Hermann Austel Obituary (1927

What is it that makes a man a giant? Perhaps there is no one thing that might set a man apart from and ahead of the peloton. It may not be that he has 8 children, 34 grandkids and 32 great-grandkids. It may not be that he was married for nearly 60 years. It may not be that he knows some 16 middle and near eastern languages, nor that he helped to translate a portion of the New American Standard Bible from Hebrew into English, nor that he has written numerous scholarly works, nor that he began teaching Greek at the graduate level while still a student, nor that he continued to teach for 58 years, nor any one of his other many, many achievements. Perhaps what makes this elderly gentleman, topped with thin, snow white, wispy hair stand ?head and shoulders" among men even as he takes a simple stroll through the grocery store, is not so much what he has done, but who he is. To personally know Dr. Hermann Austel'his genuinely gracious way, devoid of pretense or guile despite his many achievements'is to truly understand his stature. The spiritual legacy that Hermann leaves behind actually began with his grandmother while she was pregnant with his father back in Germany when she placed her trust in Christ. Her uncommon faith and faithfulness carried forward and became a part of the heritage that we enjoy today. Hermann was born on October 28, 1927, to recent German immigrants, Hans and Fenna Austel. The first of three boys, he grew up through the Great Depression in the home Hans built for them in Los Angeles on the hill above what is now California State University at Los Angeles. As a young boy, when Hermann was convicted of his own need for a Savior, he knelt by his bedside and asked Jesus to save him from his sin. Several times, as a boy, he would repeat his plea to be forgiven for his sin until one day, as a teen, he read John 10:28 and realized that one's salvation could never be taken away, not even by his own sin. One day, when still a boy, Hermann's faithfulness'a lifelong characteristic'was beautifully demonstrated and thus enshrined as family legend when he was assigned to watch the family's goats on the hillside behind their house. His father told him specifically to hold onto and not let go of a particularly ornery goat. Handing over the rope, Hans left him to the task. Before long, the goat was determined to wander despite Hermann's desire to the contrary. Shortly, the goat won the battle and in time began to drag him along the hillside when Hermann lost his footing. Determined to do as he was told, he held fast to the rope regardless of the goat's speed or direction. Eventually, Fenna saw what was happening and ran out, shouting for him to release the rope, only to find that he had been cut, bloodied and bruised from being dragged over the bushes and rocks. When his father had returned to the scene, he asked Hermann why it was that he did not let go of the rope. His simple, yet telling response was, "Because you told me not to." As the story goes, it was one of the few times that Hans could be seen crying. He was an early teen when, in confirmation class at the German Methodist church, he met the young girl who would later become the love of his life, Rosemarie. In her later years she would remark that he had caught her attention because he was not misbehaving like the other boys and because he seemed to know all of the answers.Though they attended separate high schools, they became lifelong friends, to say the least. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School (where he lettered as a gymnast on the pommel horse) two years ahead of his classmates and continued his career in education at UCLA in 1944, studying chemistry. Eventually, on January 6, 1946, he would propose marriage to Rose at Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Marriage would have to wait, however, as he was drafted into the army less than three months later. He served most of his term in Japan on occupation duty as a chemist's assistant, with several others working under him, earning the rank of corporal by the time he was discharged only 14 months later. While in Japan, he would regularly round up soldiers and drive them to Bible studies, often leading the Bible studies himself. Once Hermann returned home to Rose, he quickly resumed his studies at UCLA. Before he graduated in June of 1949, with a BS in chemistry, the two were finally married on April 24. It was then that he began to demonstrate and hone his characteristic tough tenderness. In his nearly 60 years of marriage to Rose, he would live out Ephesians 5:25-33, loving her like Christ loved the church. Only a few months later, they would move north to Vallejo, California, where he worked at Lawrence Livermore Labs as a chemist. While in Vallejo, he became active in church under the leadership of Pastor Graves, an evangelist, who helped Hermann "get out of [hi