» Overdue attention:
Emil Seidel, Milwaukee’s first Socialist mayor, is getting a grave marker 70 years after his death.
Emil Seidel is best known as Milwaukee’s first Socialist mayor dating back to 1910.
What has been unknown until recently is his final resting place. That’s right, we managed to lose one of our mayors.
Thanks to Bob Giese, a volunteer with Historic Milwaukee, the mystery has been solved. But the sad news is that Seidel’s grave, which he shares with his ex-wife, has not been marked with his name since he died in 1947 at age 82 and was cremated.
But Giese has fixed that, too. He raised $2,700 for a rainbow granite and bronze marker that will be dedicated at 1 p.m. Saturday, the 70th anniversary of Seidel’s death. A ceremony is planned at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, 6400 W. Burleigh St. All are welcome, and Milwaukee’s current mayor, Tom Barrett, has been invited.
A few years ago, Giese, of Menomonee Falls, became interested in a project to document the final resting places of all 42 Milwaukee mayors. Over half are at Forest Home Cemetery. A couple are buried out of state. One is in Germany.
But what of Emil Seidel? Giese had to know. Seidel is credited with establishing a Public Works Department, Fire and Police Commission and park system in the city. He also served as an alderman, and in 1912, he ran for vice president on the Socialist ticket along with Eugene V. Debs.
“Emil Seidel wanted to make the city a great experiment in Socialism. He was the city’s first Socialist mayor and the first Socialist executive of any large city in the United States, and all his actions were unvaryingly directed toward that end,” says his obituary in The Milwaukee Journal on June 25, 1947, the day after his death from a heart condition.
Seidel started out as an apprentice woodworker, and he always extolled the educating powers of work and the importance of labor unions, said greatgrandson Mark Verhein of Shorewood, one of the family members who helped Giese in his quest. “He was a Socialist who fought hard for the cause and believed in it deeply, but also believed in helping build the infrastructure that makes today’s civilization what it is,” he said.
Verhein’s mother, Dorothy, married Donald Verhein, one of Seidel’s three grandsons. Seidel had been dead for nine years when she joined the family, but she heard stories that perhaps his ashes had been scattered on the grave of his ex-wife.
Seidel married Lucy Geissel in 1895. They had a son who died as a child, and a daughter, Viola. Emil and Lucy divorced in 1924. The Journal’s obituary on Seidel says the divorce revealed Lucy’s belief that her husband was more interested in politics than in her.
Lucy resumed her maiden name, Geissel, after the divorce. She died in 1942 and was buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, formerly known as Wanderers Rest. An upright stone marks her grave.
Seidel’s death notice says he was cremated at Forest Home Cemetery. But he did not remain there. His daughter, Viola, took the container of ashes home, Giese learned in his research. He and other history buffs contacted every cemetery in the area to determine if the ashes wound up there, but with no luck.
After Dorothy Verhein told Giese that Lucy Geissel was buried at Lincoln Memorial, he went there to visit the grave. First, he stopped in the office to ask Dean Herbst, the family service counselor, if Seidel’s name was in their records. It was not.
But when Herbst looked up the exwife’s record, he found a handwritten notation saying Emil Seidel’s ashes were buried with her, not scattered there or elsewhere. That was done in January 1948, about half a year after he died.
“Bingo! Emil was found,” Giese said. He began the fundraising effort to buy a modest size marker for Seidel that would not block his ex-wife’s stone.
It’s interesting that Viola had found a way to put her parents back together again, at least in death.
“Isn’t she a sly one? She was very much a romantic,” said Kim Herro of Oconomowoc, a great-granddaughter of Emil Seidel and granddaughter of Viola.
Herro said Seidel enjoyed painting, and she has his easel, palette and some of his oil paintings of scenery and still life. She chuckled over the often-told story in the family that Seidel was defeated after just one term as mayor because he had closed down the cathouses in the city and given the women working there train tickets up north.
She expressed the family’s gratitude to Giese for his efforts. Seidel was a humble man, she said, but finally he is receiving a grave marker.
Giese said money for the stone was donated by the family and by history enthusiasts like himself.
“Are you a Socialist?” one potential donor asked him. “I’m a historian,” he replied.