Before getting copies of the Street & Smith manuscript cards, I spent a lot of time researching Paul A. Rothenberger. Even after reviewing the cards, I still concentrated on the Rothenberger name. The results were discouraging. At one point, I considered whether the name was an alias used by Street & Smith assistant editor Morris Ogden Jones. After all, he was credited with writing four of the exercises on the manuscript cards. But it seemed illogical that his name would only appear once out of the dozen listings. The single entry for Rosenberg instead of Rosenberger seemed more like a typographical error than a clue. However, it was something that had to be investigated before eliminating.
Most of my research came from Newspapers.com and Ancestry.com. The site at Archive.org was also useful. After several hours, I finally found something that was interesting. It was a newspaper article from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle dated June 13, 1939. It noted that four men from Brooklyn had received their medical degrees from Middlesex University at Waltham, Massachusetts. Paul Rothenberg was one of those men.
In the back of my mind, I had the impression of having read somewhere that the author was a doctor. I did an internet search and found an article “The Man of Bronze, Doc Savage In Print and on Film” by John A. Small. This was at the pjfarmer.com site. The author noted that the exercises, “The Doc Savage Method of Self-Development,” had been written by Dr. Paul Rothenberger and Morris Ogden Jones.
I revisited the genealogy databases at Ancestry.com and soon found some information. It probably took a solid twenty hours of work to compile a history for Paul A. Rothenberg. I found his mother’s obituary at Legacy.com which provided some helpful information.
Both of Paul’s parents immigrated to the United States from Russia. His father, Maurice F. Rothenberg (1881-1932) entered the country in 1896. His mother, Elizabeth Stern (b1887), came to the U. S. in 1906.
Maurice and Elizabeth were married on February 23, 1910, in New York City. Their address was listed as 77 Second Avenue. Paul’s brother, David Maurice Rosenberg, was born in 1912. The 1915 New York State Census showed the family at 786 Hart Street as of July 1, 1915. Paul A. Rothenberg was born a few months later on November 4, 1915. Maurice’s occupation was listed as dentist.
Maurice’s draft card dated September 10, 1918. shows the family was still living at Hart Street in Brooklyn but the address listed was now 806.
The 1920 US Census lists the family address at 258 Greene Avenue. Maurice worked as a dentist.
The 1925 NY Census listed the family address at 1040 Bushwick Ave. It noted that Maurice was naturalized in 1910. The same address is listed for the 1930 US Census.
Maurice F. passed away on June 25, 1932, in Kings, New York, at the age of fifty-one.
Paul received his medical degree on June 12, 1939.
His next record is his draft card, dated October 16, 1941. Paul was working at Conemaugh Valley Hospital in Johnston, Pennsylvania. He listed his brother, David, who lived at 1254 Union Street, Brooklyn, New York as the person who would always know his location.
Paul married Taube Nathanson on December 31, 1944. The two met at the hospital on Long Island where they both worked.
Paul next appeared in an article dated November 8, 1945, in The Brooklyn Eagle. Paul is located at Camp Campbell in Kentucky where he was the dispensary officer. The article noted that Paul served with the 104th Evacuation Hospital which was part of the 5th Division. During the war, he was stationed across Europe in France, Luxemburg, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and German. His awards included four battle stars and a Bronze Star. He was discharged from the army on May 8, 1946.
By 1950, Paul was a father and worked at a Veterans Administration mental hospital in Ross, Ohio. It appears that he and his family lived on the hospital site since early 1947.
A 1962 newspaper articles places Paul at the V.A. hospital in Albany, New York. After retiring, he lived in Delmar, New York where he died on October 16, 1997.
Albany Medical College – 1954