Of golden weddings and pocket-watches

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I celebrated my 57th birthday this week with my family, and I (of course) tried to pump my father for information. At age 80, he told me that he has learned more about Uncle Charley from this blog than he ever did from his poor father.

One of the things he told me while discussing prohibition was a smart-aleck stunt grandpa Fred pulled.

Apparently my great-grandmother, Anna Rebecca Troxel Huls, had a prescription for medicinal whiskey which was news to me! Apparently she and great-grandpa Gene were teetotalers,  but she did leave the bottle out on the sideboard. She didn't drink, but she wasn't going to hide it either. (Dad thinks she might have even been a member of either the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Ohio Anti-Saloon League.)

According to Dad, grandpa Fred strode into the dining room one day when home from Ohio State, grabbed the bottle of "Golden Wedding" off the sideboard, and took a big swig within their view -- hurting his parents deeply.

It was an action he always regretted, especially after their deaths in August 1934. Grandpa Fred used to show me the gold pocket watches both Charley and he received on their 21st birthdays for abstaining from alcohol. (Sadly, he sold them when he thought no one in the family wanted them.)

Grandpa turned 21 on August 10, 1925 -- six months after Charley's death. I wonder when he began drinking?

Dad wasn't positive the brand was Golden Wedding, but it was the brand he remembered and I had never heard of it so I had to look it up.

First of all, I loath whiskey, bourbon, and scotch so any errors are mine.

Golden Wedding was originally an American whiskey brand started about 1856. In 1920, Lewis Rosenstiel purchased a distillery that contained barrels of Golden Wedding and sold it as medicinal whiskey.

Golden Wedding survived prohibition and its repeal and moved in 1948 to Valleyfield, Quebec where it became a Canadian whisky. I am finding conflicting information about whether or not it is still made.

The best thing about Golden Wedding whiskey (in my opinion) is the golden, carnival glass bottle it frequently came in. My paternal grandmother collected carnival glass, but I never saw anything like these bottles lurking about their house!

Ironically, my great-grandparents never got to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. They both died from injuries they sustained in a car accident in 1934 after 35 years of marriage. 

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