Alfred Aselmeyer was born October 4, 1897 in
Boonville, Missouri. He married Helen Rayn on December 25, 1922 on Staten
Island, New York.[1]
He graduated from Washington University School of Medicine on June 14, 1923 and
at the age of 27 became an assistant surgeon of the Public Health Service on
November 28, 1924.[2] His life in the Public Health Service was one
of constant change. He held positions throughout the United States at numerous
quarantine stations, penitentiaries and in the research divisions of the
Service in Washington DC. His overseas assignments took to Italy, Poland,
Czechoslovakia, and to Puerto Rico where he supported the Service’s immigration
work and tracking of epidemic diseases throughout the world. His first
assignment issued on January 10, 1925 was work at Stapleton, New York where he
served in Hospital Number 21 located at Clifton Station on Staten Island.[3] By the end of year (December 14, 1925) he was
transferred to nearby Hospital number 43 on Ellis Island in New York.[4] On June 4, 1927 he took a
position in the Bacteriology Laboratory in Washington DC and during that same
year was assigned to Italy at the U.S. Consulate.[5] On January 16, 1928, he was
reassigned as a technical adviser at the U.S. Consulate in Warsaw, Poland and
two years later undertook similar work at the U.S. Consulate in Czechoslovakia.[6] During his overseas
assignments he was promoted to Passed Assistant Surgeon.
After a glamorous overseas life, it must have come as a
crushing blow when he was ordered to work at the Leavenworth, Kansas
Penitentiary Annex effective November 12, 1930 – a positon he held for just two
months. On January 21, 1931 he was
ordered to continue prison work but this time at the U.S. Industrial
Reformatory in Chillicothe, Ohio where he stayed for three years. On February
13, 1934 he was transferred to San Francisco where he worked in the Marine
Hospital and Relief Station.[7] Then on November 15, 1935
he was transferred to the Boston quarantine station where he served as a junior
medical officer before assuming command of the station after Ernest Sweet
departed.[8]
Aselmeyer was appointed medical officer in charge of
the Gallop’s Island quarantine station on May 18, 1936 and only lasted four
months, departing on September 13, 1936, the shortest assignment in the history
of the Boston quarantine station. During his brief tenure Gallops Island
remained in operation.[9]
On September 14, 1936 he was ordered to Washington DC
and three months later (December 10, 1936) promoted to the position of Surgeon.[10] While in Washington DC he worked in the
Scientific and Research and Venereal Disease Divisions of the USPHS (1936-1942)
during which time he authored an important article on venereal disease control
published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and worked
extensively to prevent the horrific consequences of social diseases on campus
and throughout American society.[11] Like so many other
dedicated USPHS surgeons, he lived a life of constant movement working wherever
the Surgeon General required his services. He moved to USPHS District Number 3
in Chicago on August 4, 1942, a post he held for three years.[12] After the end of World
War II, on December 1, 1945 he was promoted to Medical Director and four days
later, assigned to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration
(UNRRA).[13] While working for UNRRA, Aselmeyer
was one of 250 public health physicians assigned to provide public health
services to war ravaged European and Asian nations as a result of the
interruption of services previously provided by the International Office of
Public Health in Paris.[14]
On December 1, 1947 he became the Chief of the
Epidemiology Division of the USPHS which meant vacating his post as Director of
District 6 in San Juan District and moving back to Washington DC.[15] In 1950, the Official
Register of the United States listed Dr. Aselmeyer as the Regional Medical Director
of the Public Health Service for Region 1 covering the New England states.[16] The following year he was
ordered to Miami Beach Florida where he spent one year as the officer in charge
of the quarantine station. No record can be found of his service during 1952
but the following two years he managed the quarantine station in Mobile,
Alabama (1953-1954) and then subsequently disappeared from the roster of Public
Health Service personnel, presumably because of retirement.[17]
His first wife passed away on January 16, 1963. The
following year, on June 17, 1964, he married Margaret Lee Beavers.[18] Aselmeyer died on
November 21, 1975 and is buried in Walnut Grove Cemetery, Boonville, Missouri.
[1]
Accessed online: http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/75016183/person/36307901630/fact/325303179746
[8]
Boston Globe, Port of Boston, May 19, 1936, p. 8
[9]
Boston Globe, Gen Cheney to take Artillery Command, August 11, 1936, p. 28
[14]
Williams, Ralph Chester, The United States Public Health Service: 1798-1950,
Commissioned Officers Association, Washington DC, p. p. 751-756.
[18]
Accessed online: http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/75016183/person/36307902846
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