Happy Centenarial

As I was so kindly reminded, today is the 100th birthday of my late cousin Owen Douglas Huls.

photo by Greta Huls

Born July 9, 1924 in our hometown of Logan, Ohio, Owen's parents moved with Owen and his sister Marianne to Columbus by 1930, where he lived until World War II reared its ugly head. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1942 and attained the rank of Aviation Radioman Second Class.

Owen's plane was shot down on June 4, 1945 by a Japanese ship and made an emergency landing near the island of Celebes, now known as Sulawesi, Indonesia. On June 6, Owen was captured by the Japanese while he was trying to help a crew mate.

Owen was forced to dig his own grave near the shore line, where he was bound and shot to death by his Japanese captors. His body was never recovered, but he was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the air medal, and the Purple Heart among other combat medals.

Funnily enough, Owen has been on my mind since May. First we had Memorial Day, and then the anniversary of his execution. The week after Memorial Day I received temporary custody of an antique hutch made by my great-great-grandfather and his twin brother, Owen's great-grandfather, Owen Roberts Huls. (We believe it was made for Owen Roberts Huls's marriage to Susan Lucinda Cupp on Nov. 26, 1866.)

The hutch was passed down in the male line and would have been Owen Douglas's at his assumed eventual marriage. After his execution, Owen's parents approached my paternal grandparents and asked if they would like it to pass on to my father upon his marriage. 

They said yes, and Mom and Dad cared for it until my brother's marriage. He has since moved into a house that does not have a single, usable corner so he asked if I would care for it until either one of his daughters marries or moves into a permanent abode.

Sorry ancestors, my brother is the last male Huls, but rest assured the female Huls family shall treasure it. 

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The wicked stepmother

It's February, and as always my thoughts turn to the deaths of Uncle Charley and David, as well as the other men who were poisoned but survived: Robert, Edward, Del, Timothy, and Harold. It has been 99 years since the two men died and five more were poisoned.

Ninety-nine years and no one was ever arrested and convicted.

However, while poking around the internet for clues, I came upon yet another strychnine poisoning in Ohio in 1925! While I sincerely doubt there's a connection, maybe the OSU poisonings eight months earlier were a cause of inspiration?

Find a Grave

On Saturday, October 3, 1925 a 13-year-old girl named Esta Winifred Strome died abruptly and painfully at her home in New Carlile, Clark County. By Tuesday, Oct. 6 (the same day Esta was buried.) her step-mother, Birdie Gardner Strome, was arrested and accused of poisoning Esta with the strychnine found in the girl's intestinal track.

The next day the bodies of Birdie's former husband and sister-in-law were exhumed from Enon Cemetery in Enon, Clark County: George Frock, who died on Sept. 14, 1922, and Mary Frock Faulder, who died on Aug. 28, 1920. Apparently both had died under similar grim circumstances, and I found testimony that strychnine was found in George's body.

After the death of her first husband George, Birdie lived briefly with Henry Homer Baltzell before his arrest and conviction in 1923 on robbery charges. At Birdie's trial, pharmacist Arthur E. Smith stated he sold Henry a quantity of strychnine, and Henry testified that he gave it to Birdie prior to Frock’s death.

Esta's father Carrie Strome testified he married Birdie in 1923, a year after George died. He understandably sued Birdie for divorce on Friday, Feb.5, 1926.

Birdie was arraigned on October 31 and pleaded not guilty. Her trial started on December 7 and she was convicted on Dec. 17, 1925. The jury of nine men and three women recommended mercy.

Birdie died two years later on Feb. 15, 1927 aged 60 in Union County, Ohio at the Marysville Reformatory. She is buried in an unmarked grave in Oakdale Cemetery in Marysville, Union County.

Her father died 33 years after Esta and shares his headstone with his daughter.

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