Henry R.A. Pundt

Mr. Pundt’s Death

Proofs Beyond Question in Hands of Omaha People

It transpires that among the creditors of the estate of the late Henry R.A. Pundt, who died at Hamburg, Germany, last summer, are many German farmers who had deposited funds with him as a private banker, that business having grown up from the pioneer days and been carried on extensively in connection with Pundt’s transactions as a grocer in this city.

As is natural to persons who have lost heavily and to whom the shock comes suddenly, some of the creditors have been inclined to doubt its full extent and to question the facts. A mischievous story circulated lately that Mr. Pundt was not really dead, but was living still in Germany, and that his cremated ashes were merely the result of substitution, has led a number of those who were depositors with Mr. Pundt to retain a firm of attorneys, Hover & Nickerson of Papillion, as stated by a Sarpy county paper, to apply to the German authorities for full particulars as to Mr. Pundt’s death.

The only member of Mr. Pundt’s family now in Omaha is his widow. One son, Oscar, has gone to a sanitarium at St. Louis for treatment for nervous prostration, having broken down under the strain of attempting to disentangle the affairs of the estate and finding it insolvent, for Mr. Pundt had kept his own counsel so closely that while he passed for a prosperous business man, all his stock has been sold for creditors, and the First National bank, his heaviest creditor, has a claim on the homestead at Seventeenth and Douglas streets, by virtue of notes signed jointly by Mr. Pundt and his wife, the home being in the name of the wife. The bank was assigned the life insurance of Mr. Pundt to secure it. The insurance companies have accepted the proofs of the death and paid the insurance to the bank.

The other son of Mr. Pundt, George, is a traveling man and now out on the road. Mrs. Pundt’s mind is not in condition to transact business without a painful strain.

In this situation, two friends of the family who have acted for it in some matters since Mr. Pundt’s death, being asked for information relating to the death of Mr. Pundt, gives this:
     Mr. Pundt had been threatened for perhaps ten years with heart trouble, and last May was advised by his physician, Dr. Grossman, to relinquish business cares; turn his affairs over to his son Oscar, and to go abroad. He was so embarrassed for funds that he could not go for a month or two, and the heart trouble aggravated by sleeplessness over his financial condition had left him in such shape that his health was precarious. Not long after landing at Hamburg, he succumbed.

Mr. Pundt, the friends believe, had as much as $30,000 of his patron’s funds on deposit. On this, he had paid the interest for years at 6 percent until the depression in business came, when he told his depositors that he was not making any interest and some of them gave him not only the use of the money, but also a small fee, one-third percent or so, for keeping it for them, as if it were a safety deposit. He had met heavy losses since ’80, the largest being in the Western Horse and Cattle Insurance company, which had finally been wound up. That company held about $60,000 in notes of farmers in Nebraska and Western Iowa, which, ranging as they did from $5 to $100, would have cost more to collect than they were worth. The company had met heavy losses from its method of taking risks and while it had accepted notes for premiums, it had paid cash for losses. Other investments and enterprises of Mr. Pundt had turned out badly and, in the last ten years, his business had not yielded a profit.

Mr. Pundt did not protect his stocks as he might have done prior to his death by transferring them to his family, but left them to go to his creditors.

The proofs of death, which were accepted unquestionably by the life insurance companies, were these: The certificate of death from the attending physician; the certificate of the magistrate who authorized cremation; the certificate of the cremator and the certificate of genuineness and identity by the United States consul at Hamburg. Besides these there was, if any questions arose, the testimony of Mrs. Pundt, who was beside her husband when he died. Mrs. Siemmsen, mother of Otto Siemmsen, was also present.

Louis Raspke, administrator of the Pundt estate, says that he hopes the people who wish to investigate Mr. Pundt’s death will first come to him, that he may sell them steamship tickets, so that somebody can realize something out of their trip.

From the Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Douglas Co., Nebraska), dated December 18, 1895