Bridge Builder Modjeski

A great builder of bridges is Ralph Modjeski and honored last week with his sixth scientific medal. But, except for his own stubborn leaning to engineering and his fond mother's indulgence, he might have been a musician or actor. For his mother was the late great tragedienne Helena Modjeska, and he was her only son. He played in the green rooms of Europe while she enacted the rolling romantic tragedies of the 1860s and '70s. In 1876 personal tragedies forced her to go to raw California as a ranch developer. Almost forgotten became her husband, Gustav Modrzejewski,* in Poland. Her boy, then 15, went with her. The California ranch was a failure. Then there was opportunity to make her U.S. debut in Shakespeare, at San Francisco's Cali fornia Theatre. While she studied English, Ralph Modjeski played her Chopin's nocturnes on the piano. He had studied music under Josef Hofmann's father, and his playing brought out Shakespeare's poetical qualities for his mother. Her leading man was the late Maurice Barrymore. His three children, now famed players Ethel, Lionel and John, would crawl on adolescent Ralph Modjeski's knees, and he would dandle them up and down. For theatrical reasons he was obliged to pretend being his mother's young brother, to him and her a distasteful hypocrisy. Engineering he studied at Paris's College of Bridges & Highways (where he graduated at the head of his class with honors) and at the University of Illinois (Illinois gave him his Civil Engineer de gree) then he hastened to Cracow, Poland, his birthplace, to marry Felicie Benda, childhood friend. As the Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago in 1893, he opened Chicago offices as a consulting engineer. Chicago has been his headquarters ever since. Thence he has traveled to design and build great bridges at Portland, Ore., St. Louis, Que bec, Toledo, Keokuk, Iowa, Celilo, Ore., Cincinnati, New London, Conn., Philadelphia, Memphis, Manhattan. He is now building one at Louisville. For his genius at bridge building one scientific society after another has granted him medals and prizes of honor: Franklin Institute (Potts and Franklin medals), Paris 1900 Exposition, Louisiana Purchase 1904 Exposition, Institute of Architects. Last week the four great American engineering societies -- civil engineers, mining & metallurgical engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers -- gave him their most prized honor, the John Fritz gold medal for "scientific and industrial achievements." Last recipient, honored last April, was President Herbert Clark Hoover.

* Pronounced Maud-ruh-geh-yehv-sky, shortened to Mode-geh-ski when Mme. Modrze-jewska took out her U. S. naturalization papers.