Another name to add to the list of Wellington natives who achieved distinction elsewhere is that of John Adam Kalbfleisch.
A Maryborough farm boy, he became a rural teacher before adding to his own advanced education, which took him, as a young man, to Fort Wayne, Indiana.
As a youth, Kalbfleisch used Adam as his first name, because a brother used the name John.
His father, H.W. Kalbfleisch, was a farmer of German descent who moved north from Waterloo County to Maryborough Township. Adam was born in on July 24,1880 in Palmerston, one of four brothers.
He attended the Palmerston high school, where he cultivated new friends easily.
He remained in contact with many of them throughout his life. His natural ability to make others feel at ease was his outstanding character trait. He also was an excellent student, excelling particularly in mathematics.
Perhaps because he grew up during the depressed farming conditions that persisted through the 1880s and the first half of the 1890s, he showed little interest in farming, though two of his brothers followed that path.
After graduation, and following a brief course at teachers college, Kalbfleisch taught at several rural schools in the Palmerston area.
He became an advocate of practical courses in the curriculum, and especially so after he took college courses in his early twenties.
Seeking fresh opportunities, he moved to the United States, accepting a position at the International Business College of Fort Wayne in 1906. That school was a private, for-profit institution, and offered a variety of short and longer courses for those seeking positions in offices.
Initially, Kalbfleisch did not intend to stay permanently at the college in Fort Wayne, but he quickly became popular there with students in his mathematics and accounting courses, with other faculty, and with the administration. He eventually became vice -president of the college, and then its president.
As a resident of Fort Wayne, Kalbfleisch took an active part in local affairs. A religious man, he joined Trinity English Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, serving for years as its treasurer. He was also active in the city’s Masonic Lodge. He married, but he and his wife Katharine had no children. Eventually his brother John followed him to Fort Wayne and became associated with the school.
In 1930, Kalbfleisch left the business college and led the efforts to establish a new school, the Fort Wayne Technical College, which would offer a wide range of practical courses and programs in engineering and related subjects, as well as business subjects.
In the midst of the 1930s depression, it was not the ideal time to embark on such a venture. Like the International Business College where he had formerly taught, the Technical College was a private, for-profit institution.
Nevertheless, Kalbfleisch managed to get the new college up and running. It received its incorporation documents from the state, and accepted its first students in 1931, with Kalbfleisch as the first president.
Prospects seemed hopeless that first year. The school operated from barely adequate rented quarters. Tuition in that first year was $55 per quarter. However, many students could not raise even that sum, so Kalbfleisch resorted to barter. One student paid his fees with a 1929 Chevrolet. The president also took in chickens, honey, eggs, and other agricultural produce. There was no dormitory. Many students lived at the YMCA, located conveniently across the street. There were only eight students in the first class, which began studies in the summer of 1931.
Enrolment jumped in the following fall and winter terms, and soon topped the 200 mark. Motivated, older students liked the accelerated pace of the courses. A student could obtain a science degree in electrical, structural or broadcast engineering in 24 months of continuous study. The first graduating class, in 1933, consisted of 13 electrical engineers.
Following the pressure and intense activity of founding a new college, Kalbfleisch’s health began to suffer, though he was only in his early 50s. He began taking lengthy leaves from his work at the college, most of the time to rest at a holiday home in northern Florida.
His cardio-vascular troubles worsened year by year. He became quite ill just after Christmas 1935 while holidaying in Florida. His wife took him to hospital in Jacksonville. When the doctors there considered him well enough to travel, he went home to Fort Wayne by train, arriving on February 8, 1936. He died the following day of a heart attack, five months short of his 56th birthday.
The funeral, in Fort Wayne, was a major event. Katharine received almost 200 telegrams of condolence, plus many phone calls and countless cards and notes from old friends in Canada and from former students and colleagues.
The services were conducted at Kalbfleisch’s home church, Trinity English Lutheran, on Feb. 12, 1936. The pastor of the church emphasized the deceased’s character, which he said was imbued fully with Christian values and goodwill to all. Flowers, sent from civic leaders and academic colleagues, filled the front of the church.
Adam Kalbfleisch was survived by his father, who had retired to Kitchener, and his brothers John in Fort Wayne and Harry and George, who farmed on the Tenth Concession of Maryborough Township.
Kalbfleisch had established his technical college on a firm foundation, but the road was a rough one for a few years. A fire badly damaged the building in 1937. Fortunately, Kalbfleisch had taken out sufficient insurance to rebuild the facilities.
It survived the rest of the depression but World War II presented fresh challenges. Enrolment dropped from 475 to less than 100 as prospective students enlisted in the armed forces. Faculty dropped to five, and they had to take a salary cut to keep the doors open. In 1948 the school was rechartered as a non-profit, endowed college, setting the stage for future growth. By then the trends had reversed. Enrolment tickled the 1,200 mark, and classes were offered on three shifts around the clock.
In 1953 the college moved to a much larger campus that had formerly been a theological school operated by the Lutheran Church. In 1963 the name changed to the Indiana Institute of Technology. Today, the school has an enrolment of more than 3,600 students, at the main Fort Wayne campus and at other locations in Indiana. The focus remains the same as that established by Kalbfleisch: practical education for career-minded students.