One of New Bern’s most remark
able residents is Joseph Schaeffers,
born over 80 years ago in Cologne,
Germany, As agile as an athlete in
his prime, you’ll recognize him by
his swift stride and erect posture
and he walks along the downtown
streets of his adopted city.
The energetic octogenarian,
whose brilliant mind demands a
constant supply of good reading
matter, attended public school and
high school in Essen-Ruhr, and
then spent two years in the ma
chine shops of the Krupp Steel &
Gun Works.
His practical training there qual
ified him for admission to the In
stitute for Technology at Aachen,
which he entered in 1900. That
city of 100,000 then had three
automobile factories — Cudell,
Fafnir and Schwanemeyer cars —
and he spent most of his spare
time there.
Aachen was also the overnight
stop of the first international auto
mobile road race from Paris to
Berlin. The Aachen automobile
club asked for volunteers to serve
as checkers at the arrival and de
parture in that race. Schaeffers
was one of them.
“It was only natural,’’ he told
us, “that I became a automotive
designer and engineer. After a tour
as designer for Stoewer Bros. Auto
mobile Company in Stettin (then
Germany, today Poland) I came to
New York late in 1904.’’
There he joined the Smith and
Mabley Manufacturing Company,
pf„ gimpliex cars, as a de
cade,” he says, “I designed a little
SIX for the Thomas B. Jeffrey Co.
of Kenosha, Wis., — builders of
Rambler cars and now American
Motors Company. I was with vari
ous well known companies, mostly
as consulting engineer.
“Over 30 years ago I came to
the conclusion that we were very
careful about the material we used
to build motor cars. It has to be
fine alloy steel, made to close
specifications, heat-treated, in
spected over and over again. It
had to qualify for the work it had
to do.
“But how careless are we in
selecting the material with which
we build our body, the food we
eat? It has to look right and please
our taste. To heck with its qualifi
cations. It may be and often is
foodless food, but what do we care.
“So I became interested in nu
trition and particularly in that
most neglected and least known
science. Preventive Dietetics. The
science to so live that you are
never sick, never have a cold,
never get tired, live longer and
get more out of life than others.
“It is funny to see so many peo
ple trying to live with a breakfast
or lunch of a white bread sand
wich, a soft drink and a couple
of cigarettes, even if most of them
look like they are intelligent
enough to know better. It will be
a sorry generation when their
children become adults.
“There are two chemical words,
the organic, which includes bio
chemistry, and the anorganic. Man
is a biological unit in a biological
system, and all his food has to be
biologic if he wants to stay heal
thy. ’The vast majority of our food
additives are an-organic, and so
they create trouble. In 1900 we
had some dozen additives, in 1958
we had about 700, and today we
have more than 3,700 unwhole
some additives and disease has
grown in almost the same propor
tion.
“The dean of American nutri
tionists, Dr. E. V. McCollum, Pro
fessor Emeritus of John Hopkins
University, has been preaching for
40 years that only perishable foods
are wholesome. Our food economy
makes all our foods unwholesome
by excessive refining and adultera-
(Continued on Page 8)
New Bern Public Libnuy
The NEW BERN
% -«HED WEEKLY
^th
5^ Pea
VOLUME 5
NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1962
NUMBER 7
MAYBE THIS WILL HEILP—We can’t change the weather
for those New Bernians who are already alternately com
plaining about the heat and the rain. However, this pic
ture of Bob Baskerville and youngsters, with the local
Christian Science church in the background, is a reminder
that you’ll have a chance to cool off again when winter
rolls around.—^Photo by Billy Benners.
TEMPORARY ASSIGNMENT—New Bern’s Chief of Po
lice, James E. Pearsall, knew that his newest patrolman
wouldn’t be around very long when he posed with the
smiling officer in sub-freezing weather here. Really, it
isn’t hot yet, so clip out the scene and save it for looking
at in August—Photo by Billy Benners.