TITUS, SIGMUND ALEXANDER

TITUS, SIGMUND ALEXANDER (30 Jan. 1884-c. 30 July 1936) was a lawyer involved in the affairs of Cleveland's Polish community. Born near Grodzisk, Poland, he was the son of Joseph and Leokadia Balczynska Titus. A product of the Berlin public schools, he graduated from Friedrich Werder College and studied at the Oriental Seminary in Berlin. He saw military service in Germany and served as editor of the Berliner Lokal Anzeiger and the Hamburger Woehe before emigrating to Cleveland in 1910. Joining Cleveland's flourishing ethnic journalism field, Titus edited the Narodowiec Polish Weekly from 1910-11 and The Mediator, a magazine on industrial efficiency, from 1911-18. Meanwhile he studied law at the CLEVELAND LAW SCHOOL, the John Marshall Law School (see CLEVELAND STATE UNIV.) and Northern Ohio Univ., being admitted to the bar in 1918. Titus married Elizabeth Landphair in Akron in 1921 and began a general law practice, becoming the senior member of Titus, Lombardo & Kovachy. He served as president of the Polish Educational Society and as attorney and director of the White Eagle Savings and Loan Ass'n. In 1931, he was appointed consular agent for Poland in Cleveland. He died apparently by suicide, of a gunshot wound in his automobile near Van Wert, O., being buried at Highland Park Cemetery and survived by his wife and a brother, T. Paul Titus.


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