Victor W. ‘Vic’ Fuentealba, lawyer and World War II combat veteran, dies at 101

Frederick N. Rasmussen, Baltimore Sun
·4 min read

Victor W. “Vic” Fuentealba, a lawyer and World War II combat veteran who later was president of the American Federation of Musicians, died of kidney failure April 17 at Gilchrist Center in Towson. The Northeast Baltimore resident was 101.

Victor William Fuentealba, son of Manuel Fuentealba, a tool and dye machinist, and Antonia Fuentealba, a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Canton.

His father was a native of Chile and his mother was born in Germany.

When he was 10, he began taking piano lessons and then learned to play the saxophone and clarinet. He joined the St. Brigid’s parochial school band.

He was a 1940 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School and began playing professionally in Baltimore with the Four Aces and the Pete Santora Big Band.

In 1941, he joined Baltimore Musicians Local 40 in order to play in the basement rathskeller of the old Haussner’s Restaurant on Eastern Avenue in Highlandtown, while attending the Johns Hopkins University. After leaving the band, he played with Bob Craig’s Orchestra, at the old Keith’s Roof and on Chesapeake Bay moonlight cruises.

He enlisted in the Army in 1942 and was assigned to the 83rd Infantry Division in Indiana. In 1944, he was sent to Europe where he served with the famed 84th Infantry Division.

During the closing days of World War II, on April 14, 1945, Mr. Fuentealba was positioned with his unit on the edge of a German town near the Rhine River.

As he ran toward the woods, he was detected by Nazi soldiers whose armored car sprayed the field with machine gunfire that ripped through his legs.

Taken as a prisoner of war, he was held for only 22 hours as the Allies pressed their advance.

“It happened three weeks before the war ended,” Mr. Fuentealba explained in an interview with the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “The Germans captured me because I was shot in both legs and could not move. They eventually left me in a German town, where I was rescued by the 182nd Division.”

For the next year and a half, he underwent treatment for his injuries at a hospital in England and later several facilities in America.

After his discharge in 1946, he entered what is now Loyola University Maryland where he earned a bachelor’s degree.

Mr. Fuentealba obtained his law degree in 1950 from the University of Maryland and passed the bar.

While attending law school, he continued playing at the Club Charles and Chanticleer, and in pit bands at The Hippodrome and the old Ford’s Theater.

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During summers, he played on Wilson Line Steamers such as the Bay Belle on moonlight cruises that sailed a route from Light and Pratt streets to Tolchester on the Eastern Shore.

For years, he practiced family and estate law from an office in the Court Square Building in downtown Baltimore.

His professional memberships included the Bar Association of Baltimore City and Maryland State Bar Association.

“He never retired and was still working [before] his death,” said a daughter, Victoria Jenkins, of Lutherville.

Mr. Fuentealba, who lived in the Beverly Hills neighborhood of Northeast Baltimore, was elected vice president of Baltimore Musician’s Local 40 in 1951 and was secretary-treasurer until being elected president in 1956.

During his tenure as president, he oversaw the local through highly publicized strikes against the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 1968 and 1972.

He also directed contract negotiations that avoided strikes and even worked out agreements for musicians accompanying strippers on The Block.

“He oversaw one of the most successful mergers in the history of segregated unions when Locals 40 and 543 merged in 1966,” according to a statement from Thomas Lee, former International President of the American Federation of Musicians.

In 1978, he became president of the AFM, a position he held until 1987.

He also maintained a deep interest in veterans affairs — he had joined the VFW in 1946 while recuperating from his war injuries — and later served as commander of VFW Post 9083 in Parkville.

In 2015, Gov. Martin J. O’Malley appointed him to the Veterans Commission. He also served as state judge advocate for the VFW Department of Maryland.

“He followed no special regimen in becoming 100 and chalked it up to luck and having a close family,” his daughter said. “He didn’t exercise except to play golf and followed no special diet. His hobby was work. He was a workaholic.”

“Look at my age, I’m a 100. How many people are 100 today? Not that many,” he said in the VFW interview.

“We still carry the battle scars,” Mr. Fuentealba told the VFW, reflecting on his World War II days. “And as I say, all we’re left with is the history books to describe what happened.”

His wife of 58 years, Viola “Vi” Henderson, a homemaker and volunteer, died in 2010.

He was a longtime communicant of St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic church where a funeral Mass was offered April 23.

In addition to his daughter, he is survived by three other daughters, Donna Snapp, of Parkville, Patricia Mehren, of Bel Air and Mary Lee Jenkins, of Lewes, Delaware; 12 grandchildren; and 17 great-grandchildren.