The following was sent by Elma (Buehler) Lehmann to her cousin Walter Johnston's son Wesley in 1987. I have added some square-bracketed notations and reformatted the text for easier reading.

He belonged to a swimming club in Germany, in which he won many medals. Also he liked to race cars on the German Autobahn. He took his wife once on it but it was first and last time she went on it because it was too fast. [WJ: I can not find any documentation that any part of the Autobahns in Germany was constructed until 1929, 5 years after Eric left Germany. So I cannot tell what road was actually the one that he drove his wife on.] After the War [WWI] he worked on delicate instruments for the German Navy.

He was a captain in the 35th Division in the German Army during World War I. He was also a prisoner of war in France for two years after the war ended in 1918. When Germany and France exchanged prisoners or war he happened to be one of them.

The family name was originally VON LEHMANN in Germany. His father disowned him from using the Von because Eric married Minnie Schemel, a commoner. Her parents owned a small farm. His fahter had a high ranking position in the Army and cme from wealthy parents and was wealthy himself.

So that's why Eric left Germany to come to the United States. He left Germany September 1924 and arrived in the New York, N. Y. on October 11, 1924 [WJ: See the Media Gallery. The S. S. Columbus actually departed Bremen 2 Oct 1924 and arrived in New York 10 Oct 1924.] and arrived in Chicago, Il. on October 14, 1924. The Steamship was called the "Columbus". During World War II, the "Columbus" was sunk. [WJ: The "Columbus" was a German Merchant Marine ship that had its maiden voyage in 1924. On 19 Dec 1939, the ship was scuttled by its crew about 400 miles off the coast of Virginia and burned and sank. They scuttled it rather than let the British destroyer Hyperion sink it.]

His first and only job in the United States was with the Chicago Daily News newspaper as a Head Auto Mechanic. He could sit on top of a car hood and tell you what was wrong with it. My father [Bill Buehler] had his own business in which he had a Model-T Ford truck. Something went wrong with its wheel bearings. My father-in-law asked me for rubber bands. I asked for what. He said never mind just get me lots of them. He got lots of them. He fixed the truck wheels with them. My father ran the truck for many years with no problems with the wheels. Matter of fact even sold the truck.

His father also became a U. S. citizen.