Siegmar Muehl
MUEHL, PHILLIPS, SILVER, MEEHL
Posted By: Sarah Fletcher (email)
Date: 10/9/2015 at 10:02:28
Siegmar Muehl, 93, of Iowa City, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, September 30, 2015 at Oaknoll Retirement Residence. Born on September 5, 1922 in Indianapolis, IN to Siegmar and Agnes Lane Muehl, he attended Purdue U. and served as Lt. during WWII in the European theater. He married Lois Virginia Baker in Columbia SC, 1944. After the war, under the GI Bill he received an MA in Philosophy from The University of Chicago, a Masters Degree and teaching certificate from Geneseo State Teacher's College, and later a PhD in Educational Psychology from The University of Iowa.
Muehl began his post-war career learning Russian to become an intelligence analyst, translating Russian radio intercepts. Later he became an elementary school teacher in upstate NY, taught at Cortland State Teacher's College, the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station and the College of Education where he served for a number of years as director of the Children's Reading Clinic. His research interests centered on the beginning reading process and reading disability.
In the mid-60s, he and his wife, Lois, helped recruit and organize a summer education program at the UI for a group of black students from Rust College in Holly Springs, MS, and served as host family for one of those students. In that same decade, the couple participated for two years in a special freshman program for African-American students at Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte, NC. More recently, they taught English to Hmong and Khmer refugees in Thailand and California. They also taught English at Kungnam U. in South Korea and Hehai U. in Nanjing, China.
Muehl's other interests included gardening, painting and writing in the area of German-American history. He served for several years on the United Way Planning Committee and the Heritage Agency on Aging.
His wife Lois died in 2013.They had been married just short of 70 years. He is survived by four children: Erika Phillips of Salem, MA, Sigrid Silver and husband, Larry of Port Washington. NY, twin sons Torsten of Forest Park, IL and Brian Meehl [sic] and wife Cindy of Redding, CT, and five grandchildren, Kira, Jared, Laura, Holly and Kendall.
No services are planned. The body has been donated to the UI. Anatomy Dept. Donations in his memory may be made to Iowa City Hospice.
Lensing Funeral & Cremation Service
Johnson Obituaries maintained by Cindy Booth Maher.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen