Biography

Ottilie “Otty” Schmakal Blodi was born in Modling, Austria, just outside of Vienna, in 1917. During her childhood, Blodi’s widowed mother, Josephine Smakal (she changed the spelling of her name upon immigration), moved to New York City to help her friend raise her three children. Blodi and her future husband, Frederick “Fred” Blodi grew up in the same community and were often together: swimming, dancing, playing tennis, etc. In 1939, Blodi travelled to New York to visit her mother and when she returned to Austria, World War II had begun. Fred was conscripted into the army while in medical school, however, the army allowed him to finish which kept him away from the front lines. He graduated as a doctor of ophthalmology in 1940. Fred encouraged Blodi to return to the US both of them unaware that they would be separated for six years.

Blodi returned to New York in 1939 and worked as a governess for various families for four years. She and Fred kept in contact through letters at first. Blodi sent her letters to a girlfriend in Italy who then relayed them to Fred. After living in the US for four years, Blodi applied for citizenship and then joined the Women’s Army Corps with the intention of eventually finding Fred. In 1944, she completed two rounds of training at Fort Des Moines—the first army training facility for women. Blodi trained first to become a nurse and a second time to travel to Europe. At the same time her communication with Fred practically stopped. When Italy joined the war, she and Fred could only exchange twenty-five word messages through the Red Cross about twice a year. In July 1945, Blodi was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany, as an interpreter. She obtained leave to travel to Vienna where she hoped to find Fred. Immediately after arriving in Vienna, Blodi decided to visit the hospitals. The first one she visited was a makeshift hospital in an old park where she found Fred. There was no place to sit down in the hospital and the two had to sit in a telephone booth to converse. Blodi learned that the Nazis had imprisoned Fred for helping two Austrian men escape conscription. At the end of the war, all of the other prisoners were shot except for Fred because of his medical background. The British Army took control of the area where Fred had been imprisoned and as a result he worked in British hospital for some time. After the liberation, he found a canoe and canoed down the Danube to Vienna.

Six years after leaving Austria, Blodi and Fred were reunited. She obtained special permission from the U.S. Army to marry him—the U.S. newspapers covered the permission process and their nuptials. They were married in the Emperor’s Palace chapel in 1946 by an Army priest. They moved back to New York City in 1947 and lived on a $200 per month stipend from the World Health Organization. Fred became a fellow at Columbia in New York City where he met Al Braley. Braley later recruited Fred for a position in the Ophthalmology Department at the University of Iowa. They moved to Iowa City in 1952 and eventually had two children, Barbara and Chris, who are ophthalmologists like their father. Dr. Fred Blodi attained national and international fame for his work at the University of Iowa. He died on October 30, 1996.

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