Background
Frederick Louis Odenbach was born on October, 21, 1857, in Rochester, New York, the son of John and Elizabeth (Minges) Odenbach. His father was a furrier by trade.
Frederick Louis Odenbach was born on October, 21, 1857, in Rochester, New York, the son of John and Elizabeth (Minges) Odenbach. His father was a furrier by trade.
Frederick Odenbach studied at Canisius College, Buffalo, New York, where he was graduated in the spring of 1881. The following September he entered the Society of Jesus and was sent to Europe for training. Going to the Netherlands, he made his novitiate at Blijenbeck and his philosophical and scientific studies at Exaaten, where he came into contact with the noted biologist, Erich Wasmann, S. J. In 1887, Frederick went to England and spent the next four years in the study of theology at Ditton Hall and was ordained to the Catholic priesthood.
Upon his return to the United States in the autumn of 1892, Frederick Odenbach joined the faculty of Saint Ignatius College, which in 1923 became John Carroll University, Cleveland, Ohio. For the first ten years he was professor of physics and chemistry, and thereafter professor of astronomy and meteorology. Together with George E. Rueppel, S. J. , who followed him to Cleveland in 1894 from Canisius College, he laid plans for a meteorological observatory. The first observations were made in 1896. Gradually he expanded the meteorological equipment, in part by purchase, but in large degree by his own construction, for he was a skillful mechanic.
In 1898, to Odenbach's great delight, he was confronted with the task of reassembling and putting into working order the thousand and one pieces of the Secchi meteorograph which had been placed at his disposal by the Smithsonian Institution. This large universal meteorograph had been designed and built by the famous astronomer and meteorologist Angelo Secchi, S. J. , for the Paris Exposition and had there won a prize. It had been purchased by the Smithsonian Institution for use by the United States Signal Corps, but on the creation of the Weather Bureau in 1891 the meteorograph had reverted to the Smithsonian and had been disassembled and stored. The secretary, Samuel P. Langley, on the suggestion of C. F. Marvin of the Weather Bureau, offered it to Father Odenbach. In three days after its arrival the latter had it ready for operation.
In 1899, Frederick designed and built the first ceraunograph. It was an adaptation of the Branly coherer to the detection and continuous recording of the static disturbances that are commonly associated with thunderstorms. A year later he began a seismological observatory. For this purpose he designed and built a horizontal pendulum with a Hengler-Z liner type of suspension. He also built an accelerograph consisting of a suspended mass resting at its sides against two pairs of carbon microphones in the cardinal points of the compass. In 1909 he conceived and proposed a plan for a cooperative seismological program in which all the Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States and Canada were invited to participate. As a result of his enthusiastic sponsorship the Jesuit Seismological Service was formed and eighteen Wiechert seismographs of the smaller type were purchased and put into operation under his general direction. He thus became the founder of Jesuit seismological activity in the United States.
Frederick's last years were spent in preparing for and overseeing the transfer of his observatory from its old quarters in west Cleveland to the new campus of John Carroll University at University Heights. He died in Cleveland, following a month's illness from an abdominal disorder.
Frederick Odenbach was a small, vivacious man of rather striking appearance, with a broad forehead, bright eyes, bushy mustache, and well-trimmed goatee.
