An Account of Oakland County / edited by Lillian Drake Avery.

PERSONAL SKETCHES

191

and he and his wife are communicants of the Catholic church. Mr.
Degenhardt was born in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, September
28, 1887, and is a son of Anton and Gertrude (Kellerhoff) Degenhardt, the former of whom was born March 22, 1842, and died in
1904, and the latter of whom was born March 17, 1845, she having
survived her husband by eight eight years and having passed to the
life eternal in 1912, both having been devout communicants of the
Catholic church and the father having given the greater part of his
active business career to contracting and building. Theodore L. Degenhardt gained his early education in the parochial and public schools
of his native city, and as a boy he began toassist his father in the
latter's work at the carpenter trade. The passing years gave to him
a high standard of efficiency in this trade, and with the same he has
continued his association to the present time, the while he has advanced to a position of prominence and influence as a contractor and
builder. Mr. Degenhardt entered the nation's military service in the
World war period, became a member of the Eighty-third Division of
the United States Army, and with this command was stationed at
Camp Custer, Michigan, near Battle Creek, from June 24, 1918, until
the following December, when he received his honorable discharge,
about one month after the signing of the historic armistice had brought
the great war to a close. In 1919 Mr. Degenhardt established his
residence at Ferndale, which has since continued the central stage of
his able activities as a contractor and builder, both in an independent
way and in the collateral connection already noted in this review. Mr.
Degenhardt is also a director of the Ferndale State Bank. July 28,
1920, was marked by the marriage of Mr. Degenhardt to Miss Anna
Post, daughter of Bernard Post, of St. Louis, Missouri, and of this
union there are two children, Rosemary, who was born April 26, 1922,
and Theodore L., Jr., who was born March 2, 1924.
Ralph H. DeGraff.-At 351 Oakland avenue in the city of Pontiac
is located the automobile service station that is owned and successfully
conducted by the progressive and popular young business man whose
name initiates this review. Mr. DeGraff reverts to the old Empire
state of the Union as the place of his nativity, he having been born at
Brockport, Monroe county, New York, October 8, 1889, and in the
same state having been born his parents, Jesse and Lena (Hoyt)
DeGraff. The parents eventually removed to Chatham, province of
Ontario, Canada, and from that place they came to Pontiac, Michigan,
in 1910. Jesse DeGraff was a wheelwright by trade and to work as a
skilled mechanic he gave virtually his entire active life, he having been
sixty-five years of age at the time of his death, February 23, 1921, and
his widow, at the age of sixty-five years, having since continued to
maintain her home in Pontiac. Of their four children, all sons, the
two surviving are Ralph H. and Elmer, the latter of whom is in the
employ of the Fisher Body Company, of Pontiac. Ralph H. DeGraff
acquired the greater part of his early education by attending the public
schools connected with the New York State Normal School at Brockport, and it was about the time that he attained to his legal majority
that he came with his parents to Pontiac. Here he clerked for a time