Sidney J. Twining
Download this page in PDF formatSidney J. Twining
by Edward F. Hirschman
Excerpt from The American Dachshund, May 1959
Sid was born in Rialto, California in 1892, a true native son of this fine state. He graduated from the University of California in 1916 as a civil engineer.
He was President of the Dachshund Club of California for five years from 1938 to 1942.
In 1962, he was made the first Honorary Life Member of the Board of Directors in our Club.
Sid held a judge’s license for our breed for 20 years.
He was regarded as one of the best authorities of dachshunds by all who know him. He judged numerous specialty shows including St. Louis, Seattle, San Diego and our own 10th annual Specialty in 1941. He received numerous invitations in the last few years from all over the country, but his health and work did not permit him to accept.
The Twinings were the proud owners of Champion Bavarian Russ, one of the outstanding dogs of our time.
Sid’s hobby for the last five years was roses, he did as much research with these in his beautiful garden as he did with dachshunds.
Back in the forties, Sid spent over 4 years of deep exhausting research compiling his Breeders Notebook.
The Breeder’s Notebook* was published in several issues of The American Dachshund. It is the most comprehensive study ever made of our breed in America. He started with the outstanding show winners of the past few years and traced then back twenty-five generations and came to the conclusion that all of the outstanding black and tan dogs of today are direct descendants of Tenor v Spree Athen, one of the first dogs listed in the German Teckel Club. He also came to the conclusion in this same study that the outstanding red dogs of today go directly back to the red dog Saphir, who was also one of the first registered dogs. This article should be read and digested by anyone who is undertaking to do scientific breeding.
Sid held the position of sound engineer with Paramount Pictures for a great number of years and the last twenty years the same at Columbia Studios.
After knowing Sid for 15 years, one scrapbook of his had some old pictures of he and his dad building a plane in 1912. On one page was a telegram sent to Sid in 1917. It was from Newton G. Baker, Secretary of War in World War I, instructing Sid to report immediately at the Curtis Wright plant in Buffalo, New York to take charge of completing the S.E.-5, America’s best fighter plane at that time.
The plane had a top speed of 135 miles per hour and was the fastest plane in the world at that time. This tremendous speed enabled our American aces like Eddie Rickenbacker to run the German planes right out of the sky.
It was way back in 1933 when my wife Grace and I were working on the entry for our Specialty show that we called on the Twinings in their beautiful home in the Los Felix Hills to sell them on the idea of showing their first Dachshund Marlena, who then around a year old.
Shortly afterwards, Sid and his wife Edna joined our Club for more than twenty years.
He was a pillar of our club always doing more than his share to keep the club on a straight even keel.
His sage advice carried the club over many a rocky road especially when it came to changing or placing new amendments in our by-laws.
These same by-laws were adopted almost to the letter by the Dachshund Club of America a few years ago.
I have thought many times these past few days about Sid and how fortunate all of us are for having known such a fine person as Sid Twining. He was truly a gentleman and a loyal friend.
Sidney J. Twining died on March 25, 1959.
* The Breeder’s Notebook has been available though the Dachshund Club of America since 1990 as a spiral bound book. To check on it availabity, see the Publications page on the DCA website.