Josephine de Karman

Josephine (Pipö) de Karman was the sister and life-partner of Theodore von Kármán. She is remembered as the benefactor of a foundation for worthy art students.

Born in Budapest, Josephine was the younger sister of four brothers: Elemer, Feri, Teodor, and Miklos. She and her mother joined Theodore when he became director of the aerodynamics laboratory in Aachen, Germany. They lived in nearby Vaals, the Netherlands.

Our home in Vaals was similar to my father’s home in Buda. It had a huge high-ceilinged salon, a library, and numerous guest rooms. It was big, comfortable and altogether amiable. We eventually hired a Hungarian cook who became our most prized possession. My mother and my sister easily took over the organization of my social life, leaving me free for intellectual pursuits. … On weekends we threw open our home to students, assistants and visitors. My mother and my sister had made it a rule always to be prepared for unexpected guests, with coffee, cake, and slivovitz. In a short time, our home became a gemütlich meeting ground for a thousand ideas expressed, I must admit, at a high noise level in French, Italian, Hungarian, Dutch, English, and of course German. ... These sorties in internationalism were so successful that my sister suggested one day that we ought to do something to maintain regular contact with scientists in other countries ... because of the influence of our father who taught us to have a world view.

With the help of Tullio Levi-Civita of the University of Rome they organized for 1922 the "world’s first international conference in mechanics" in Innsbruck, Austria. Theodore recalled, "My sister and I paid the secretarial expenses out of our own pockets."

When Theodore was recruited to direct the aerodynamics laboratory at Caltech, the whole family moved:

When Enrico Fermi was visiting Pasadena, he asked Theodore whether it would be possible to visit a movie studio. "Since my friends and those of my sister included a number of Hollywood personalities, notably the Hungarian actors Paul Lukas and Bela Lugosi, I had no difficulty arranging a luncheon for Fermi at the studios."

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