![]() #FAN ENGINEERING BUFFALO FORGE PDF PORTABLE#Wendt's acquisition of an interest in Buffalo Forge, a small manufacturer of portable blacksmith forges founded in 1877 by Charles Hammelmann in a loft at Broadway and Mortimer Streets, became his path to prosperity. Bell & Co., and by 1878 - just before he turned twenty - he found he had saved enough to purchase a half interest in a small blacksmith equipment company that had been started only a few months earlier. Soon after high school he was training as a bookkeeper at R.W. Round of face, with a high forehead and a bushy moustache to contrast with his neatly-trimmed hair, Wendt was a lifelong businessman. William was a native Buffalonian, born here in 1858 and educated in Buffalo Public School 32 and the old Central High School. She was born in 1885, the daughter of William Franz Wendt and the former Mary Gies. Its works make headline news Margaret never did, and by most accounts would have been appalled had she unintentionally done so. In the process, though, Margaret Wendt's personality has again been overshadowed - this time, by the very foundation that bears her name. Mary Gies in 1913.Ĭourtesy of The Buffalo History Museum, The Howard D. One can only wonder what the clan's hard-nosed businessmen and engineers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries would have thought of the millions that have been given away as their family's most lasting legacy. William, perhaps overprotective after the death of another daughter and definitely the product of an age in which women were limited in their roles and overshadowed by their husbands and fathers, undoubtedly would have been astonished that the Wendt family would become more famous for giving away wealth than for accruing it. Margaret's father, William Wendt who with his brother and nephews captained the Buffalo Forge Company and built wealth in the world of commerce, could not have expected that young Margaret would accomplish so much. Her father would be astounded.įorbidden to attend college and discouraged from following the footsteps of a "progressive" cousin in the early years of the last century, Miss Wendt lived a quiet life that tempered the privilege of her class and station with a personal commitment to charity - a commitment that evolved, eventually, into a multi-million-dollar fund that was among the first in this area to seek out projects with great potential impacts on the well-being of the entire community, rather than simply respond to pleas for assistance. ![]() ![]() ![]() Wendt, whose namesake charitable foundation has ignited a new era of philanthropic outreach in Western New York, would be surprised indeed at the fame she now has attained. Courtesy The Buffalo History Museum, Howard D. ![]()
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