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Werner
Bromund was a faculty member in chemistry
at Oberlin College for 38 years from 1937 until he
retired in 1975. On the faculty, his field was analytical
chemistry, but, as we shall see, he came to that specialty
by an unusual route. I write this Memorial Minute
having been Werner's student in two courses in the
early 1950s and having subsequently been his faculty
colleague for 18 years. Werner died July 14, 2000,
at The Renaissance, the retirement center in Olmsted
Township, Ohio, where he and his wife, Elizabeth,
had moved in 1989 before Kendal was a reality.
Werner Hermann Bromund was born in Duluth, Minnesota,
in 1909. His father had been an opera singer in Germany
but, after emigrating to the U.S., he had trained
and served as a pastor before also training in medicine
and becoming a practicing M.D. Werner's mother was
also of German heritage. Until Werner began elementary
school, he spoke the German language at home.
The
Bromund family was living in Chicago when Werner enrolled
at the University of Chicago in 1927. At Chicago he
began his studies with the intention of studying law
or medicine, but he found chemistry more to his liking.
He also became sufficiently skilled in the gymnastic
exercise of Indian Clubs to become the Big-10 and
the ICAA champion. He attributed this talent to his
being ambidextrous.
Werner was graduated from the University of Chicago
with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1932 in the depths of
the Great Depression and accepted a teaching assistantship
in the MA program in chemistry at Oberlin College.
He completed his thesis for the MA in organic chemistry
in 1935. He had already moved on to the PhD program
at New York University in 1934, where he did research
with Robert Herbst in organic chemistry. During his
third year at NYU, Werner was recruited at the last
minute to teach the undergraduate course in analytical
chemistry because he had had experience as a teaching
assistant in this course in the previous year. Meanwhile,
at Oberlin College in 1936, William Chapin, a distinguished
analytical chemist, had suffered a stroke. In 1937
with his PhD research incomplete, Werner returned
as the second person to be a one-year tryout as a
replacement for Chapin. In 1938 Werner was appointed
to a continuing position on the Oberlin College faculty.
Through summer work he completed his PhD in organic
chemistry at NYU and received his doctorate in 1942
but had by then metamorphosed into an analytical chemist.
Analytical chemistry, which Werner taught almost exclusively
at various levels at Oberlin, suited his innate sense
of order, precision, and love of techniques such as
glassblowing, microscopy, and photography. Werner's
standing as an analytical chemist was confirmed when,
in 1944, he co-authored with Luke Steiner the second
edition of the laboratory manual from William Chapin's
exceptional course, Exercises in Second Year College
Chemistry, John Wiley and Sons, which integrated analytical
chemistry and physical chemistry.
During his two years as a graduate student in Oberlin,
Werner met Elizabeth H. Bacon '27. They were married
in 1935. Two children, Richard '62, and Mary Elizabeth
(Marylee) Burke were born to the Bromunds. Dick is
professor of analytical chemistry at the College of
Wooster, and Marylee lives in Lorain, Ohio.
Werner's first sabbatical leave was spent in New York
in 1951, but in a different setting from that of his
PhD work. He was at Queens College doing research
with the noted microchemist, A. A. Benedetti-Pichler.
This experience not only led to a publication, but
it also reinforced the growing professional interest
that Werner had already expressed in a course, microchemical
analysis, and in a working relationship with Richard
Buck, who founded the Intermuseum Conservation Laboratory,
associated with Allen Art Museum. In 1958, a second
sabbatical leave was also devoted to the study of
microchemistry techniques at the famous Kofler/Kuhnert-Brandstätter
school in Innsbruck, Austria, where Werner's German
was regarded as being of antique 1915 vintage. Werner
spent another sabbatical leave in 1971 working in
the areas of microchemistry and analytical chemistry
as applied to art conservation with Sidney Siggia
at the University of Massachusetts and with Richard
Buck in Oberlin. Werner's earlier leave from Oberlin
in 1964-65 was devoted to teaching analytical chemistry
for a term each at American and Lady Doak Colleges
in Madurai, India, and at Tunghai University in Taichung,
Taiwan, under the sponsorship of the Oberlin Shansi
Memorial Association.
Werner had many links to the Oberlin community. In
his early days on the faculty he followed Chapin's
footsteps in working with the Oberlin Water Works
and checking on chemical procedures. He served on
the Oberlin Public Utilities Commission and on the
Lorain County Board of Health. He did blood alcohol
analyses for the Police Department. He consulted on
analytical chemical procedures for local industries.
He was an active member of First Church and was known
for installing and maintaining the special lighting
for the Christmas season. Werner was also an energetic
and dedicated gardener. Our family became closely
associated with Werner's beautiful gardens when our
son, David, took care of them for the summer of 1981.
That experience gave David a vital interest in gardening
that finds one expression in a Werner-Bromund-like
composter.
Werner had a strong interest in the historical record.
He saved everything. Had it not been for the treasure
trove in Werner's basement, the famous aluminum gong,
which is again rung each year to celebrate Charles
Hall's great discovery, would have been lost. When
the chemistry department moved from Severance Laboratory
to Kettering Hall in 1961, Werner carefully packed
up much antique chemical apparatus and written records
that reached back through William Chapin to Frank
Jewett. He also saved chemical materials that he had
found elsewhere. The records have been deposited in
the college's archives. Much of the chemical apparatus
was recently donated to the extensive history-of-chemistry
collection that is housed and displayed at the University
of Cincinnati.
For
almost four decades all chemistry and premed majors
at Oberlin took Werner's analytical chemistry course,
and most took his advanced course. Among students
he was well known for the high standards of experimental
precision and of numerical computation that he expected.
Werner Bromund is well remembered by his colleagues
and many former students.
Norman
C. Craig is emeritus professor
of chemistry at Oberlin College. This Memorial Minute
was adopted by a rising vote of the General Faculty
of Oberlin College on October 24, 2000.
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