Foreword
This biography was written between 2011 and 2022, long after most events took place, and memory can be an unreliable guide. Its contents are based on my recollections; others may remember matters differently.
When I was born, our family lived in extraordinary luxury, supported by trusts inherited in 1931 upon the death of my great-grandmother, Anna Woerishoffer (née Uhl). I remember being surrounded by butlers, chambermaids, gamekeepers, and the like.
The Woerishoffer trusts provided my father with a substantial annual income, perhaps €2-3 million in today’s terms, which he devoted entirely to the leisures of a gentleman—racehorses in England and Austria, safaris in Africa and India, exotic travel, and much more. However, it was Wasserburg that cost the most.
From 1925 until the Anschluss in 1938, and later, after the Staatsvertrag in 1955, maintaining Wasserburg and its Downton Abbey lifestyle must have cost €80-100,000 a month in today’s terms. Things got tight when the dollar started to lose its value in the 1970s (see In Retrospect)
Before the Second World War, my father had two properties—Wasserburg and Albrechtsfeld, a farm in Burgenland. He made it known that he had two estates, one for each son. However, neither property was passed on to either son.
There were two further properties: Haus Seilern in Kitzbühel (1947–1958?) and an apartment building in Lausanne (1957–), both paid for by the US Trust Company out of the Woerishoffer trusts.
My relationship with my father was always strained. He led the life of a wealthy gentleman, while I was trying to make my mark. He was 35 years older than me and the distance in age was apparent.
My early years were shaped by what I saw and my belief that this was the way one lived. As a teenager, I remember thinking what a wonderful family we had and how lucky I was.
Disappointment sunk in over time. The parents and sisters lived a traditional Austrian lifestayle - it was 'Herr Graf', 'Frau Gräfin', and being addressed per-Sie (even at times in “the third Person” – haben Herr Graf noch einen Wunsch), and no proper education, let alone attending a university or holding a job.
In those days women were not encouraged to have careers. Regrettably both Nettie and Henriette never held a job. I remember talking to Mami about this a long time ago and she replied "if the girls had a job it would be taking work away from somebody else". That was the generally accepted practice for persons of wealth in those days.
Members of my generation and even some of my nephews and nieces have not kept pace with the times. This failure to adapt has taken its toll forcing the Seilerns to once again return to more humble settings.
When Uncle Antoine died in 1978, I inherited (largely because nobody else was interested) a trunk filled with letters, documents, certificates, bank statements, etc. that he most probably had inherited from his grandmother, Anna Woerishoffer.
It contained more than 2'000 documents, and in 2001 I decided to archive them. It turned out to be a trove of information filling 35 folders, tracing our family’s history back to the mid-19th century.
I was also able to find a book entitled "Carola Woerishoffer, Her Life and Work" published by the Class of 1907 of Bryn Mawr College in 1912. Hers was an extraordinary and all-too-short a life.
Although the Seilern name is referred to abundantly, we are most indebted to those who do not bear our name. They are Anna Behr, Jakob Uhl (Anna's first husband), Oswald Ottendorfer (Anna's second husband) and especially my great-grandfather Charles F. Woerishoffer.
All my parents ever mentioned was that my great-grandparents owned the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung and that this was the source of our wealth. That was not quite true.
My father never spoke of his grandfather, Charles Frederick Woerishoffer — one of the most prominent figures on Wall Street, whose estate far surpassed the value of the Staats-Zeitung. I discovered this only later, while sifting through New York Times articles written after his death, and reading Henry Clews’s Fifty Years in Wall Street.
My father knew his grandmother well (he was 32 at the time she died) and it is strange that she never talked about her husband. Or did she? Only much later, when going through the archived papers did I learn a different story.
Anna Uhl and her husband founded the NY Staats-Zeitung which was left to their son Edward Uhl when she died in 1884 (p.14). Anna Woerishoffer (her youngest daughter) inherited only personal belongings at the death of her mother.
And for good reason - she had married Charles F. Woerishoffer who was far wealthier than his in-laws.
CFW died in 1886 at the early age of 42 leaving an immense fortune to both her and their two daughters, Antoinette and Emma Carola. Carlo Seilern only came into the picture around 1897, 11 years later.
The devoted efforts of these once-impoverished and hard-working German immigrants allowed the Seilerns to once again see a brighter future. What they did with that good fortune is another matter.
What follows is a mixture of anecdotes and memories — fragments of a family story pieced together over time.
PS 36
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