Talk:Bill Knapheide

Evidence

Or the lack thereof, so far. Bill gave his address as 1084 Portola Drive, San Francisco in a letter to Rog Phillips' Clubhouse published in February 1950, and 3046 Jackson St in the NorWesCon PR2 member list later in the year, but no census records for those addresses match his name. He was clearly moving around a bit at the time.

Spatium 5, September 1949, shows he was already in San Francisco at the time, though.

The only William D. Knapheide I'm seeing in any records whatsoever is William Douglas Knapheide (November 6, 1924 – January 3, 2007); he was living in his hometown of Quincy, Illinois in the 1930 and 1940 census records.

When he registered for the draft at age 18 in 1942, he gave his employer as "NYA" (the National Youth Administration, which provided work and education for young people). He appears to have found wartime work at the Rock Island Arsenal; a Davenport, Iowa city directory for 1944 lists "Knapheide Wm D lab Arsenal r921 College av".

Intriguingly, the Internet Archive has a copy of Startling Stories (January 1940) that has been stamped by People's Book Store, Davenport Iowa and also by "Doug. Knapheide".

In August 1944 he joined the New York Guard (perhaps first selling his magazine collection to a local bookstore) and was discharged in 1946. At the time of his mother's death in 1969 he was back in Quincy, but he ended up in Borger, Texas, where he married someone named Zahra in 1999; they divorced in 2002, and he died in Borger. I haven't seen any accounting of where he was between 1946 and 1969, including any 1950 census records.

But that copy of Startling Stories seems to link science fiction reader "Doug. Knapheide" of Davenport to "Wm. D. Knapheide" of Davenport, especially since no records show other people named Knapheide ever living in that county. And Davenport was only a few hours' drive from Quincy.

So my best argument for this ID is:

1. Midcentury American records only show one person named William D. Knapheide at any given time.
2. Someone named Doug. Knapheide sold his 1940 copy of Startling Stories to a bookstore in Davenport.
3. Someone named Wm. D. Knapheide worked at a munitions plant near Davenport in 1944.
4. We can fairly well account for the whereabouts of William Douglas Knapheide, who grew up a few hours away, from his birth in late 1924 until his discharge from the New York Guard in 1946. And we know he was back in Quincy when his mother died in 1969.
5. We cannot account for his location in the 1950 census, but William D. "Bill" Knapheide the San Francisco fan was evidently in San Francisco by 1949, and listed multiple physical addresses there even within the year 1950.
6. Therefore it's plausible that Bill Knapheide the fan is the same man from Quincy, Illinois; nothing seems to contradict it and there are, as far as I can tell, no other candidates.

What do y'all think? — Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 12:19, 8 May 2023 (PDT)

Without any proof that WDK the fan was from Illinois or that the Illinois/Iowa guy moved to California, I’m skeptical. One prozine does not a fan make.

—Leah Zeldes Smith (talk) 11:30, 9 May 2023 (PDT)

Yeah, I want more evidence too. Maybe someone will turn up a mention of him talking about his childhood or something.

Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 12:25, 9 May 2023 (PDT)

He never got a letter published in Captain Future, so that doesn't help.

Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 13:57, 9 May 2023 (PDT)

Age matches Vorzimer's conrep

Here's another piece of circumstantial evidence.

Peter J. Vorzimer's SFCon conrep mentioned Bill Knapheide's age in Abstract 8 (December 1954), on page 45:

I believe at the convention, that Bill Knapheide sold more Xenerns and Xenern Indexes than any of the top fanzines did in all their latest ISsues. Bill also gave away free pencils with every issue sold. Bill is an extremely congenial man of about 28-30. (Don't kill me, Bill, if I miss it by too far.) 

William Douglas Knapheide from Quincy was born November 6, 1924; SFCon was September 4–6, 1954. So the man from Quincy was 29, going on 30, when the fan was described as about 28–30.

Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 06:42, 10 May 2023 (PDT)