August Carl Schulenburg Photographs

August Carl Schulenburg was born in 1879 in North West Province (former Transvaal), South Africa. His father was a German-born medical missionary. Schulenburg was educated in Afrikaans-speaking schools and came to think of himself as an Afrikaner, or "Boer." When the conflict known as the Anglo-Boer War broke out in 1899, Schulenburg enlisted and fought until his unit was captured in 1901. He and others were sent as prisoners of war across the Atlantic to a camp on a small island in the harbor of Bermuda. Released when the war ended in 1902, he decided to take advantage of his proximity to North America by visiting relatives, also German immigrants, who had settled in various states of the U.S. Midwest. While visiting an uncle living near Boonville, Missouri he was admitted to study at Washington University Medical Department in St. Louis in 1903 graduating in 1906. He was an intern in 1906-1907 at St. Louis Mullanphy Hospital, a predecessor of today's DePaul Hospital of north St. Louis County. Toward the end of this year, he considered an offer to practice in the St. Louis area, but was prevailed upon by his family to return home to South Africa in late 1907. The British colonial government did not honor his American diploma and in order to practice as a licensed physician he traveled to London and enrolled at Guy's Hospital Medical College, finishing in 1909. Schulenburg spent most of his career as a general practitioner in Ventersdorp and Potchefstroom, cities of the former Transvaal. In the Afrikaner medical community he was particularly well-known, serving on the council of the national medical society and the council of Potchefstroom University (now North-West University). He died in 1964.