Leica we know for cameras and how Leitz came to Midland is for another day.
This sketch is of Walter Mandler, a Pioneer, that term applied to the first technicians that came from Wetzlar, Germany to Midland.
Dr. Walter Mandler, a Physicist (summa cum laude), specialized in optics as the V.P Research and Development for Leitz Canada. Legendary. Genius. Both apply, humanity would be another. A sense of humour? Absolutely. 45 Leica lens designs at least. Double Gauss lens design his speciality.
Don’t ask me, just wonder.
All voices with German accents and recounted as accurately as possible with regional dialects taken into consideration. No one was injured “Jünge Hackstetter!” looking imperiously at my long hair and thinking…. Hippie. This was 1971. Revolution in full swing.
“Make me a sheath for my hunting knife!”
Herr. Dr. Mandler was visiting my old man and likely they were swapping war stories.
I had been part of the visit and for some reason, he knew I was doing leatherwork.
His daughter Claudia and I were contemporaries at MSS.
“Perhaps you would be interested in taking up a joint project ?”he queried. Joint… Oh….Project, uh huh.
He would furnish the design, oak leaves and acorns, in this case, and I would construct and finish?
He did not so much request, as instruct, guide, as he took me in hand. A light touch, but steel underneath., let’s not mince about.
The core of a riding crop comes to mind for some reason. Was it true that he was the youngest cavalry officer in the German Army?
I wondered….odd scar on his cheek..bit like my Opa. Duelling? What ideas we had in those days.
The project was cut, stitched, tooled and he saw the work met his mark. If he was needing a knife sheath, fine, if vetting me for Leitz, another story.
I worked in the leather industry for many years.
We met again thirty years later, on King Street. We talked and he suggested I come visit, talk, and see my handiwork after all these years. It was in perfect shape as well taken care of as the day it left the shop.
He brought out filter café and chocolate biscuits from Germany and we talked. Ancestral urgings aside, both reminded me of my Oma - same coffee, cookies and the same delicious scent.
Focus, meticulous attention to detail and the most advanced physics of light, refraction and all those manifold problems that are at the cutting edge of optical science were the bailiwick of Dr. Mandler.
If we want to recount a memory we cherish, this experience would be one of them.
How can we not reflect what we see and feel and, if our memory serves us well, these thoughts revive us precisely because we polish the lens of memory.
René Hackstetter April 21, 2021.
