A Broken Heart

In August 1909 Frances Kiefer died after fifty-nine years of marriage. In November their eldest son, Alfred, was killed falling from a streetcar.

The old doctor kept going. In July 1910, at eighty-four, he traveled to Heidelberg to be honored at the hundredth anniversary of his student corps, Suevia — the young revolutionary returning as an honored guest. At home, the Kiefer Building was rising on the land Frances had refused to sell.

He spent his last year in his daughter Hermina's home. Dr. Herman Kiefer died on 11 October 1911, at eighty-five. The family said he died of a broken heart.

He had been president of the Michigan Cremation Society, and on 13 October 1911 he was cremated.

That same year, the city's new hospital for contagious diseases opened under his name.