Ossie Langfelder (August 2, 1926 – October 21, 2015) was the Democratic mayor of

Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its population was 114,394 at the 2020 United States census, which makes it the state's List of cities in Illinois, seventh-most populous cit ...

, the

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and

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. He served from 1987 to 1995. He was the father of Jim Langfelder, who served as the mayor of Springfield in 2015–2023.

Biography

Langfelder was born in 1926 in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, the son of a

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father and a

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mother. In 1939, shortly after

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

's invasion of Austria, the family fled to

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, moving to the United States and settling in Springfield in 1940. Langfelder served in the

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from 1945 to 1946. He married Mary "Midge" Dunham in 1952; the couple would have 13 children. One of them, Jim, would be elected mayor of Springfield in 2015. Another, Josh, would be elected

Recorder in 2008. Langfelder died in 2015 at the age of 89, six months after his son Jim was elected mayor.

References

1926 births 2015 deaths Mayors of Springfield, Illinois Illinois Democrats Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United States 20th-century mayors of places in Illinois United States Army personnel of World War II {{Illinois-politician-stub