century association biographical archive

Earliest Members of the Century Association

View all members

Max A. Wesendonck

Germania Life Insurance Company

Centurion, 1894–1932

Full Name Max August Wesendonck

Born 12 March 1845 in Düsseldorf, Germany

Died 10 May 1932 in Paris, France

Buried Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York

Proposed by John Durand, Carl Schurz, and Charles R. Miller

Elected 3 November 1894 at age forty-nine

Archivist’s Note: Son of Hugo Wesendonck

Proposer of:

Century Memorial

In recent years the Club-house did not often see the tall, immaculately-dressed figure of Max Wesendonck. He was a cultured gentleman of the best old-school German tradition, distinguished in appearance by his flowing gray whiskers, dignified and courtly in speech and manner. He retired from business years ago and thereafter lived the life of a man of leisure. He had traveled much in his earlier days and made wide personal acquaintance during his long association with the Guardian Life. Music and art were always to him matters of foremost interest, and he was a bon viveur that brought reminder of old-time hospitality. His absolutely convincing personation of a German baker, at one of the Club’s older Twelfth Night revels, was indicated by the disapproving comment of other costumed visitors, that a member of the culinary staff should have intruded into the reception rooms.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1933 Century Association Yearbook