Amadee Wohlschlaeger (December 3, 1911 – June 24, 2014) was a 20th-century American sports cartoonist in
St. Louis. He was known professionally as simply "Amadee", which was how he signed his cartoons. He was a long-time sports cartoonist for the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in an era when newspaper
sports pages usually included a prominent cartoon.
[ He drew the '' Weatherbird'' cartoon for more than 49 years.]
Life and career
Wohlschlaeger was born on December 3, 1911, in St. Louis and grew up in the Carondelet neighborhood in the far south of that city,[ where he developed a passion for drawing when a small child.][ He did not attend high school (although he did later take art classes at Washington University in St. Louis). His father was a printer with the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'', and the younger Wohlschlaeger took a job there at age 14, as a copy boy earning $7.50 (about $ in dollars) a week. In 1929, at age 17, he was hired into the paper's art department.][
In 1932, Wohlschlaeger became the fourth artist to draw the ''Post-Dispatch's'' Weatherbird, which was created in 1901 and remains in continuous daily use. He drew the Weatherbird, usually accompanied by a pithy observation on current events, from 1932 to 1981. His Weatherbird marked ]D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...
, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and many other notable events.[ He was succeeded as illustrator by ]Albert Schweitzer
Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was an Alsatian-German/French polymath. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. A Lutheran minister, Schweit ...
.[ Among his contributions was his "Cardinals Camp Capers" cartoon, sent in from ]spring training
Spring training is the preseason in Major League Baseball (MLB), a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to try out for roster and position spots, and gives estab ...
.
In 1939, he filled in as the Post-Dispatch's editorial cartoonist, drawing caricatures of Hitler and Mussolini as well as local politicians.[
Wohlschlaeger drew many covers for the '']Sporting News
The ''Sporting News'' is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a pr ...
'', which was then produced in St. Louis and known as "The Baseball Bible".[ He also drew covers for ]University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...
football programs for more than 30 years,[ and covers for the annual St. Louis Baseball Writers dinner.][
Wohlschlaeger retired in 1981.][ He was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 1992.][
Wohlschlaeger was married to Violet Wohlschlaeger; they had a son, Amadee Wohlschlaeger Jr.][ Wohlschlaeger died June 24, 2014, in St. Louis County.][
]
References
Publications
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wohlschlaeger, Amadee
1911 births
2014 deaths
American cartoonists
American comics artists
American centenarians
Men centenarians
Artists from St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis alumni