Lottie Barbara (Schlatter) Steiling, 1913–1955

Lottie Barbara (Schlatter) Steiling was born on 4 April 1913 in St. Louis, Missouri. She was the daughter of Rudolph Schlatter, a mechanical engineer, and Barbara (Staubli) Schlatter. Lottie had two brothers, Rudolph Paul and Willard Frederick. Both became mechanical engineers, and Willard was also a World War II Navy veteran.

As a young girl, Lottie traveled with her mother and siblings to France several times. She attended Roosevelt High School in St. Louis sometime around 1930. Under her name in her high school yearbook, it reads: “It wouldn’t be an accident if she became the president.” By the age of twenty-six, Lottie had completed college and become a social worker with the Board of Children’s Guardians.

Lottie Schlatter married Carl Herman Steiling on 3 June 1940 in St. Louis. Carl Herman was born on 1 April 1907 in St. Louis, the son of William John Steiling, a statistician, and Florence M. (Brungard) Steiling, his second wife. Carl served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, obtaining the rank of lieutenant commander. Lottie and Carl had three children: Their daughter, Sylvia A. (Steiling) Kroeger, became a surgeon. Their son Carl Herman Jr. was an Air Force veteran, and their son Theodore John, like his maternal uncles, became an engineer

Lottie died on 5 March 1955 in St. Louis at the age of forty-one, during a bronchoscopy at Firmin Desloge Hospital. Her death was recorded as an accident, from a condition called status asthmaticus, which is a life-threatening acute asthma attack considered a medical emergency. Lottie was interred at Sunset Burial Park in St. Louis on 9 March 1955. Carl Herman outlived his wife Lottie by thirty-eight years, never remarrying. Lieutenant Commander Steiling died on 24 February 1993 in St. Louis. He is interred at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.

Written by Shirley Wadell
January 2025
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