Iowa History Project
Harlan, Edgar Rubey.
A Narrative History of the People of Iowa.
Vol III. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1931
p. 340
KALMAN SPELLETICH, who bears a name long honored and
respected in Scott County, Iowa, where his grandfather, a Hungarian patriot, was
one of the pioneer settlers, is a Davenport industrial leader, one of the heads
of one of the largest organizations in the city's industrial life, the
Gordon-Van Tine Company. The Gordon-Van Tine Company is a national organization,
specialists in building material and ready cut materials for houses, and the
corporation operates mills at Saint Louis, in Mississippi, and Washington, and
ships material not only throughout the United States, but even to distant
foreign lands. Gordon-Van Tine homes are found as far away as Japan and South
Africa.
The Gordon-Van Tine Company was established in 1865,
when Davenport was one of the largest saw mill centers in the Mississippi
Valley, receiving the logs after a short transport down the Mississippi and its
tributaries from the pine forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The company has
maintained its business and executive headquarters at Davenport long since the
city ceased to be an important center of practical lumber manufacturing.
Mr. Kalman Spelletich, the vice president of the
company, was born on a farm in Scott County, Iowa, January 25, 1885, son of
Michael and Isabelle (Stevens) Spelletich. He is a grandson of Felix Spelletich,
a native of Hungary, a follower of the great Kossuth in the disastrous
revolution of 1848 and at one time a governor general of a southern province in
Hungary. Felix Spelletich after the collapse of the liberal movement in Central
Europe came to America and in 1851 settled on the farm in Scott County, Iowa,
where his grandson Kalman was born. He had endured imprisonment and other
indignities as a result of his participation in the revolutionary movement and
finally escaped and in disguise went to England. He came to America with a large
group of cultured and prominent Hungarian families who were refugees. Another
member of the same group was Nicholas Fejervary, who for many years was a
leading citizen of Davenport. After his death his daughter gave their beautiful
home and several acres of land to the city, and it is now one of Davenport's
beauty spots and is called Fejervary Park. Davenport for three quarters of a
century has owed much to the character and activities of these Hungarian
colonists and their descendants.
In 1867 Felix Spelletich returned to Hungary, after the
old factional enmities had subsided and reared his family there. His son Michael
had remained in America, on the farm in Scott County, and became a highly
respected and prominent citizen, serving as justice of the peace and as a member
of the school board. His brother Stephan Spelletich was a member of the old
Second Regiment of Iowa in the Union army, and because of an act of bravery on
his part in the siege of Fort Donelson became known as the hero of Fort Donelson
and was given special recognition by Governor Kirkwood of Iowa.
Mr. Kalman Spelletich was educated in the grade and
high schools of Davenport, had his preparatory work in Chicago and in 1906
graduated Bachelor of Science from Princeton University. He has been with the
Gordon-Van Tine Company for over twenty years, practically ever since leaving
the university, and has been in every department of the plant, a training that
has stood him in good stead as the present executive head of this great
business. He was promoted to sales manager and vice president, and is also vice
president of the U.N. Roberts Company, manufacturers of mill work and lumber at
Davenport. Kalman Spelletich married, in 1917, Hilda Von Korff, a native of
Davenport. Her grandfather, Jacob Nabstedt, came to Davenport in 1870 and for
many years was in the jewelry business. The Von Korffs were a family of German
nobility. Mr. and Mrs. Spelletich have four children, Hilda Kaye, Kalman, Jr.,
Madeline and Stephan Michael.
Mr. Spelletich's business activities are centered in
the Gordon-Van Tine Company and its allied organizations, one of which is the
McClellan Company of which he is secretary. He is a member of the Davenport
Chamber of Commerce, Outing Club, as one of the founders and first secretary of
the Country Club, is on the vestry of Trinity Cathedral, Episcopal, and a
trustee of Saint Katherine's School of Davenport.