{"id":4121,"date":"2010-08-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=4121"},"modified":"2014-09-21T17:38:57","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T00:38:57","slug":"history-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=4121","title":{"rendered":"History in the Making"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Boehm<\/a>

Boehm Family Photo by V. Smith, courtesy Boehm Group<\/p><\/div>\n

Eric Boehm & Family<\/strong><\/p>\n

Honoring the past while looking toward the future has been a recurring theme throughout the 92 years of Eric Boehm’s life and his most recent venture, Boehm Biography Group<\/a>, brings together three generations of his own family-son Steven, 49, and grandson Jeff, 25-to help others preserve their heritage and create meaningful legacies.<\/p>\n

Boehm’s brush with history began just before World War II in 1934, when his German-Jewish parents’ prescient concerns about their son’s future stirred them to ship 16-year-old Eric from Hof, Germany, to live with his aunt and uncle in Youngstown, Ohio. “If you have to leave home, my suggestion is the time to leave is when you’re 16 years old, because you are young enough to adapt and old enough to be looking for adventure,” twinkles Eric, as he recalls his early life in America.<\/p>\n

By the time his parents and brother had escaped Germany in 1941, Eric had received a B.A. from the College of Wooster and was working on his M.A. from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Those diplomatic skills came into play almost immediately, when he served a critical role in helping dissolve the Supreme Command of the Luftwaffe in Germany at the end of World War II. In a life with many high points, this experience stands out as one of the most significant, says Eric, whose work as an intelligence officer and interrogator is detailed in a new book, The Enemy I Knew (Zenith Press, 2009) by Steven Karras.<\/p>\n

After leaving the military, Eric continued to work for the U.S. government in Germany as part of the press scrutiny board, reviewing German newspapers to glean information. While there, he met his wife, Inge Pauli. His cocker spaniel puppy played matchmaker for the couple. ” I took him to work with me every once in a while and he would disappear. He kept going upstairs looking and seeing if Fraulein Pauli was there,” laughs Eric. “She had been feeding him.”<\/p>\n

The couple married in a double wedding ceremony with Eric’s brother and sister-in-law in Blake Wood, Illinois in 1948 and worked together until Inge died a decade ago. They had four children: two girls that died as children and two sons, Ronald and Steven, who live in Santa Barbara. If not for an encounter with anti-Semitism from a chemical company, Eric might have become a chemist rather than a historian. He was shattered after losing a job he thought was a sure thing. His history professor pulled some strings, and, unbeknownst to Eric at the time, created a job for him at the University of Massachusetts. While completing his doctoral studies at Yale, Eric published a collection of personal accounts of survival in Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n

This passion for preserving knowledge led Eric and Inge to found historical bibliography company ABC-CLIO<\/a> in 1955. The family and the company moved to Santa Barbara in 1960, soon after they spotted the while town en route to Los Angeles for a vacation. “We said you know, this is a nice place. On our way back let’s stop,” says Eric. “Then we took a hotel room by the beach … and one night here turned into two nights and three nights and four nights and while we were here we looked at houses.” The rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\n

Son Ronald now runs what has grown to become an international academic publishing enterprise.<\/p>\n

About five years ago, the family founded Boehm Group. “At 87, I was too young to retire, but I was too old to spell bibliography, so I spelled biography,” smiles Eric, who credits his health and longevity mostly to good genetics. “My father died at 98, and I had a great grandfather who died at 98. The name of one of my ancestors is Liverecht, which translates to ‘live right,’-that’s what I try to do.”<\/p>\n

In addition to producing individuals’ biographies to preserve family stories and institutional biographies, such as an upcoming coffee table book commemorating the 100th anniversary of Santa Barbara City College, Boehm Group plans to develop an online program that will offer college degrees in biography, explains Jeff, who is responsible for the technical project management.<\/p>\n

“I see huge potential and it’s in the family business-plus I get to spend time with my grandfather and my father,” says Jeff, who affectionately calls his “Opa” (German for grandpa) Eric only when they’re in work mode. “I thought that I’d want to spend time doing something on my own, but this is something exciting that they’re starting new and I’m creating it with them.”<\/p>\n

“The idea of working together, making it a family enterprise had meaning to me that I enjoyed,” says Eric. “What greater thing could you have than having a grandfather working with his son and grandson? It’s a real joy.”<\/p>\n

Originally published in Santa Barbara Magazine<\/a>\u00a0In Spring 2010.<\/h6>\n

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