This is Part Two of "The Tepperman Quest," written and Compiled by Victor A. Berch as a Contribution to the
73rd Mailing (October 2005) of the Pulp-Era Amateur Press Society (PEAPS). You can read Part One by clicking here.
All material including compilations are copyrighted by Victor A. Berch.
"Creative Minds Are Seldom Tidy"--Anon.
TWENTY YEARS LATER . . .
Well, over twenty years have gone by since I wrote that article and times have certainly changed since then. There was no Internet nor the compilations of any databases that could be searched by "googling", either for free or by subscription.
As new databases appeared which I thought would be advantageous to my search for Tepperman, I would periodically check them out. Sometimes a hit here and there, but nothing that I was not aware of already.
My best bets turned out to be the genealogical databases, available by subscription. These proved most valuable for examining the US census records and for pertinent information contained in those records. Still, outside of the 1930 US Census, Tepperman did not show up when I entered a search for Emile Tepperman.
My first breakthrough came when, by chance, I came across Tepperman's draft registration card for World War I. Here his full name was given as Emil Clemens Tepperman. (One can readily see where Tepperman's pseudonym, Anthony Clemens, derived from. Where the Anthony came from is unknown. Perhaps a collaboration with another writer whose first name was Anthony???)
I suppose at some point in his life, probably when he began to write, Tepperman wanted to upscale his name from Emil, a Germanic sounding name, to, what seemed to him a more refined and francophonic (is there such a word?) name, namely Emile, perhaps subconsciously in honor of Emile Zola. After all, his middle name Clemens seems to have been bestowed upon him by his parents, perhaps in honor of the American humorist, Samuel Langhorne Clemens. But that is speculation on my part.
At any rate, I learned from the draft registration card that Tepperman was born May 11, 1899 in New York City. His father, Robert Tepperman, was listed as his nearest relative.
Well, this opened up whole new avenues for me to search out. His birth date was corroborated in the database for New York City Births, 1891-1902.
The 1900 US Census showed that young Tepperman was living with his mother's parents, Max and Pearl Gennis, while his mother's name was given as Augusta (although slightly misspelled). Max Gennis was in the real estate business and his father's occupation was listed as a machinist.
Before going on to other available census records, I decided to see if there were any scholastic records for Tepperman. Not too much on his early years, but his draft registration card indicated that, at the time of registering for the World War I draft, Tepperman was enrolled as a student at the City College of New York. I sought out the website for CCNY and learned that it had an alumni archive that did keep track of its graduates. Perhaps there was a file on Tepperman.
I e-mailed the archivist, Ms. Sydney C. Van Nort, in the hopes that the archives at CCNY had a file on Tepperman. After all, he would have been one of those graduates who had made a name for himself in the literary field.
Well, a week transpired and there was no response to my e-mail. Another e-mail was sent and still no reply. Had Tepperman somehow put a curse on those that attempted to pursue biographical information about him? It certainly seemed so.
My next obvious step was to telephone directly. This time I got to voice-mail and explained what I was looking for. A few days later I heard from Ms. Van Nort. She apologetically explained that the e-mail address at the archives was not functioning properly and that she would try to answer any of my queries. She explained that yes, Tepperman had indeed attended CCNY, but he did not graduate from there and, therefore, there was no alumni file on him. But she was kind enough to send me copies of the college class registers for the years 1917 through 1920 in which Tepperman had registered as a student. In all those records, his name was listed as Emil C. Tepperman.
Well, that took care of that. But another fragment of Tepperman's life had been added and that was that he had attended CCNY in pursuit of a college degree.
Just before the outbreak of World War I, Tepperman's maternal grandmother, Pearl Gennis, died on February 18, 1914. Almost two years to the day, his mother, Augusta Tepperman, passed away on February 17, 1916. And a few months later, his maternal grandfather, Max Gennis, passed away on August 23, 1916. Late in 1917, his father, Robert, remarried while Tepperman was enrolled at CCNY.
Somewhere along the line, Tepperman met the young, vibrant and athletic Gladys Karr.
Gladys was born Gladys Kartusinsky on March 2, 1901, the daughter of Abraham and Pauline (Bunyan) Kartusinsky, both of whom were immigrants from the then-Russian Empire, and had emigrated to New York City in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Her siblings were Minnie, an older sister, who later taught in the New York City public school system, and David, a younger brother. Gladys seems to have been the first in her family to shorten her name to the more Americanized form, Karr.
In the summer of 1922, young Gladys had acquired her own share of notoriety when she and two other friends hiked through most of the national parks across the United States. The episode was reported in the New York Times of June 4, 1922, p. 95.
On February 25, 1924, Gladys was granted a temporary license as teacher-clerk in the New York City school system. This later became a permanent position, as she held that grading at the time of her marriage to Tepperman and continued to hold that position afterwards.
Emile C. Tepperman (by this time, Tepperman had begun to use Emile as his first name as it is recorded as such on his marriage certificate) and Gladys Karr were married on June 27, 1926 in the Bronx, New York City. The 1930 US Census listed Emile as an insurance agent and Gladys as a clerk in a public school.
I suppose as the effects of the Great Depression deepened, Tepperman sought to supplement his income by turning to writing. According to Al Tonik's bibliography of Tepperman's writings, this career started at the end of 1933. (Thanks, Al.)
Still, I was not sure when or where Emile C. Tepperman died. I did note that in the latest update of Allen J. Hubin's Crime Fiction bibliography that a 1951 death date had been assigned to Tepperman. I sent off a short note to Hubin asking how he came to that piece of information. Unfortunately, Al Hubin could not recall the details. And, so, I still remain in the dark about a definitive death date for Emile C. Tepperman.
According to the Social Security Death Index, Gladys K. Tepperman died at an undisclosed location on April 10, 1989, adding somewhat more to the Tepperman mystique.
Copyright Victor Berch.
Links:
Elsewhere on The Pulp Rack, you'll find Al Tonik's "Emile Tepperman: A Bibliography." Click here to read it.
Apparently there are no collected works of Emile Tepperman, but his work pops up all over the catalogs of the part of the small press dedicated to pulp fiction. See issues of John Gunnison's High Adventure reprint magazine at the Adventure House web site by clicking here.
Don Hutchison's collection of pulp stories, It's Raining More Corpses In Chinatown, includes a Tepperman story. Click here to learn more at Amazon.com.
Posted by ds at May 16, 2007 06:41 AM
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