitoring an electric arc furnace was much safer than many of my earlier jobs, adjusting a furnace could still be dangerous.
As I was operating one of our client’s large furnaces, I entered the control cubicle to adjust the manufacturing process. Inside the cramped control space, I had to maneuver my body among the uninsulated copper bars running down along the sides of the cubicle.
When my elbow accidentally touched one of these bars carrying 380 volts, the shock nearly knocked me unconscious, leaving me barely able to remain on my feet. Though managing to avoid a fall against the side of the cubicle that could easily have electrocuted me, the experience reminded me that I could never allow myself to become complacent about the hazards of my work.
With a growing reputation as an expert in the field, there were increasing demands on my time. I joined half a dozen professional societies in my field and wrote several articles in industry magazines as well as a book on the arc melting process. Giving about 500 presentations on the technical process of melting steel in electric arc furnaces to groups ranging in size from 15 to 300 people, I learned over the years that it was critical to speak very deliberately when explaining complex aspects of my work.
While my work-related travel schedule disrupted our calm family life to some extent, I still managed to be home almost every weekend. On my trips to Europe, South America, and South Africa, Anneliese occasionally traveled with me for a vacation.
By 1968, Harold, my oldest son, was already in college at Purdue University studying electrical engineering, while Marion was in high school and Ralph was in middle school. At this time, we purchased eight acres of wooded land close to the town of Medina, outside Cleveland. Because our home in Seven Hills sold quickly and it was impossible to rent an apartment for just a few months, Anneliese proposed that we camp on our property during the summer of 1969 while our new home was under construction.
Every morning, I would bathe in an improvised shower, dress for work in our tent, and walk out of the woods to my car parked on the street in front of our property. It was not particularly comfortable, but it was an interesting six-month adventure. Finally, we moved into our new home, scenically set in the middle of the woods. We enjoyed our refuge from the hustle of city life.
Though I regularly attended a Lutheran Church before and after emigrating, as an engineer I had sometimes struggled with the lack of adequate scientific evidence to support what I read in the Bible. Only in the late 1960s did I fully embrace my Christian faith and find an inner spiritual peace.
In 1974, this faith was tested when we received traumatic news. After Anneliese began experiencing pain, doctors diagnosed her with breast cancer. Over the course of the 14 years that followed, Anneliese endured numerous and frequent surgical operations as well as chemotherapy and radiation treatments. The cancer went into remission, but always returned.
Despite her constant suffering, she remained cheerful and refused to reveal any indication of her pain to others. Her profound faith in God gave her the fortitude and strength to live a full life, in spite of her illness. My faith helped me to support her through the grueling struggle while my love for her only deepened.
RETIREMENT: January 1983–Present
Although Anneliese and I had originally planned to buy our retirement home in the warmer climate of South Carolina, the stunning mountain vistas in North Carolina, plus the ubiquitous insects in South Carolina, convinced us to change our mind. At the end of April 1983, Anneliese and I moved into our new home on the side of Sunset Mountain in Asheville, North Carolina. Because of my accumulated vacation time, I continued to receive my regular salary from Union Carbide until the end of the year.
Immediately following my official retirement on January 1, 1984, I formed the William Lubbeck Company, Inc., acting as a consultant to the steel and foundry industry. Working part-time, I continued to visit some of the customers with whom I had developed a good relationship.
During the preceding years, Harold graduated from Purdue as an electrical engineer and began work with a power company in Akron, Ohio. Marion obtained an art degree from Oxford University in Oxford, Ohio, while Ralph earned an industrial engineering degree at Southern Illinois University.
They all married and had children who became an endless source of joy for Anneliese and me. After long years of battling cancer, Anneliese’s health was declining, but she once more collected her strength for a journey back to Medina, Ohio in the late summer of 1988, determined not to miss the baptism of our youngest grandchild.
On December 2, 1988, the love of my life and my wife of 43 years passed away. Though we had known that the day would come, it was still a terrible loss for me and our family. Living with all of those loving memories is sometimes nearly unbearable and I miss her every day.
A wonderful wife and loving mother, I know her soul rests easy in Heaven, free of the physical torment of cancer. When God calls me home, I will be buried next to her in the cemetery in Wendisch-Evern, close to Luneburg where we first met.
EPILOGUE
WHEN I TELL OTHER AMERICANS that I am from Germany, they often respond that they also have relatives who came from Germany. At least 50 million Americans claim a degree of German ancestry, making Germany, after Britain, perhaps the second largest country of origin for the United States.
At the same time, German-Americans are perhaps less visible than many other ethnic groups in the United States because they tend to integrate into the general population rather than concentrating together like other ethnic communities. While I remain proud of my German heritage and occasionally participate in various cultural activities, my ambition has been to become a full participant in mainstream American life.
Theodore Roosevelt perfectly expressed my own feelings about immigration in a written message he composed for a public gathering on January 3, 1919, three days before he died:
In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American… There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American but something else also, isn’t an American at all… we have room for but one [sole] loyalty, and that is to the American people.[1]
At the same time, I have not forgotten the values that I learned in my younger years in Germany: discipline, the need for education, and the importance of family. The United States gave me a chance to fulfill my potential and live a life in harmony with those values. Though planning to be buried next to Anneliese in Germany, I have also grown to feel completely American in my national identity.
The United States has been good to me and has allowed me to build a life I could only dream of when I left Germany with ten dollars in my pocket. My son Harold served as an officer in the U.S. Army. Tears come to my eyes when there’s a funeral for an American soldier or a band plays the national anthem at the raising of the Stars and Stripes.
Some interesting experiences have resulted from my unique background. June 6, 2004 was the 60th anniversary of the American DDay landings in France. To honor a local American veteran and friend who had fought at Normandy, a group of us held a dinner celebration at a local Asheville restaurant. Having participated in a number of these types of activities over my five decades in the United States, it did not seem odd to me to honor someone who had fought against the army in which I had served. I respected him as a fellow veteran serving my adopted country.
