Courtesy of Hamilton College
On April 16, in an email to the Hamilton community, President Wippman informed students, faculty, and staff of the passing of Life Trustee Hans Schambach ’43. He was 97.
As the nephew of a couple who worked as custodians and cooks at the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity house, Schambach was raised on Hamilton’s campus and maintained a generous lifelong connection to his alma mater.
He was born in 1921 in Germany, and immigrated to the United States at age 14 to live with his aunt and uncle. Schambach graduated from local schools in Clinton and began to work his way through college, but was interred by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service in North Dakota due to his German heritage during World War II.
Following his graduation from Hamilton after the war, Schambach founded the Hamilton Cast Corporation, which created metals for the jewelry industry, and was named for his alma mater. The firm merged with the Atlantic Oil Copraton in 1972 and Schambach became Chairman of the Board of the merged companies. He retired in 1980, and devoted his time to overseeing a vineyard and attached winery in Italy, and to collecting rare musical instruments.
Schambach, who attended Hamilton on a scholarship, began to donate heavily to the College following his retirement. In 1983, he lent his rare musical instrument collection, including two Stradivarius violins, to the Emerson Gallery (the predecessor to Wellin Museum). The same year, he donated $1 million to endow a scholarship to fund students with financial need, which at the time was the largest single scholarship endowment at the College. He made the financial donation to repay what he saw as a “debt to the people of Central New York, the College, and the country.”
The Hans H. Schambach Scholarships are “awarded to first-year students of outstanding -personal and academic promise who are likely to make a significant contribution to the College and to benefit substantially from their undergraduate experience, and preference is given to applicants from the Clinton, N.Y., area.” Furthermore, the Bristol and Schambach Scholars Program, which is also named for William M. Bristol ’17, recognises the students who represent the highest levels of personal and academic achievement for each incoming class.
Schambach also contributed to the Schambach Center for Music and the Performing Arts, which houses the Wellin Auditorium, and provides space for research and studying for students in those disciplines.
Schambach was first elected as an alumni trustee in 1980, and was later selected to serve as a charter trustee in 1983. He was later appointed as a life trustee.
In 1998, he received a honorary degree from the College, in recognition of the contributions he had made to the College, both as a student and as an alumus.
