Johannes Nickolaus "John" Schlachter

1907 - 1982  (74 years)

• Name	Johannes Nickolaus "John" Schlachter
  Residence	1907	123 Water St. N., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  Born	22 Oct 1907	Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  Gender	Male
  FindAGrave	https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/207236042
  Interesting	art
  Name	John N. Schlachter
  Residence	1911	Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  	Roman Catholic
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-185735
  Died	1982
  Buried	Woodland Cem., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  Person ID	I185735	Generations
  Last Modified	7 Nov 2024

  
  

  Father	Michael Schlachter,   b. 1 Nov 1879, , Hungary ,   d. 4 Apr 1973, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 93 years)
  Mother	Susannah Albrecht,   b. 31 Jan 1881, , Hungary ,   d. 1959  (Age 77 years)
  Family ID	F184482	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Gladys Idabelle "Ada" Bauman,   b. Jan 1904, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. Feb 1993  (Age ~ 89 years)
  Children	1. Marion Schlachter,   b. 1939,   d. 21 Aug 2018, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 79 years)
  Last Modified	12 Nov 2024
  Family ID	F265025	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos

  John Schlachter from Waterloo Region Hall of Fame

  
  

• Notes

  John Schlachter was born in Berlin (Kitchener) and studied art with Frederick H. Varley A.R.C.A., John Martin and at the Doon School of Fine Art. He became the central figure of the artistic community in Waterloo County. As well as being a well-known oil painter of landscapes, he was a prominent teacher and influenced many budding artists. Schlacter was a member of the K-W Society of Artists, the Teachers' Council of the Five Counties Art Association and of the K-W Art Gallery where he served on the board of directors for 18 years. He was active in the Doon School of Fine Art. Schlacter exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the London Art Gallery, the Royal Canadian Academy and the Art Gallery of Ontario. He was employed at Baetz Brothers in finishing furniture long after the normal retirement age. List of Hall of Fame inductees (2023). Available at: https://regionofwaterloomuseums.ca/en/visit/list-of-hall-of-fame-inductees.aspx#John-Schlachter-1906-1982 (Accessed: 13 June 2023). ____________ Worked 50 years at Baetz Veteran craftsmen and artists at Baetz Fine Furniture, 264 Victoria St. N., Kitchener, rarely retire when they reach age 65. In fact, they are encouraged by the management to carry on. "They have skills which take decades to develop and they're just too valuable to let go," lain Douglas, Baetz president, said. All of which is just fine with John M. Schlachter, 29 Reyburn Ave., Kitchener, an artist who will be 72 on Oct. 22, has just marked his 50th anniversary with the company and intends to carry on indefinitely. Schlachter applies the finishing paint touches to chesterfields, chairs, lamps, commodes, dining room suites and curio cabinets. He also does the gold leafing and antiquing of furniture pieces. Some of the expensive furniture he finishes finds its way to Canadian embassies around the world. His landscape oil paintings also hang in a number of embassies, including the ones in Kenya and Brazil. "It makes me feel good that a part of me is all over the world," he said. "Artists, after all, need the recogni- tion, the applause so to speak." Schlachter has been painting since he was 14, studied under Frederick H. Varley, a member of the famous Group of Seven and feels fortunate that painting became both his work and his hobby. His paintings have been accepted for exhibition in Toronto and Montreal by the Royal Canadian Academy. He taught oil painting for 14 years to groups in Kitchener, one season at the Elmira high school and another season in Stratford. His ambition was to be a cartoonist, "but I didn't have the necessary sense of humor and couldn't lampoon anybody." His story goes like this: Born in a house at 123 Water St. N., Kitchener, now the site of an Esso service station, he's a son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Michael Schlachter. His father worked at Lang Tanning Co., for the city as a laborer and joined Baetz as a janitor at age 65, worked until he was 70 and lived until he was 93. Young Schlachter became interested in art and painting while attending St. Jerome's high school. "A young Cuban in my class drew some beautiful pictures of screen personalities. I said to myself if he can do it, so can I. Fortunately, I received a lot of encouragement." At 19 "and full of youthful ambitions to be a cartoonist," he packed his bags and went to Philadelphia. "I wanted to make the world notice me." But instead of becoming a cartoonist in the United States, he landed a job as a bus boy at Child's Restaurants. His pay was $3 a day. "I paid $9 a week for room and board, $1 a week for car fare and 50 cents every time I went to a movie, which was often. This left me with very little." After two years as a bus boy, he returned to Kitchener broke and promptly got himself a job with Baetz Specialty, the lamp manufacturing division on Gaukel Street in a building next to where Schreiter's furniture is now. "I worked in the wire frame department and my starting pay was 20 cents an hour. We made a lot of lamps with parchment shades, wooden lamps, wrought iron lamps and brass lamps." It was there he met Ada Bowman, a lamp sewer. "A romance started in the lamp factory." They've been married 43 years, have a daughter, Mrs. Marion Bickers and six grand-children. When the lamp division was transferred to Victoria Street in 1932, Schlachter learned all about decorating and finishing fine furniture and doing Chinese lacquer work. His pay on Victoria Street shot up to 35 cents an hour. During the Second World War, he recalls, wartime regulations limited lamp production. Schlachter attended night classes at the Doon School of Fine Arts in the winter of 1945 when the instructor was the famous Frederick Varley, an original member of the Group of Seven. He found out that Varley enjoyed drinking beer and the two would go to the Walper Hotel after Thursday night classes. "He would drink me under the table. But I learned a lot more from those sessions at the hotel than during the classes because he was only able to devote 15 minutes to each student." Schlachter also received painting instructions from John Martin of Ayr. As a member of the K-W Society of Artists, he spent weekends for three years painting scenes around countrysides from here to Hamilton. "My wife became a painting widow." Although he has completed as many as seven oil paintings in one week and his house is full of paintings, his highest revenue from painting and teaching was $1,400 a year. "It just paid for my hobby." Artists can make a living if they create a name for themselves and there's a demand for their work, he said. "But they have to be exceptional if they choose landscapes, because this field is flooded with people." Kitchener-Waterloo Record 30 Sep 1978 pg 24

  
  

• Sources

  [S340] Census - ON, Waterloo, Berlin - 1911, Div 35 Page 8.

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 22 Oct 1907 - Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - Roman Catholic - 1911 - Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Buried - - Woodland Cem., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  = Link to Google Earth