Carl Joseph Wenzinger was born Jan 10, 1903, in Philadelphia, the firstborn son of Charles Joseph and Martha Elizabeth (Noll) Wenzinger. He had a younger brother Edward Jacob (Ed), born October 10, 1906 (d. Mar 30, 1981), and a younger sister Elizabeth (called Betty, also known as "Sis"), born September 12, 1912 (d. Aug 19, 1995). Carl also had an older sister, Florence (who was stillborn on November 24, 1901) and a younger sister, Martha Elizabeth (born April 12, 1910, and died after 8 hours). The photo at left shows Carl (right) with younger siblings Ed and Elizabeth at Beach Haven, NJ, where their parents owned a cottage at 109 E. 13th Street. Today, the cottage is owned by Elizabeth's three children (Russ Morgan, Gwendolyn Morgan White, and Martha Morgan).
Carl graduated from Northeast High School in Philadelphia, located on Cottman Ave., in February 1921, as evidenced by the school’s graduation program of that date. He then attended Swarthmore College, earning a degree in electrical engineering and graduating at the top of his class in 1925.
At Swarthmore, Carl was active in the Radio Club (serving as its president) and was a member of Sigma Tau engineering honor society. An excerpt from the 1925 Swarthmore yearbook shows him as a rather dapper looking twenty-two-year-old, dressed in a suit and tie and holding a pipe in his right hand. Another page from the same yearbook shows him living at 4849 C St., Philadelphia, at the time of his graduation. (By then he was married to Emma Kaelin.) A later NASA history document, p. 28, indicates that Carl also held a Masters Degree in mechanical engineering from Swarthmore (1929).
Carl spent the years 1927-46 at the NACA (now NASA) Langley Aeronautical Laboratory (Hampton, VA), where he contributed to the development of high-left and lateral-control devices for aircraft. His work may have involved the use of the world's first full-scale wind tunnel, which opened at Langley Field in 1931. (Read more about the full-scale tunnel here.) He also served as Head of the 19-foot high-pressure tunnel (c. 1939-42); see NASA Key Personnel 1938-1958, p. 21. While at Langley, Carl authored or co-authored at least 39 technical papers during the period 1928-41. Much of his research was conducted while working with aviation pioneer Fred Weick, who worked at Langley from 1925-29 and 1930-36.
During WW II, Carl served in the United States Navy as officer-in-charge (with the rank of Lieutenant Commander) of the aeronautical laboratory at the David Taylor Model Basin (Bethesda, MD) and then traveled on a special mission to Europe to investigate aerodynamic and propulsion activities of the Germans and French.
Moving to St. Louis in 1949, Carl held the position of Principal Engineer and Head of the Aeronautical section at Sverdrup & Parcel Engineering Company. While with that firm, he presented a talk entitled "The Story of Tullahoma" at a conference held at Georgia Tech in April 1952. (Tullahoma was home to the Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC), where the Air Force and NASA did early wind tunnel testing.) The announcement of the conference appears on p. 1 of the April 18, 1952, edition of The Technique, the Georgia Tech newspaper.
While living in St. Louis (and after 28 years of marriage), Carl divorced his wife Emma in 1952. Several months later, he married Ruth H. Widmer (b. Jan 28, 1909; d. Dec 24, 2002) on July 12, 1952, in Hillsboro, MO (see marriage license). In the aftermath of the divorce, Carl was estranged from sons Carl Jr. and George. As a result, Carl's four grandchildren - Leigh, Karen, Ron and Don - had very little contact with their grandfather during their lives.
In the late 1950s, Carl and Ruth moved to Chicago, where Carl served as Executive Engineer, Advance Planning, at the Cook Research Laboratories Division of Cook Electric Company. Carl's granddaughter Karen has a vague recollection of meeting her grandfather for the first time at a restaurant in Chicago during the time she was living in Michigan City, IN with her parents, Carl Jr. and Dottie, and siblings Leigh and Ron. (Younger brother Don hadn't yet been born.)
It was while working at Cook that Carl authored this 1959 Aero/Space Engineering article.
Carl and Ruth eventually retired to Seabrook, MD, where they lived when Carl passed away on December 24, 1988. Carl's grave is located in the family plot at the West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, PA; see details at findagrave.com. Ruth died on December 24, 2002.
The photo above shows four generations of Wenzingers: Carl Sr (left), Carl Jr (right), Carl Jr's daughter Karen,and Karen's infant daughter Eva (Holtz). Photo taken at Carl Sr's home in Seabrook, MD, in the summer of 1980.
