As usual, I was quite fuzzy on the details (he worked at the "Ritz"-wrong) and created Eggs Benedict (maybe). Nonetheless-I did find a slim biography in a used book store once and that led me to order the "Oscar" cookbook both of which I gave to my brother Steve. When Steve was in Switzerland he looked into finding my father's relatives and explored the lineage.
Somewhere in a long ago stored photo pile I saw a picture of a smiling man in a red shirt and long beard leaning out of a tiny window in a mountain home with the mountains behind-this represented the wonderfully mysterious (to me) Swiss family of my father's mother.
Nonetheless, according to my father's autobiography, his mother's brother was "Oscar". This Uncle Oscar first worked at Delmonico's and later at the Waldorf in New York. Wikipedia suggests that the "Oscar" award statue was modeled after him. This is how stories take shape I guess-suggestions and word of mouth :D Read this interesting article if you have time.
Oscar of the Waldorf
This article describes what a well loved gentlemen he was and how he catered to and cared for royalty and the wealthy in his remarkable way. It was said, of his Eggs Benedict, that he received a call one morning to create something for the "princess's hangover" and make it quick! As the article states, he was not a chef but he managed the menus (historical in themselves) and directed the chefs in their creations. To that end, he directed them to assemble the Waldorf salad and other such creations credited to his name.
The Cookbook
The love story of my father's grandparents is so wonderful and yet so tragic that it reminds me that our ancestors faced such drama due to disease and circumstances that gave them both great love and great loss it is almost inconceivable. From my father's book:
" My grandfather, Gregor Tschirgi*, came to the US in 1875 at the age of 18 fleeing military conscription in Switzerland. Strolling in Dubuque IA he heard a welcome Swiss dialect and ran to meet Marie Egli, a young woman he recognized from his village, carrying a child. Asked where the child's father was, she started to cry and said he had died on his way to Dubuque. The son was named Willie after his father. Romance bloomed and they were soon married. Another son, Oscar, was born and 3 months later Marie died. Bereft, Gregor had to send the children to an orphanage for care until he met and married Annastasia. Together they had more children-Edward, Walter, Herman, Amelia (my mother), Marie, and Hilda. They ran a very successful boarding house -so much so that they bequeathed a home to each of their children upon their death."
* American and Swiss spellings
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