Commander Karl E. Stein, a travel filmmaker, explorer and mariner who raced sailboats on Lake Michigan well into his 90s has died. He was 102.
After graduating from Brown University he joined an exploratory expedition and spent many months tracing the Mayan civilizations in the jungles of Honduras for the Museum of American Indian.
He followed this as a member of the Snyder Mountain Expedition that photographed and surveyed unmapped areas in the Canadian Northwest Territories along the Yukon border. He also collected wild animal specimens for the Museum of Natural History in New York and National Museum in Ottawa.
He said the sea had always attracted him from the time of his boyhood in Manhattan. As a Coast Guard commander in World War II, he saw action in the South Pacific, the Arctic and the Mediterranean. He met his wife of 67 years, the former Flora Meyer, on a 1942 shore leave.
After the war he entered the hide business, which brought the couple to Chicago in 1952. He bought hides from the city’s slaughterhouses to sell to tanneries.
Commander Stein;s racing career was noted in the Chicago Tribune in 2003.
In 1972, he bought a 16mm camera and began a second career as a travel film producer, concentrating for the most part on countries in Asia, including South Korea, Thailand, Ceylon, India; also Iran, Brazil and Morocco. Flora played an integral part in the filmmaking. They retired in the early 1990s.
Karl was an ardent sailor all his adult life, participating in the rugged annual Mackinac Race, between Chicago and Mackinac Island—333 miles—the world’s longest fresh-water race.
He was interviewed by the Chicago Tribune in 2005 when he participated in his 30th race—at age 97—on the 33-foot Liberty. ”What are your duties,” asked the reporter. “I would say I’m a general advisor. I hope my experience will help us stay with the wind.”
He followed that credo all his life: Staying with the wind.
Clay Ballou Dies
Clay Ballou film partner of John Roberts died March 16 in Bradenton, Florida. He had been suffering from respiratory problems for some time.
Since Roberts’ death he had been custodian of Roberts many films.
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I remember Karl and Flora well. Flora was a seamtress and was proud of the fact that she made her own dresses and hats. In looking back on the early conventions I remember Flora’s outfits as much as I remember the films. They were very kind and gentle people. Karl will be missed.
Doug Jones