Following is one of the Biographies and Stories which where gathered by Charles Sumner McKamy in the 1950s for publication in a Crawford County History Book. Unfortunately he passed away before the book was published.
Carl Henry Zwermann, son of Peter and Gretchen Zwermann, was born in Wehrheim, Germany, on October 20, 1876, ant it was there that he learned the porcelain enameling business from his father. At the age of 18 he came to this country and made his home in Baltimore, Maryland, where he worked with his uncle at the Baltimore Enameling Company for several years. He next worked at the Henry McShane Manufacturing Company for one year and then in 1901 he started the Zwermann Technical Bureau in which he did consulting work on enameling and enameling furnaces. During this time he served as consultant for the erection of several enameling plants in Germany, Scotland, England, Russia and the United States. Following the completion of such a plant at West Lafayette, Ohio, he went to work for J.J. Knight at the General Gas Light Company in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where they enameled gas light reflectors. In about 1905 he and others took over the plant and later organized The Enameled Tank Company which engaged in he manufacture of enameled water closet tanks using the dry process. He served as President and General Manager of this company. About 1915 the slip casting process for the manufacture of vitreous china sanitary ware was being developed and he and others organized and built a new plant on he outskirts of Kalamazoo, incorporating this method for the manufacture of sanitary ware. Also built in this plant were two car tunnel kilns of his design for the firing of the ware. This plant, which was called The Kalamazoo Sanitary Manufacturing Company and of which Mr. Zwermann was President and General Manager, became one of the early plants in this country using car tunnel kilns.
In the summer of 1918 he sold his interests in this company and devoted his time to designing and selling car tunnel kilns to the ceramic industries. That summer he moved to Newark, Ohio, in order to be close to the area where he was erecting kilns. In the summer of 1919 he moved to Robinson, Illinois, where he organized and built the Zwermann Company for manufacturing vitreous china sanitary ware. This plant was an immediate success and in less than five years it had increased in capacity nine hundred per cent and was turning out more vitreous china -- tanks and bowls -- than any other plant in the world. He also served as its President and General Manager. In November of 1925 the stockholders sold or exchanged their Zwermann Company stock to W.A. Case and Son Manufacturing Company, wholesale jobbers of plumbing supplies in Buffalo, New York, and the Zwermann Company was dissolved. Mr. Zwermann remained as General Manager of the Robinson Pottery and became a Director and Vice-President of W.A. Case and son Manufacturing Company until he passed away in Robinson on March 30, 1934.
On December 15, 1902, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Throughout his lifetime, Mr. Zwermann was active in community life wherever he lived, and was associated with many organizations devoted to the betterment of his city and county. He was a member of the Kalamazoo Lodge No. 22 A.F. and A.M.; Kalamazoo Chapter No. 13 R.A.M.; the Peninsular Commandry No. 8 K.T.; DeWitt Clinton Consistory of Grand Rapids, Michigan; Saladin Temple of Grand Rapids; Kalamazoo Rotary Club; a charter member of the Robinson Rotary Club; Elks Lodge No. 1188; a member of the American Ceramic Society and for many years prominent in the Robinson Chamber of Commerce. He also obtained many useful patents on enameling processes which he had invented, on tunnel kiln improvements, and on sanitary ware fixtures.
Miss Helene Wekenman, daughter of Otto and Mary Wekenman, became his bride in March 20, 1901, in Baltimore, Maryland. She was born in that same city on May 14, 1876. To this union three children were born: Eva Margaret, Olga Josephine and Carl Henry, Junior.
Eva Margaret, who was born on May 9, 1902, was graduated from the University of Illinois in 1924 and taught physics and chemistry in the high school at Newton, Illinois, for one year. On September 1, 1934, she married Clyde F. Hill, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a Mechanical Engineer for W.A. Case and Son Manufacturing Company. In 1924 they moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where Clyde and his brother Carl are now operating an engineering business of their own. Mr. and Mrs. Hill have three children: Barbara Diane, born March 4, 1941; Carl Allen, February 20, 1947; and Patricia Helen, July 24, 1951.
Olga Josephine was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, August 13, 1906. She received her Bachelor Degree in 1929 and her Masters Degree in 1930 in Home Economics from the University of Illinois where she taught from 1930 to 1932. For one year she served as a student-dietician at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, and then taught dietetics at Wayne University in Detroit, Michigan, for several years. In October, 1933, she married L. Raymond Twyman, a graduate of the University if Illinois in Mechanical Engineering -- 1930, and to them one son, Donald Raymond, was born on February 6, 1939, in Birmingham, Michigan. She passed away July 6, 1941, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Carl Henry, Junior was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan July 30, 1908 and graduated from the University of Illinois in 1929 with a B.S. degree in Ceramic engineering. Following graduation he was employed as a Ceramic Engineer with W.A. Case and Son Manufacturing Company in Robinson until 1935. His M.S. degree in Ceramic Engineering and his Ph.D. degree in Engineering were obtained from the University of Illinois in 1937 and 1939 respectively. He served as an Associate Professor of Ceramic Engineer in charge of the Ceramic Engineering Division in the College of Mines at the University of Washington in Seattle from 1939 to 1948. From the summer of 1941 to the summer of 1946 he was on leave from there for military service with the Corps of Engineers in Alaska and the Military Government in Korea. When he left military life for civilian life in 1946, he held the rank of colonel. He is a member of the Robinson Elks Lodge No. 1188, a past president of Robinson Rotary Club, a member of he Robinson Lodge No. 250 A.F. and A.M., the Danville Consistory, Medinah Temple of Chicago, a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society, a member of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, a Registered Professional Engineer in Illinois and a member of the School Board of the Central Community Unit Number Two. On July 27, 1952, he married Miss Maxine A. Perry of Robinson, formerly of Terre Haute, Indiana. She was graduated from Indiana State Teachers College in 1943 and was Director of all Speech and Dramatic activities as well as a teacher of English in the Robinson High School from the fall of 1943 to the Spring of 1952.
Mr. Zwermann had one brother, Theodore Zwermann, who was associated with him in business in Robinson after 1922. Theodore was married in Newark, Ohio, to Miss Henrietta Butler and they had one son, Robert, who now resides in Orlando, Florida. In 1935 the Theodore Zwermann family moved to Olney, Illinois, where he purchased and operated a movie theatre. Mrs. Theodore Zwermann passed away in Robinson on December 12, 1954.
Carl Zwermann's two main hobbies were dogs and flowers. He was known throughout the community for his large, beautiful and well-trained dogs. In 1926 he completed a large home at 806 West Main Street in Robinson and he took great personal pride in the lovely flower gardens which became a part of his home.
Although Mr. Zwermann chose to remain in the background whenever possible, his contributions to his community and to the development of the pottery industry will be known for many years to come.