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 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

, the

assassination of John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline Kennedy Onas ...

, and many other notable events. He was succeeded as illustrator by

Albert Schweitzer Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer (; 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965) was a German and French polymath from Alsace. He was a theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician. As a Lutheran minister, ...

. Wohlschlaeger drew his first sports cartoon for the paper in 1936. Among his contributions was his "Cardinals Camp Capers" cartoon, sent in from

spring training Spring training, also called spring camp, is the preseason of the Summer Professional Baseball Leagues, such as Major League Baseball (MLB), and it is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spri ...

. 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 ...

'', 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 or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

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

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wohlschlaeger, Amadee 1911 births 2014 deaths American sports cartoonists American editorial cartoonists American political artists American comics artists American comic strip cartoonists American men centenarians Artists from St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis alumni