Otto Struve - Moving To The US

Moving To The US

The German origin of Struves and the military history of Otto Struve with the White Russian Army took its toll. To avoid repressions of the Bolsheviks, his family had to move from Kharkiv to Sevastopol which was still under control of the White Army. There, a series of tragedies took away most of the family: the youngest sister Elizabeth drowned, brother Werner died from tuberculosis, and father was taken by a stroke on November 4, 1920. Whereas his mother and sister returned to Kharkiv, on November 16–17, 1920, Otto followed the escaping Wrangel's Army. With a military transport, he escaped from Sevastopol to Turkey and never returned to Russia since then. He was later invited several times to conferences in the Soviet Union, but for various reasons declined to attend.

During the year and a half that Otto spent in exile in Gallipoli and later in Constantinople, he became an impoverished refugee, eating at relief agencies and taking any job he could find. For some time, he worked as a woodcutter, sleeping with fellow Russian officers, 6 people in a tent. One night, a neighboring tent was hit by lightning, killing everyone inside. Struve wrote to his uncle Hermann Struve in Germany for assistance, without knowing that the latter had died a few months earlier, on August 12, 1920. However, the widow of Hermann, Eva Struve, contacted Paul Guthnick, her late husband's successor at the Berlin-Babelsberg Observatory. Germany itself was suffering after the wars, and there was little chance to obtain a position for a Russian there. Therefore, Guthnick wrote, on December 25, 1920, to the director of Yerkes Observatory in Chicago Edwin B. Frost asking position for Struve. He received a reply on January 27, 1921, where Frost promised to do his best. On March 2, 1921, Frost wrote to Struve, offering him a position at Yerkes. Given his situation in Turkey, it was a lucky chance that Struve received that letter. On March 11, Struve sent a reply, thanking for the offer and accepting it. The letter was formally written in English but with German grammar, revealing the poor English proficiency of Struve (When they later met in US, they spoke in German). Struve also acknowledged that he had no experience in spectral astrophysics. Nevertheless, when applying for his position, Frost mentioned that "I am perfectly willing to take him on his lineage .. We regard Otto Struve as first-class spectroscopist and astrophysicist " and that his degree in Kharkiv was equivalent to a doctor degree (which Struve never claimed and which was hardly so). It took several months to arrange for travel documents and funding. In late August 1921, Struve received his visa and travel tickets at the US Consulate in Turkey. In September, he boarded S.S. Hog Island and on October 7, 1921, arrived in New York. He was met there, put on the train, and 2 days later arrived in Chicago.