HENRY BALDWIN de VILLIERS SCHWAB 1887-1935

It is hard to realize that Henry Schwab, my companion of three happy summers in the Canadian Rockies and good friend ever since, has gone. We first met in 1921, I having previously heard of him as a mountain climber from his brother, whom I had known during the war. The late Allen Carpe was also present on that occasion, and it was probably due to him that the three of us went out together in 1922 to attempt Mt. Clemenceau. A kick from a horse on the way in forced Schwab to return to Jasper; Carpe and I did not climb Clemenceau, but Schwab and I with Dana Durand and others returned and were successful in 1923. In 1924 we went by trail with a party including the late Sir James Outram from Lake Louise to the Canadian Alpine Club camp at Mt. Robson. On the way, with Thomas D. Cabot, we failed by a few hundred feet to climb Mt. Columbia because of treacherous snow conditions. That was his last summer in the mountains, for reasons beyond his control. Earlier he had climbed from the age of fourteen during ten different seasons in Europe. Beginning with minor ascents in the Tyrol in 1901, he turned to Switzerland in 1903 and every year from 1906 through 1912 climbed in the Alps in either the Oberland, Zermatt or Chamonix, and occasionally other districts ; 1920, during which he made over twenty climbs, was his last and best year in the Alps.

He was a good all-around mountaineer. He particularly enjoyed the detailed consideration and the planning involved in undertaking a new climb. Our Clemenceau trips involved methods new to him. He enjoyed all this particularly but never lost sight of the benefits of his previous experience in the Alps. He was a sound climber who had absorbed much that his guides had to teach him during the Alpine seasons. He was always insistent that a thing be done properly as he understood it. He had little patience with slipshod methods, but much when it was a question of doing a thing right even when this involved considerable extra effort. He was a safe man in the mountains.

Although he rarely alluded to it, one is sure that his inability to go to the mountains in recent years was a great disappointment to him. He did, however, maintain a very live interest in the accomplishments of others in the mountains, and from 1926 until a short time before his death was always in some official capacity connected with the management of the American Alpine Club to which he was devoted—Secretary 1926-1929, Councillor 1929-1932, President 1932-1935. During his presidency the present suitable and conveniently located quarters were occupied by the Club.

Henry Schwab was born at New York on June 16, 1887. his parents being Hermann C. and Mary Baldwin Schwab. After preparing at St. Mark’s School he entered Harvard with the class of 1909 but graduated a year ahead of his class in June 1908. The next two years were spent in business in Germany from where he returned to enter the wool department of Oelrichs & Co. in New York. There he rose to partnership in 1917 in charge of the firm’s wool business. Before this he had visited New Zealand, Australia, South America and South Africa on business. In 1912 he married Kathrina H. de Villiers of Capetown at Pittsburgh. She and three children, two sons and a daughter, survive him.

In 1916 he attended the Plattsburg Training Camp, and later during the war entered the New York Guard as a private, being mustered out as Captain in the 9th C. D. C.

His premature death on March 15 following an actual illness of six weeks, from causes which had set in earlier, is a shock to his friends and a great loss to the Club, which he loved so well. He possessed an unusually even and cheerful temperament. Despite business worries during the last ten years of his life, he always maintained a smiling and happy exterior. In the mountains as at home his attractive personality caused him to stand out, and invited friendship among those with whom he came in contact. Mountain memories and a happy family life were a great source of satisfaction to him during his last years.

H. S. H., Jr.