Early Life & Education
George E. Kessler was born in Frankenhausen, Germany to Edward Carl Kessler and Adolphe Clotilde Zeitsche Kessler. In 1865 Edward and Clotilde along with George and his sister, Fredericka Antionette Louisa, emigrated to the United States. After briefly living in New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin, the family ultimately settled in Dallas, Texas where George's father and uncle invested in a cotton plantation. His father died in 1878. After his father's death, George, at the age of sixteen, worked as a cashboy at Sanger Brothers Dry Goods.
After consultation with relatives, Clotilde decided that landscape architecture would combine the right degree of creativity and practicality to suit her son's temperament. The family moved back to Germany were George received his formal training that included:
- Two-year apprenticeship at private landscape gardening school at the Grand Ducal Gardens in Weimar, Germany. Studied botany, forestry, and design under Hofgartner Armin Sckell and Garteninspector Julius Hartwig.
- Working for several months with Haage and Schmidt, a major German plant nursery in Erfurt.
- Studying at Charlottenburg and Potsdam that included brief study at Gaertner Lehr Anstalt, school of garden design founded by Peter Joseph Lenné; technical engineering study at Gartner-Jehranstalt; study with Hofgartner Theodore Neitner at the Neue Garten; and study at Polytechnicum, the premier horticultural library in Germany.
- Completion of civil engineering course at University of Jena.
- Touring with a tutor central and western Europe and southern England for one year study of civic design in major cities from Paris to Moscow.
“Of all of it,” he later said, “the travel was of most value.”
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