Obituary - Erivan Karl Haub
September 29, 1932 - March 06, 2018
March 13, 2018
Erivan Haub, 85, of Wiesbaden, Germany, passed away amongst family on Tuesday, March 6, 2018 in Pinedale, Wyoming. Born in 1932 in Wiesbaden, Germany to Elisabeth and Erich Haub he became one of the most successful German business entrepreneurs building The Tengelmann Group into an international retail empire spanning Europe and North America, including The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P).
After graduating high school, he completed his retail apprenticeship and then entered a traineeship program in North America in the early 1950s where he fell in love with the country while working at several prominent food retailers in Chicago and Los Angeles and for an import-export company in Cuba. Following his return home, he studied at the University of Hamburg under famous economist Prof. Karl Schiller and graduated from the University of Mainz with a degree in economics. But more importantly than his degree, he met his future wife and love of his life, Helga, while studying in Hamburg and they got married in 1958. They were blessed with three boys, Karl-Erivan, Georg and Christian, who were all born in Tacoma, Washington and cemented his lifelong love for America.
Erivan entered the family business in Germany in 1963 and following the death of his uncle in 1969, he assumed the leadership of the Tengelmann Group in the fourth generation, and immediately began to expand the company, which at this point was a mid-sized food retail business operating just in Germany. He skillfully grew the company by acquiring key competitors and launching innovative new concepts to become Germany’s largest supermarket operator. In 1979, he fulfilled his lifelong dream of expanding to America by investing in The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, the country’s oldest supermarket
business. He continued to diversify The Tengelmann Group expanding his food retail business across Europe, investing into home improvement retail enterprise OBI in Germany and launching the clothing discount retailer KiK. After the fall of the Berlin Wall he entered new markets in eastern Europe, fueling the company’s growth culminating in The Tengelmann Group becoming one of the largest privately-owned retail companies in the world.
Besides pursuing his business goals, he also was passionate about the environment. Inspired by his mother Elisabeth, who was one of the first environmentalists in Germany in the late 1960’s, he embraced sustainable business practices throughout his business enterprise long before they became mainstream and won numerous awards and recognition for his leadership in this area. He went on to create the world’s first university chair in business and the environment at York University in Toronto, Canada in 1991. Together with his wife he established the Helga Otto Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Wyoming in 2004.
In order to strengthen the German-American relationship, he first established the Erivan Karl Haub Executive Conference Center at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia in 1988 followed by the Haub School of Business in 1997. He also became a lead benefactor of the The George C. Marshall International Center in Leesburg, Virginia. For his accomplishments in fostering the German-American friendship he received the Dr. Leo M. Goodman Award by the American Chamber of Commerce in 1996. At Pace University in New York, he helped to establish the Elisabeth Haub School of Law in 2016, to honor his mother and to support their highly regarded environmental law program.
In 2004, the Federal Republic of Germany awarded him the Federal Cross of Merit, Germany’s highest civil award for his lifetime
achievements and contributions in business, culture, society and especially for the environment.
At the beginning of the new millennium, Erivan transferred the leadership of The Tengelmann Group to his sons, Karl-Erivan and Christian and took over the role of Chairman of the company’s advisory board. Following his 80th birthday and after 50 years of successful engagement in the retail industry, he retired and retreated into private life.
Erivan Haub was a very generous philanthropist during his life supporting the well-being of his many tens of thousands of employees and embracing many causes in the communities his company served. He was an avid collector of American Western Art, a love he developed during the time he spent on his ranch in Wyoming where he raised a herd of American bison. Together with his family he decided to donate his collection to the Tacoma Art Museum as a sign of gratitude towards the community he first found a home at in America.
He passed away peacefully on his beloved ranch in Pinedale, Wyoming and will be thoroughly missed by all who knew him. Erivan is survived by his wife Helga, his son Karl-Erivan and his wife Katrin with their children, Viktoria and Erivan, his son Georg with his children, Robert, Alexander and Sarina and his son Christian and his wife Liliane with their children, Marie-Liliane, Maximilian, Anna-Sophia and Constantin.
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A bit of history of the CL Bar Ranch
Excerpted from homesteading history
by Ann Noble
The Clark Ranch was one of the best known in western Wyoming, often referred to as Rustic Lodge Ranch. Robert Emmett and Anna May Fisher Clark came to Wyoming in 1902 with their two sons, Robert "Bert" Emmett, Jr., and Guy Earl, and homesteaded on the head of Little Duck Creek at Cora. Mrs. Clark’s mother, Mrs. Daniel Schultz, also came in 1902 and took up land nearby. The CL brand was registered to Bert Clark in 1905 and was used on horses and cattle. By 1915, the brand became the CL Bar.
A two-room log cabin housed the Clarks until a more pretentious house could be built and a well dug. While the well was in the digging, water was carried up in buckets from the spring, for every purpose. Their first real accomplishment was their new log house of six rooms, and finishing the well, dug by Lee Edmondson. It was 30 feet deep and the buckets of dirt and rocks had to be pulled to the top with a windlass. In due time a pump was installed and a high tower was erected over the pump. Growing an adequate hay crop proved challenging. It took seven years to get water on the sage brush flat and much longer to get a good hay crop.
"Anna May was a beautiful and talented woman and she brought to her new home, along with her oil paintings, furniture and clothing, a dignified hospitality. Robert Emmett was no slouch. He filled his jacket with a lot of manly style and great personality," wrote daughter-in-law Frances Clark.
For many years to Rustic Lodge Ranch was known as a show place for the flowers and shrubbery and unique arrangement of the premises. "Mrs. Clark has spared no pains in the cultivation of native trees and shrubs, as well as the introduction of fruits and vegetables which were considered unadapted to the high altitude, but which, under the wizardry of her care, are flourishing and have become an object lesson as to what can be accomplished. Her flowers are wonderful and the place shows how much can be done by taste and effort," wrote Elizabeth Arnold Stone in her Unita County history.
Young Bert was restless and often left the ranch. He was remembered for getting mad, saddling his horse and leaving his Cora home at intervals in his life. In 1912, Bert moved to Jackson Hole, where he met and married Frances Deloney. For a time, he drove the mail stage over Teton Pass. His handicapped brother, Guy Earl, was left with his parents and died young.
Bert and Frances would return to Cora. They had four children, though they lost their first little girl to a heart ailment. Bert’s father, Robert Emmett Sr. died in 1922. His widow, Anna May, sold much of the ranch property to Cyrus S. Mershon. She suffered a stroke in 1937 and lived eleven more years with Bert and his wife.
In 1925, Bert and Frances took their young family to Cheyenne. Wyoming Senator and Cora neighbor Perry Jenkins sponsored the Clarks and Frances became the reading clerk in the Senate while Bert worked with Bills in the House. "This experience lasted for many legislative years with suitable and responsible promotions," recalled Frances.
During the hard years of the Great Depression, Bert and Frances left their Cora ranch and moved to Pinedale and purchased the Bayer’s ranch on Pine Creek. Bert built a log house there, "certainly more snug than luxurious," and then he went to work with the C.C.C.s (Civilian Conservation Corps), a federal relief program. Bert also secured the contract for a new mail route that was established to take the mail from Pinedale to Cora and back to Pinedale six days a week. Frances served as carrier in the summer and Orin Dockham and son, Bob, handled it in winter.
Bert Clark took a partner in the ranch when Dr. Edward S. Lauzer, a prominent physician from Rock Springs, joined the Rustic Lodge business starting in 1930. A year later, Dr. Lauzer became the sole owner. Lauzer had married in 1911 a young widow, Amy Geis Miller, superintendent of nurses at Wyoming General Hospital in Rock Springs. She was the first registered nurse in Wyoming. From her previous married, Amy had a daughter, Francis Marble, that Dr. Lauzer would help raise.
In addition to his full medical practice, Dr. Lauzer was a very active citizen. He was a member of the Republican Party and Masonic Lodge, served on the Medical Advisory Board, School Board, State Board of Health, and was Mayor of Rock Springs. In his later years he contributed to the Sublette County Historical Society with time and relics.
Dr. Lauzer is also remembered as a favorite doctor for the notorious Outlaws of the wild west, particularly Butch Cassidy. When an outlaw was in need of medical attention, gang members would gather the doctor up, usually at nighttime, blindfold him, and take him to their hideouts. After the patient was attended to, the doctor was returned to town, again blindfolded. On a few occasions, an injured outlaw came to Dr. Lauzer at the Rock Springs hospital where Dr. Lauzer refused the request of the law to come in and check. Perhaps this is why a small homestead cabin on the CL Bar Ranch was known to be a stopping place for Butch Cassidy.
During lean years on the ranch, the Clarks brought sheep to the ranch, at the request of their Rock Springs banker, John Hay. Bert and his neighbors would have preferred to have stayed with cattle, but the sheep were more economical during lean years of the 1920s. Dr. Lauzer would partner with the sheep. In time, the ranch would be sustained a herd of 2,500.
In 1946, Dr. Lauzer moved full-time to the Cora Ranch. By now the Rustic Lodge was hosting "dudes" to cover the operation costs. Guest cabins were built near the main lodge where the patrons would gather for meals and socializing. To benefit the guests, Dr. Lauzer brought in a small herd of buffalo he started with cows from Yellowstone National Park and a bull from the Salt Lake City zoo. He also displayed elk he obtained locally. A guest favorite was a monkey he secured from the Salt Lake City zoo named "Mrs. Crickett."
Most exotic were the two African lions he obtained for the ranch as an outgrowth of a discussion which took place in Rock Springs. Dr. Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and Dr. Edward Lewis, curator of Peabody Museum at Yale University, were visiting Dr. Lauzer. The three men agreed that an African lion could be acclimated and live at higher altitudes. However, the three disagreed on the length of time it would take to acclimate them. Dr. Lauzer contended that it could be done within a year. To prove his point, he secured the lions and they lived at the Lauzer ranch without artificial heat from the day they arrived. The second year in Cora, they had cubs, which were given to the Sheridan city zoo.
Dr. Lauzer also hosted a rodeo at the ranch for his guests and the community. In 1937, the newspaper reported that over 2,000 people came to the CL Bar Ranch for the free barbeque and rodeo.
The CL Bar Ranch ownership, upon Dr. Lauzer’s death in 1960, would go to family member Thomas Lauzer Kitchen. Kitchen would spend much of his life on the ranch until 1971 when the ranch was sold to California interests. Until the late 1960s, Kitchen continued to raise the breed of sheep that had been experimentally developed by Dr. Lauzer at the CL Bar.
Sustaining a ranch has always been difficult, and continued to be so in the 1970s when the CL Bar owner partnership chose to end the ranching and dude-operation and divided much of the property into 40-acre parcels. Many locals took advantage of the opportunity to purchase a parcel.
Shortly thereafter, German Ervian Haub fell in love with the area and this ranch in particular, so bought up all the parcels and put the CL Bar ranch back together. The Haub family continues to own the ranch to the present. Despite having no connections to Dr. Lauzer, Haub has continued some of the same traditions on the ranch, including hosting community rodeos and raising buffalo.
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Clark's Flower Day
By Judi Myers (2012)
"The land has been made to blossom as the rose; like an oasis in the desert…nodding plumes of beauty fill the air with sweet perfume," wrote the Roundup editor in 1912. He’d just been to the first Flower Day at Clark’s Rustic Lodge – CL Ranch near Cora. The original ranch partnership was between Bert Clark, Sr and Jesse Law, the likely source of the name CL Ranch. This brand with no bar was published in the Roundup in 1905. The current ranch is called the CL Bar Ranch. The 1956 Brand Book shows the bar.
For 19 years the Bert Clarks’ invited the community to spend a day at their ranch amongst pansy, tulip, nasturtium, sweet William, wild rose, poppy & sweet peas. "The home is surrounded with foliage…a vine-clung veranda is almost hidden by tendrils & flower baskets. The garden has strawberries, currants, gooseberries, & cherries." Angeline Feltner attended the early Flower Days as a small child (she was born in 1903) and remembers, "We picked strawberries by the pail-full and ate them with ice cream."
The men admired the machinery, wagon sheds, buggies & autos, canoes & sailboats, a blacksmith shop & forge and the 10 miles of ditch that came out of the Green River to furnished water for "timothy, Alsike Clover, Red Clover, alfalfa, hay, barley, oats, spelts wheat, rye and several acres of spuds."
In the spring of 1902 R.E. ‘Bert’ (Sr) & Anna May Clark homesteaded at the head of Little Duck Creek near Cora. They had 2 sons, Bert (R.E. Jr) who married Frances ‘Honey’ DeLoney and Guy, who died in 1908. The senior Clarks built a cabin & by Christmas, 1903 they were hosting an elaborate dinner party complete with programs, a riddle (‘What kind of noise annoys an oyster?’)(no answer recorded) and a Shaddow (sic) Dance. A house was built onto the cabin & a tall, enclosed, wooden tower was built over the water well. The entrance to the ranch house was marked with rustic gates "of a curious design & cunning workmanship". The pole fence was entwined with elk antlers. A large lawn with pebble-lined paths, abundant foliage & a sundial greeted visitors to the annual Flower Days. In 1914 eighty people attended. By 1920 over 200 people came from as far away as Rock Springs, Lander & Kemmerer.
Ladies of the community brought a picnic basket for the dinner. A small fee was charged (25 cents in 1913) with the proceeds going to a charity. In 1914 it was ‘applied on the indebtedness against the Congregational parsonage.’ During WWI it was donated to the local Red Cross; in 1929 the funds went to ‘the orphans home’; in 1930 it went towards ‘the building of a community hall’ and in 1931, the last Flower Day, the proceeds went towards the improvement of the Lodge Room at the Masonic Hall.
Entertainment was part of Flower Day. Victrola & piano music was heard in 1914. Violin was added the next year. In 1930, with almost 300 people in attendance, there was a program of readings, music, singing and ‘an inspired talk by Reverend Best’. The next & last year there was the Pine Cone Orchestra, saxophone solos, poetry, the ‘Dancing of the Little Girls’ and a ‘sleight of hand’ show.
Frances (Mrs Bert Jr) Clark wrote of these times saying "we were so poor that when the wolf knocked on the door, he brought his own sandwich." In 1930 Dr E.S. Lauzer of Rock Springs purchased an interest in the Rustic Lodge Ranch and built a cottage there as a summer home. He soon became sole owner. The Lauzer’s daughter & son-in-law, the Ed Kitchens became the ranch residents. In 1982 Karl-Erivan Haub bought the CL Bar Ranch. Gone are the multitudinous flowers and extensive gardens. Flower Day at the Rustic Lodge is just a memory.
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