The van Steenberg Art Book Collection is provided thanks to a generous bequest to the Huntington Memorial Library by John van Steenberg in honor of his aunt and uncle, Erna and A. Arthur Schiller. The family has long supported the art collection at the Huntington Memorial Library by funding purchases of books about art and art history. Dr. van Steenberg's bequest to the library's Trust will provide funds on an annual basis to continue this legacy. In 1983, Erna Kaske Schiller donated her boxes of art-related books to the library and in the early 1990s bequeathed generous funding to the Huntington Memorial Library Trust to purchase art materials.
John graduated from Oneonta High School in 1941. He was born in Indiana on December 28, 1923, and spent part of his childhood in Panama, where his father was an engineer at the canal. John’s mother died when he was a teenager and he went to live with his Aunt Erna in Oneonta, New York, where he went to high school. He was very active in student activities and was in the History Club, Latin Club, Music Club, Echo staff, Bankers’ Association, and German Club. The offices he held were senior cabinet and VP of German Club. He also won the Lincoln Essay Prize and his quote in the yearbook was: “A boy of ready wit and readier tongue!”
Dr. van Steenberg began teaching history at the University of Massachusetts in 1958 after receiving a PhD from Harvard University. His path to academia was circuitous though. During college, World War II broke out and he tried to join the Army but his vision was too poor. Instead, he went to a government language program at Indiana University to learn Finnish. He became a military policeman who guarded German POWs and after the war went on to earn an MA in international relations. He worked for the OSS, which predated the CIA, then later served in the CIA where he was stationed Sweden.
In 1953, John was one of several thousand federal employees interrogated about their sexuality in the McCarthyite purge of homosexuals prompted by the so-called “lavender scare.” Hooked up to a polygraph but determined to keep his job, John denied that he was a homosexual. He flunked the test and was fired.
Dr. van Steenberg’s aunt and uncle were accomplished in their own rights. While neither of them had roots in Oneonta, they clearly treasured this community. A. Arthur Schiller was born in San Francisco and died in Oneonta after a full career in law. He studied at the University of California, Columbia University, and Munich, Germany. He traveled extensively with his wife Erna Schiller while working at the Columbia Law School.
Erna Schiller was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1899 and raised in Indiana. She was the only one from her grade school to continue on to high school and later taught in rural schools to help pay for college. She was an adventurous woman for the era and traveled with friends to Europe for eight months. She also organized month-long tours for other teachers for training at University of California at Berkeley and on to visit national parks. She taught in Alabama and New York City where she attended the Teachers College of Columbia University. In 1933, Percy Bugbee hired Erna Kaske to work with preschool children and supervise teacher training at the Oneonta Teachers College. When New York expanded teacher training to four years, she worked with Dr. Hunt and other staff to plan the Oneonta approach. This work ultimately became the basis for her doctorate in education from Teachers College of Columbia University. She married Dr. Schiller in 1946 and continued to work in the field of teacher education. The Schillers often spent summers in Oneonta and in retirement became full-time residents.