A minor Fortean.
He was findable only because of an odd name; though his name was also . . . protean.
He was Robert Virgil Wilken, or perhaps Robert Virgil Schamber or Robert Von Schamber or R. Daniel Von Schamber. Sometimes he went by Bob, too.
From the available records, I am having trouble making sense of his early history. He seems to have been born 20 March 1927 (although one source has the same date but the year 1924). The 1940 census gives his birthplace as Indiana, but his citizenship as “American Citizen Born Abroad.” However, there is a birth certificate for him, which gives his place of birth as Indianapolis. On this document, his name is Virgil Schamber. His father, Fann Schamber, was listed as a chauffeur; his mother the former Marjorie Dannettelle. The birth certificate, though, just adds to the confusion. Both of Virgil parents are listed as 23. Virgil, though, is supposed to be the fifth of their children. I cannot find the family in the 1930 census, but in the 1940 census, they only have two children at home with them: Robert—whose birthdate is now estimated to be 1929—and George, some two years his elder. Fann—or Faun—worked as a baker.
The following year, Robert had his first contact with the Social Security Administration. His name was listed as Robert Virgil Wilken. The suggestive—but not conclusive—evidence I have gathered indicates that Faun and Marjorie divorced, and she remarried, Orris C. Wilken. Three years later, the Administration had it as Robert Virgil Schamber. And then another three years past and he became Robert Vergil VonSchamber. He would have been about twenty at this time.
Von Schamber joined the military a few years later, on 19 March 1951. Given the dearth of information on him, I do not know why he chose to serve. At the time, America was engaged in the Korean conflict, and there was still a draft. I have found a reference to him—he wrote a letter to “the United Nations World” in 1952—as a corporal; a newspaper blurb from December 1951 put him in the transportation corps. Other than it seems t have been relatively short. There’s a Bob von Schamber mentioned in the Long Beach Independent newspaper from 24 July 1953, which is likely to be him, as e ended up in southern California at some point.
Reading between the lines of the newspaper report, he had some interest in fringe sciences. The Psychology Forum Club of Long Beach, to which he belonged, was hosting a meeting. He was to be an usher. The speaker was Edna L. Scott, a teacher of astrology, occultism, and philosophy at the Hollywood School of Astrology.
Robert Virgil von Schamber died 12 June 2002 in Riverside, California. His last connection to the Social Security Administration gave his name as R V Daniel von Schamber.
******************
I have only three mentions of von Schamber in Doubt, the Fortean Society’s magazine, and none shed much more light on him, including how he came to Fort or the Society. Everything is a mystery.
The first reference was in Doubt 38 (October 1952). It was merely an acknowledgment for sending in some clipping, von Schamber’s surname appearing in a paragraph-long list with other contributors. The other two references both come from the following issue, 39 (January 1953). On page 180, he was singled out as among those who had provided the Society with the best articles for that issue. Tiffany Thayer, the Society’s secretary and the main force behind the magazine, referred to him as “MFS Von Schamber, in uniform in Korea,” which tells us that Robert had paid his dues; and was one of the biographical clues I used to figure out who he was—though obviously that figuring did not go very far.
The clipping came from “Reader’s Digest.” It was a story about an Indianapolis teacher who was privately criticized for making derogatory comments about British socialism. The article was meant to outrage the reader about infringement on academic freedom; maybe this was what von Schamber himself meant, or maybe something else. Thayer had his own reading. He didn’t think that the British system was particularly socialist; nor did he think a private letter infringed on rights. Rather, he worried that if the teacher had praised the British system, he would have been fired—because any kind of dissent was labelled communist or socialist, not because he himself was sympathetic to communism. Thayer worried that the end goal was to throw around the word tyranny to such an extent that it lost all meaning, and would allow real tyrants to thus take over. The “Reader’s Digest” article was thus furthering the agenda of American totalitarianism even as it pretended to defend liberty.
The final mention, on the next page, was naught but another acknowledgment. And so the mysterious Robert Virgil von Schamber slipped away from the Fortean Society, hardly more known than when he arrived.
He was findable only because of an odd name; though his name was also . . . protean.
He was Robert Virgil Wilken, or perhaps Robert Virgil Schamber or Robert Von Schamber or R. Daniel Von Schamber. Sometimes he went by Bob, too.
From the available records, I am having trouble making sense of his early history. He seems to have been born 20 March 1927 (although one source has the same date but the year 1924). The 1940 census gives his birthplace as Indiana, but his citizenship as “American Citizen Born Abroad.” However, there is a birth certificate for him, which gives his place of birth as Indianapolis. On this document, his name is Virgil Schamber. His father, Fann Schamber, was listed as a chauffeur; his mother the former Marjorie Dannettelle. The birth certificate, though, just adds to the confusion. Both of Virgil parents are listed as 23. Virgil, though, is supposed to be the fifth of their children. I cannot find the family in the 1930 census, but in the 1940 census, they only have two children at home with them: Robert—whose birthdate is now estimated to be 1929—and George, some two years his elder. Fann—or Faun—worked as a baker.
The following year, Robert had his first contact with the Social Security Administration. His name was listed as Robert Virgil Wilken. The suggestive—but not conclusive—evidence I have gathered indicates that Faun and Marjorie divorced, and she remarried, Orris C. Wilken. Three years later, the Administration had it as Robert Virgil Schamber. And then another three years past and he became Robert Vergil VonSchamber. He would have been about twenty at this time.
Von Schamber joined the military a few years later, on 19 March 1951. Given the dearth of information on him, I do not know why he chose to serve. At the time, America was engaged in the Korean conflict, and there was still a draft. I have found a reference to him—he wrote a letter to “the United Nations World” in 1952—as a corporal; a newspaper blurb from December 1951 put him in the transportation corps. Other than it seems t have been relatively short. There’s a Bob von Schamber mentioned in the Long Beach Independent newspaper from 24 July 1953, which is likely to be him, as e ended up in southern California at some point.
Reading between the lines of the newspaper report, he had some interest in fringe sciences. The Psychology Forum Club of Long Beach, to which he belonged, was hosting a meeting. He was to be an usher. The speaker was Edna L. Scott, a teacher of astrology, occultism, and philosophy at the Hollywood School of Astrology.
Robert Virgil von Schamber died 12 June 2002 in Riverside, California. His last connection to the Social Security Administration gave his name as R V Daniel von Schamber.
******************
I have only three mentions of von Schamber in Doubt, the Fortean Society’s magazine, and none shed much more light on him, including how he came to Fort or the Society. Everything is a mystery.
The first reference was in Doubt 38 (October 1952). It was merely an acknowledgment for sending in some clipping, von Schamber’s surname appearing in a paragraph-long list with other contributors. The other two references both come from the following issue, 39 (January 1953). On page 180, he was singled out as among those who had provided the Society with the best articles for that issue. Tiffany Thayer, the Society’s secretary and the main force behind the magazine, referred to him as “MFS Von Schamber, in uniform in Korea,” which tells us that Robert had paid his dues; and was one of the biographical clues I used to figure out who he was—though obviously that figuring did not go very far.
The clipping came from “Reader’s Digest.” It was a story about an Indianapolis teacher who was privately criticized for making derogatory comments about British socialism. The article was meant to outrage the reader about infringement on academic freedom; maybe this was what von Schamber himself meant, or maybe something else. Thayer had his own reading. He didn’t think that the British system was particularly socialist; nor did he think a private letter infringed on rights. Rather, he worried that if the teacher had praised the British system, he would have been fired—because any kind of dissent was labelled communist or socialist, not because he himself was sympathetic to communism. Thayer worried that the end goal was to throw around the word tyranny to such an extent that it lost all meaning, and would allow real tyrants to thus take over. The “Reader’s Digest” article was thus furthering the agenda of American totalitarianism even as it pretended to defend liberty.
The final mention, on the next page, was naught but another acknowledgment. And so the mysterious Robert Virgil von Schamber slipped away from the Fortean Society, hardly more known than when he arrived.
