SIMON WOLF
WOLF, SIMON, lawyer, diplomat, humanitarian, of Washington, District of Columbia, was born in Himzweiler, Bavaria, October 28, 1836, son of Levi and Amalia Wolf. He is of Hebrew lineage, and one of the most forceful representatives of that people in contemporary American life.
In 1848, when but twelve years of age, he came with his grandparents to this country, and spent his boyhood in the State of Ohio, where he was early inducted into mercantile life. Possessed of more than the ordinary amount of ambition, however, and an omnivorous reader, he soon began the study of law, was graduated from the Ohio law college at Cleveland, Ohio, and was admitted to the bar at New Philadelphia, Ohio, in July, 1861. He practised at the latter place one year, and then removed to Washington, District of Columbia, where he formed a law partnership with Captain Abraham Hart, and entered at once upon a successful legal career in the District and Federal courts. From 1869 to 1878, he held the office of recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia, under appointment of Presidents Grant and Hayes. At the expiration of this period he resumed the practice of law, coordinating with it the insurance business. In 1881-82 he served as United States consul general at Cairo, Egypt, with ministerial powers.
A man of large public spirit, broad human sympathies and practical views, he has been identified with many movements for the betterment of his race in America and in other lands. He founded the Hebrew Orphan Home, at Atlanta, Georgia, of which he is still the head; he is president of the Ruppert Home for the Aged and Indigent, a unique charity near Anacostia, District of Columbia; is a director of the German Orphan Asylum of the District of Columbia; a member of the Board of Charities, since 1900; a member of the executive committee, Order of B'nai-B'rith, a philanthropic Hebrew Association; a director of the Garfield Hospital of Washington, and of a number of other humane and benevolent organizations.
