Background
Leo Maximilian Kaiser was born on December 5, 1918, in Saint Louis, Missouri, United States. He was the son of Max J. and Rose C. (Speh) Kaiser.
1 N Grand Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63103, United States
In 1940, Kaiser received a Bachelor of Arts from St. Louis University.
Urbana, IL 61801
In 1941, Kaiser received a Master of Arts from the University of Illinois and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1943.
educator translator author editor,
Leo Maximilian Kaiser was born on December 5, 1918, in Saint Louis, Missouri, United States. He was the son of Max J. and Rose C. (Speh) Kaiser.
In 1940, Kaiser received a Bachelor of Arts from St. Louis University. The next year, he received a Master of Arts from the University of Illinois and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1943.
During the 1940s, Kaiser worked on his Ph.D. under Dr. Oldfather at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Leo continued as a research assistant for the next several years under Dr. Oldfather there during the fall and winter semesters. During the summer months, he worked in St. Louis at various jobs. One summer, Leo worked at a dynamite plant in Weldon Springs as an inspector for Shell Oil Co. (this was wartime). At the end of the summer, his boss asked him to stay on, but Leo told him he was working on his Ph.D. In 1943, Leo received his Ph.D. from Illinois, and then remained there as a teacher.
In the fall of 1947, Leo was hired by St. Louis University to teach in the Classics Department. This was right after the war, and there was an influx of students studying under the G.I. Bill. During the summer of 1948, he taught a summer session at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. By the spring of 1951, enrollment had fallen off and Leo, last hired, was first fired from St. Louis University.
No teaching jobs opened up, so for a year or so Leo worked as a hod (plaster) carrier for Mueth Plastering Co., which was owned by his father-in-law, Wallace P. Mueth. Leo made a great friendship with his brother-in-law, Walter Mueth, who helped him over many hurdles. In the fall of 1952, Leo moved the family to Philadelphia to teach German and the Classics at St. Joseph's College. He became the head of the German Department, but he continued to miss the mid-west, and worked hard to find a teaching job closer to his native St. Louis.
Finally in 1954, Leo found his final teaching home. The family moved to Chicago, where he began a long tenure at Loyola University until he retired in 1986. At Loyola, he taught German in addition to the Classics for a few years before concentrating on the Classics. For many years, Leo was on a nine-month contract and taught a summer semester at St. Louis University. Those were the years that the family camped at the homes of Leo and Aurelia's parents on Finkman and Milentz Avenues in south St. Louis. Later on, Leo signed a twelve-month contract each year at Loyola, something that put him very much at ease.
An accomplished translator of classical works, Kaiser’s specialty was the meticulous research that went into his translations. His first work, for which he also served as editor, was the 1960 Thoreau’s Translation of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. Some of his later works include Index Verborum in Ciceronis Rhetorica, which he wrote with K.M. Abbott, Census of American Latin Verse, and Early American Latin Verse, published in 1984. Kaiser, a member of the American Classical League, contributed writings to such publications as Renaissance Quarterly.
Leo Kaiser was a member of the American Philological Association, American Classical League, and Classical Association of Middle West and South.
On May 26, 1945, Kaiser married Aurelia T. Mueth. The couple had six children - Gerold, Joan, Leo, James, Andrea, and Jeffrey.