Kurtis Froedtert (September 8th) was an American industrialist and benefactor from

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

Early life and education

Froedtert was born June 3, 1887 in the basement of a building near 6th and Vliet Street in Milwaukee (his parents insisted on a

midwife A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; co ...

-assisted birth, feeling that such events were too intimate for doctors). He attended the

German-English Academy The University School of Milwaukee (often abbreviated to USM) is an independent pre-kindergarten through secondary preparatory school in River Hills and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was founded as the result of the merger of three schools, Milwa ...

and the

Michigan Military Academy The Michigan Military Academy, also known as M.M.A., was an all-boys military prep school in Orchard Lake Village, Oakland County, Michigan. It was founded in 1877 by J. Sumner Rogers and closed in 1908 due to bankruptcy. Some journalists hav ...

, graduating the latter as

valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the highest-performing student of a graduating class of an academic institution. The valedictorian is commonly determined by a numerical formula, generally an academic institution's grade point average (GPA ...

in 1904.

Career

Taking over the malting company

Froedtert originally planned to attend medical school, and was offered a scholarship to the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

; but his father's health problems compelled him to stay close to home. He took over the family's malt company, the Froedtert Malting Company (later Froedtert Grain and Malting) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1915 after his father's death, and remained at its head until his death. His company processed germinated

barley Barley (''Hordeum vulgare''), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago. Globally 70% of barley pr ...

into

malt Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as " malting". The grain is made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air. Malted grain is used to make beer, wh ...

, primarily for the use of the

brewing Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and #Fermenting, fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with Yeast#Beer, yeast. It may be done in a brewery ...

industry. In its time, Froedtert Malting Company was the largest such firm in the world.

Other interests

In the 1920s, Froedtert was known as a breeder of prize milch goats. By 1936, he was speculating in

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

, buying out the

Sunny Isles Sunny Isles Beach (SIB, officially the City of Sunny Isles Beach) is a city located on a barrier island in northeast Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The city is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Intracoastal Waterway on ...

development on

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which sep ...

; after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he branched out into

real estate development Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw Real Estate, land and the sale of developed land or parcels ...

, developing the now-defunct

Southgate Southgate or South Gate may refer to: Places Australia *Southgate, Sylvania *Southgate Arts and Leisure Precinct, an area within Southbank, Victoria Canada *Southgate, Ontario, a township in Grey County * Southgate, Middlesex County, Ontario Ed ...

and Northgate malls as well as Westgate, which was soon renamed

Mayfair Mall Mayfair Mall is a shopping mall located on Mayfair Road (Highway 100) between North Avenue and Center Street in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, United States. It serves the Greater Milwaukee area, also Wisconsin's premier shopping Center and Largest Mall in ...

Personal life

He married Mary Helf in 1927. They had two daughters, Mazie and Suzanne. Mary died in 1990 at the age of 91. In 1946, the March 11 disappearance of his 16-year-old daughter Suzanne from

Edgewood Academy The Edgewood Academy is a non-profit non-sectarian independent school located in Elmore, Alabama serving 323 students from preschool through twelfth grade. The school was founded in 1967 as a segregation academy. Edgewood Academy has been accredi ...

, a Catholic girls' boarding school in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

made nationwide headlines. She was eventually discovered living in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

with a 24-year-old

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from Madison and working in a candy store, after a nationwide announcement of a search for her had been made on radio by

Walter Winchell Walter Winchell (April 7, 1897 – February 20, 1972) was a syndicated American newspaper gossip columnist and radio news commentator. Originally a vaudeville performer, Winchell began his newspaper career as a Broadway reporter, critic and co ...

. Suzanne later eloped to

Crown Point, Indiana Crown Point is a city in and the county seat of Lake County, Indiana, United States. The population was 33,899 at the 2020 census. The city was incorporated in 1868. On October 31, 1834, Solon Robinson and his family became the first settlers to ...

to marry a

shoe store Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand, often by groups of shoemakers, or cobblers (also known as '' cordwainers''). In the 18th century, dozens or even hundreds of masters, journeymen ...

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

Death and endowment

Upon his death on December 6, 1951 from complications of cancer of the stomach, Froedtert's will established a trust which designated $11 million to go towards the creation of what would become Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital. 60% of his estate, which included $2 million worth of Miami Beach property, went into the trust; the remaining 40% to his widow and his daughter Mazie."Froedtert Estate Totals 11 Millions; Big Property on Beach". ''

The Miami News ''The Miami News'' was an evening newspaper in Miami, Florida. It was the media market competitor to the morning edition of the ''Miami Herald'' for most of the 20th century. The paper started publishing in May 1896 as a weekly called ''The Miami ...

'', October 23, 1953, p. 6-A.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Froedtert, Kurtis 1887 births 1951 deaths American brewers American real estate businesspeople Businesspeople from Milwaukee Maltsters 20th-century American businesspeople