A morbid anniversary

It occurred to me this morning when I got up, made my coffee, saw the date, and began a leisurely Saturday. Today is the 101st anniversary of my great-uncle’s murder. He, too, got up and had a leisurely Saturday as detailed in this partial, final letter home which was found after his death.

This letter still gets to me, no matter how many times I read it. He would be dead by 10:30 p.m. He was only 22.

And David Puskin was also out and about, maybe going to synagogue, but getting sicker. He violent death would be less than twelve hours after Uncle Charley's.

Rest in peace gentlemen and may your memories be a blessing. I am trying to keep your memories alive. 

Charles Henry Huls

Logan, Ohio

January 31, 1925

Dear Folks:

Just a few hospital notes from the son who isn't quite all here. I lost a tooth since I wrote to you last. An abscess had formed at the root of the gold crown in the lower jaw and I had an X-Ray taken and then the tooth was pulled. It certainly was arelief [sic] to get [rid sic] that pain and get a nights rest.

I didn't go to bed either Wednesday or Thursday nights and all I've had to eat since Thursday noon is tomato soup and milk toast. Went over to see Dr. Wingert again this morning and he gave me a dose of salts and some capsules and told me to go home and stay in bed today. Took the medicine at noon and was going to say that up until 5 there had been no action but it came just as I finished the sentence. Really I don't see where there will be much good done as I haven't exactly eater [sic] for over two days.

Besides having the tooth raising cain I blistered the whole inside of my mouth with camphor and toothache drops and it just finished peeling this afternoon. And then I burned a blister on the outside of my chin with the electric light bulb. It's funny but the tooth hurst [sic] so much that I didn't feel it when I cooked the other parts. I hd [sic] to get a hot water bottle.

Dr. Love, the dentist who pulled the tooth said it never should never have been crowned. He said the abscess had started over a year ago. Said it was getting dangerous and would have caused very serious trouble if it had been neglected any longer. The X-Ray showed the sac extending over to the roots of the adjoining teeth and when I saw the tooth I wondered how the sac ever came out the same hole.*

*typed on letterhead

Charley's letter ends here.

Sadly, Charley was dead by 10:30 p.m.

It was found after his death.

I thought there was another page but I have not been able to find it since our 2016 house fire. 

-30-

Hocking Hills, 43138

Logan Town Center

I don't know why it never previously occurred to me to include a small map of our mutual hometown of Logan, Ohio. Thankfully, the city of Logan has helped me with that with its excellent Historic Walking Tour.

My great-grandfather, A.E. Huls, built the Huls house at 212 E Hunter Street (upper right, #24) in 1902, just in time for Uncle Charley's December birth. My grandfather was born there in August 1904.

Years later, in anticipation of Uncle Charley's June 1925 graduation from The Ohio State University with a degree in journalism, he built the Huls Printing building at 51 E. Main Street (center, marked with a ⭐️). While it is not currently noted on the walking tour, the building still stands and houses the county's records.

Sadly my grandfather traded the house in 1947 (it cost too much to paint!) but we got a funny story out of it. Doc Yaw, with whom Grandpa had traded houses, was furious when he found out how much it would be to paint his new house.

Even sadder was Grandpa also sold the family business between 1970 and 1975. He didn't know he had a budding printer and journalist in the family....

-30-

May his memory be a blessing

Here is buried the dear young (unmarried) man,

Isaac Div son of Eliezer Reuben who died at 22 years.

10 Shevat 5685 (4 February 1925)

May his soul be bound up in eternal life.

David Puskin

1903-1925

-30-

The lede is buried

The Troxel Family plot.

Uncle Charlie was dead and buried.

The heir was dead and they had buried the lede.

Did any of these crazy thoughts run through my great-grandfather's mind as he stared at the coffin and/or the grave?

My grandfather's?

Why do we say, 'the lede was buried"?

The "lede" is the introductory section of a news story that summarizes but entices the reader to read more.

Charlie was the heir, the lede, and now all those hopes, dreams, and expectations fell on my grandfather's young shoulders. He was expected to, and did, give up his engineering dreams.

Within two years he had left The Ohio State University and gone home to Logan and his father's business, Huls Printing.

No longer, "and Sons."

Another journalistic leftover is -30- which has been traditionally used by North American journalists  to indicate the end of a story or article.

Many journalists have even had it put on their tombstones.

-30-

Bring out your dead

Services for Uncle Charley were held in one of the two front parlors.
Nine years later joint services for both of his parents would be held in those same front parlors.

I do not remember now where I first read this, but on Monday, Feb. 2: Dr. W.G. Rhoten, Hocking County Health Commissioner, was refused entrance into the Huls home in Logan. He wanted to check, or test, Charley's body for spinal meningitis.

The next day this orphan clipping appeared:

Funeral Services for Plague Victim
Logan Youth Stricken by Meningitis

LOGAN, O., Feb. 3. -- On advice of Dr. W.G. Rhoten, city health commissioner, funeral services for Charles H. Huls who died in Columbus Saturday night were held privately at the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. A.E. Huls on East Hunter Street Tuesday afternoon at one o'clock.

This action was taken by the health commissioner after it was learned that the death certificate which was issued in Columbus by Dr. J.L. Gordon bore the statement that the cause of death was [2.] meningitis. A change was made in the certificate which at first stated that the death was due to [1.] tetanus, after a second death occurred and an investigation disclosed that the cause of it was [2.] "epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis." This fact caused a change to be made in the certificate.*

Dr. Rhoten was called by Dr. Beer in Columbus who suggested that an effort be made to hold a post mortem over the body of Huls. This was deemed inadvisable by the parents and the inquest was dropped.

Precautionary measures were taken by health officials to prevent any possibility of a contagion of the disease from spreading.

Charley's death certificate was later changed a third and final time to read, "Accidental Strychnine Poisoning."

-30-

Extra! Extra!

Two stories appeared in the Monday, Feb. 2, 1925 edition of the Lancaster (Ohio) Eagle-Gazette as the breaking news story developed.

First to be laid out was this tiny brief, way back on page 10:

Son of Eugene Huls Dies At Ohio State

Charles Huls, 22, son of Eugene Huls, for many years State Factory Inspector and editor of the Logan Republican, died Saturday night, following the extraction of an ulcerated tooth Friday. Young Huls was a senior in the college of commerce and journalism at O. S. U. and edited the Makio in 1924.

His death occurred at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity home where he was a member. The Huls family is very well known in Lancaster.

Then the front page (above) was laid out. The front page is always laid out last to make sure the latest news and updates get attention. This front page is a nightmare. It didn't stack the separate headlines like most newspapers did in 1925, but it split them down the middle. I don't care if the left is sans serif and the right is serif -- it's a mess:

Sudden Death Of Two O.S.U. Students Causes Alarm
Order Friends Of Dead Men Be Isolated

(By The Associated Press)
COLUMBUS. Feb. 2--Further precautionary measures to prevent a possible outbreak of cerebro meningitis at Ohio State University, and where to [sic] students have died suddenly and under mysterious circumstances were taken today when Dr. H. Shindle Wingert, university physician examined six personal friend [sic] of one of the deceased students and ordered them isolated.

Charles E. [sic] Huls of Logan died Saturday in a fraternity house, of what was thought to be tetanus. Davis [sic] Puskin of Canton, a junior in the college of journalism died suddenly yesterday after circumstances similar to those surrounding the death of Huls.

To determine whether both students died from the same cause, local health authorities asked Logan officials to perform a post mortem over Huls. Information received here today, however is to the effect that the student's family objects to the procedure.

In the midst of his examination of other students, Dr. Wingert issued a statement urging students "not to be scared about the present flurry.

"There is little to cause general eoncern," he said. "Individuals, however are urged to keep their general health at a high level, observe regular hours, keep in good physical condition and keep the face and hands scrupulously clean. Fear lowers the vitality and besides, there is not much occasion for it."

Puskin, the second student to die arose yesterday morning, apparently in good health. He went to the bathroom to shave was seized with convlsions [sic] and died within 20 minutes.

-30-

The tragedy more sharply

So far I have been unable to find an obituary for David other than what was published in the O.S.U. Lantern on Monday, Feb. 2, 1925:

DAVID PUSKEN

The news that a second Ohio State student has died from causes apparently similar to those which caused the death of Charley Huls brings the tragedy to us more sharply.

We did not know David Pusken (Puskin appears on his grave, but Pushkin and Pusken were also used at OSU) as we knew Charley Huls, but that is our fault, and our loss, we are sure.

Death does not stride the University often, and when it does it affects us all the stronger. We grieve at the death of a fellow student, although we did not know him, for he had a great deal in common with all of us. He went to school here, and that gives us a community of interest.

The Lantern extends its sympathy to the relatives and friends of David Pusken with all sincerity.

-30-

Gone but not forgotten

David slept in, popped an R&W and went to shave.

Within 30 minutes he was dead on the bathroom floor.

1903 - February 1, 1925

Buried at the Canton Hebrew Cemetery.

-30-

Very serious trouble

Charles Henry Huls

Logan, Ohio

January 31, 1925

Dear Folks:

Just a few hospital notes from the son who isn't quite all here. I lost a tooth since I wrote to you last. An abscess had formed at the root of the gold crown in the lower jaw and I had an X-Ray taken and then the tooth was pulled. It certainly was arelief [sic] to get [rid sic] that pain and get a nights rest.

I didn't go to bed either Wednesday or Thursday nights and all I've had to eat since Thursday noon is tomato soup and milk toast. Went over to see Dr. Wingert again this morning and he gave me a dose of salts and some capsules and told me to go home and stay in bed today. Took the medicine at noon and was going to say that up until 5 there had been no action but it came just as I finished the sentence. Really I don't see where there will be much good done as I haven't exactly eater for over two days.

Besides having the tooth raising cain I blistered the whole inside of my mouth with camphor and toothache drops and it just finished peeling this afternoon. And then I burned a blister on the outside of my chin with the electric light bulb. It's funny but the tooth hurst [sic] so much that I didn't feel it when I cooked the other parts. I hd [sic] to get a hot water bottle.

Dr. Love, the dentist who pulled the tooth said it never should never have been crowned. He said the abscess had started over a year ago. Said it was getting dangerous and would have caused very serious trouble if it had been neglected any longer. The X-Ray showed the sac extending over to the roots of the adjoining teeth and when I saw the tooth I wondered how the sac ever came out the same hole.*

*typed on letterhead

Uncle Charley's last unmailed letter home ends here.

It was found after his death.

I thought there was another page but I cannot find it at this time.

Sadly, Uncle Charley was dead by 10:30 p.m.

-30-

This week's invalid

Charles Henry Huls

Logan, Ohio

January 28, 1925

Dear Folks:

This week's invalid will now be heard from. He is in no danger but plenty of misery although he is right now having a good laugh over the box of taffy which just came.

If you could see my face you would soon see that there isn't much room left for any taffy. Cold has settled in my lower jaw and every tooth has been aching since 9 last night. I slept very little and had to get up a couple of times to rub on baum. Was in bed all afternoon and the turn for the better is here now. Have been sitting for the last hour with an electric light bulb under my jaw, warming it up a little. Was going to get a hot water bottle, but the light does just as well. Am using plenty of baum and have three tubes left.

We got the package from Ewing and everything was there that I needed although he only sent 5 razor blades instead of a dozen. The fruit cake was the best part of the package. Jack Heed said it was the best he had ever eaten and said I didn't need to be bashful about offereing [sic] him a piece at any time, no matter how small it was.

I ran out of handkerchiefs today and Fred didn't have any (at least he couldn't locate them among the other stuff in his drawer) so I had to buy some.

If my face gets alright I'll probably drive home Friday afternoon but I won't take any chances of catching more cold on such a drive. Will have to close now as the old teeth are sure raising hell.

Love,

    Hen.*

*typed on letterhead

###

A dry wit

Charles Henry Huls

Logan, Ohio

January 19, 1925

Dear Mom:

Received your letter of yesterday and the paper this noon. Your mention of the Hudson licenses reminds me to tell you that the Ford is now wearing 403,207 or something near that.

The dress shirts were well packed and came in good condition. And regarding the pajamas, the mixup occured [sic] after Christmas vacation when there were too many in the wash.

I think Pop has taken the right attitude in not wanting to run for mayor.** He will have his hands full with the paper and he doesn't need any more work and worries. It's about time that he starts to rest for a little while. Chief Myers said the other night when he was up here that he never saw a man who was so continually on the job.

I enjoyed the editorials enclosed very much and certainly think Pop hit the nail on the head. I saw the one about girls smoking and cut it out and gave it to Ruth Trott to read. She became alarmed about being nervous so much lately and went to a doctor who told her that she had to quit so she has.

I hdan't [sic] seen the statement by Thompson about no drinking in the University and certainly would like to be present if he ever makes such a statement. Was talking to Miss Auch, the student auditor today, and she says that something must be done about it. And the whole cause for the present situation is that there are too many old dry bags on the committee of student affairs. Old Prof. Tuttle of the Law college got up and said that there was very little if any drinking around the school and I really believe that such people have convinced Thompson that dry conditions exist. He's getting too old for the job and is held down too much by the trustees to certain duties to get around and find things for himself. I think that before I graduate I'll go to him and tell him a few things if I can get in to see him.

Harden was only a pledge of the Betas. He would have been initiated this fall had he returned to school.

Our new cook certainly is good. The meals are so different and so much better that I really enjoy eating here now. She gives us variety and although we have to have potatoes and things like that most every meal she fixes them in different ways so that we don't get tired of them. And she serves side dishes and salads nearly every night. The Sunday meals are real meals too. She is a colored woman and is very clean. She wears white all the time and you can't do that and wear them long. Old Ma Hessenger always wore the conventional black so that she never had to change clothes. I don't ever remember meeting her in the kitchen in any other color during the entire time she was here. I don't know whether she wore the same dress all the time or not but I'll bet she never had to hang them up when she undressed at night. And by the way, she is now living at the Beta house. Relly [sic], I feel sorry for the boys, although they might pledge here soon.

Fred isn't feeling well tonight. He came home with a headache and didn't eat anything, but went to bed. He was asleep when I went in the dorm a little while ago. His whole trouble is that he is staying up all night too often. He is working too hard on the Makio and must quit. Really he is doing more work than is necessary. And he continually eats candy. He walks down stairs to a meal with a chocolate bar in his mouth. There is nothing seriously wrong with him but there will be if he doesn't start getting to bed by midnight. If he'd let me I could do a lot of Makio work for him during the afternoons when I have no classes, but he is pretty stubborn about such things.

I sent my brown coat and vest home with the laundry to be cleaned with the trousers which I left at vacation. Have warners mail it to me as I am not just sure when I will be home. If I come this week it will have to be Sunday morning as there are too [sic] more committee meetings called for Saturday and it is important that I be there.

Well, that's all and I'm going to get some sleep tonight so I'll close. I'm well and feeling fine and think Fred will be in the morning after about 15 hours sleep.

Love,

    Hen.*

*typed on letterhead.

**A.E. Huls was mayor of Logan, Ohio from 1912-1916.

###

Alive and very well

Charles Henry Huls

Logan, Ohio

January 15, 1925

Dear Folks:

I'm still alive and very well. The only reason you haven't heard from me is just because I'm up to my old habits of letting Fred write

Before I forget to tell you I'll mention here that I carried the Hudson keys up here with me and will keep them until I come home or either send them by mail if you want them.

We certainly enjoyed the fruitcake and candy and Mrs Abernathy was tickled to death about hers. The other party passed nice compliments also.

And there's another thing I must mention before I forget. I'll need my dress shirts next week so send them right away. Rather I should have said that I need one next week.

We expected to see you in Columbus when Pop called and said he had come up. Enjoyed eating with him that night and always want both of you to let us know whenever you are in town.

Fred certainly has been working hard on the Makio. Cunningham told me today that he had an awful time to keep the other candidates satisfied because he let Fred do the most work. But he asked what he could do. He said the work had to be done and there was only one person whom he could give things to and know they would be done right and on time without going into details.

Fred has also been studying hard and I believe will have easier and lees [sic] work than last quarter.

I didn't get to read Pop's article in the paper. I was told that it was in a couple of days after it appeared and I couldn't get a back number of the paper up here in the north end. Several of the boys said it was a very good and fair statement of affairs and it surprised me as some ofthem [sic] are wet.

Prof. Myers was up to the hpuse [sic] the other night and I had a long talk with him. He says I have a wonderful chance at home and advises me to take over the paper but says I should work at least a year on a city paper for the sake of experience and education. He doesn't advise sticking to a city paper however. Said he ahd [sic] advised his son in this way and that he had followed the suggestions and was on a country paper doing very well. He offered to get me a job for a year when I graduate.

I don't believe I'd like to do regular work on a daily for very long as there is not much chance for advancement beyond a certain point and it is certainly a grind, but I would like to get a little taste of city work and from what Pop said at Christmas I take it that will be all right for me to do this.

It will be better if I can get a job in line now and I wanted to make sure that you would have no objections to such a plan before I did anything definite.

WE've [sic] had plenty of ice here this week and there had been a lot of sliding. So far I've been able to keep my feet but I've seen several hit the cement pretty hard.

I had planned to drive home this week end but I have two meetings Sunday and it is important that I attend both so I will have to postpone my trip another week.

It's midnight now and I'm going to enter the refrigerator (as defined by A.E.H.) and get a good sleep. Once I get under the covers I'll never move till morning. Fred has been in bed for about an hour.

Love,

    Hen.

P.S. Don't forget the Republican and the Waboos.*

*typed on letterhead with handwritten post script

###

A load off

Charles Henry Huls

Logan, Ohio

January 5, 1925

Dear Mom,

This will let you know that I safely arrived in Columbus. Had a flat tire at Winchester thanks to Price not putting in a new tube. I won't have to get any new ones, however, so don't worry about that.

Found the house all cleaned up and the room in order so that was a load off my mind.

Remember the $5 of wager that I said I was going to use for the Follies. Well, I won't have to as I'm being taken with Jack by Jack and will sit in the box. I'm going to Scarlet Mask this week the same way. Isn't that pretty nice.

Well, I'm going to bed now for a good sleep. Don't have to get up tomorrow till 8:30. Fred is well and got his schedule fixed O.K.

Love,

    Hen.*

*handwritten on letterhead

###

Bottled up emotions

One of the newspaper clippings that always chokes me up a little is found on page 4 of the Saturday, Dec. 16, 1933 edition of the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette:

20-YEAR-OLD NOTE FOUND IN BOTTLE

While working on the Goose Creek project near Logan, Ray Castell found a bottle containing a note which he turned over to the Logan Republican. This recalled to Fred E. Huls, managing editor, a circumstance which occurred when he was a lad attending the East Grade School.

On the note were the names of C. H. Huls, A. R. Huls, A. E. Huls, and F. E. Huls, together with the date of January 24, 1913.

The note was prepared by Charles and Fred Huls twenty years ago and was placed in an extract bottle which they threw into Goose Creek one morning while enroute to school [., sic]

Castell found the bottle a half mile down stream from the bridge where it had been buried in debris.

Talking with my dad helped me figure this out. I knew that grandpa Fred and great-uncle Charley had gone to the "same" school I did in Logan: Central Elementary. However, what my young mind didn't know was that Central was rebuilt many times over the years.

Central was too small and needed to be remodeled*, so grandpa Fred and great-uncle Charley went to East Elementary (according to oldohioschools.com, East Elementary was built in 1910 and demolished in 2011) for awhile. They would pass Goose Creek every day on their way to school. Grandpa even told of leaving their gum or jawbreaker candies under the bridge to retrieve on they way home. Yuck.

I can see the two boys creating the message with both their names and the names of their parents. Grandpa Fred (F.E.) would have been 8-years-old at the time and Charley (C.H.) would have been 10.

They probably thought it would go to the sea, but instead it went about a half mile.

I can only imagine the emotions this 20-year-old bottle brought to the family. I can picture my great-grandmother maybe tearing up a little when she saw the message from the past. I hope it gave them all some pleasure to think about the happier times of Charley's youth.

Grandpa Fred would especially need that comfort. Eight months later both Alpheus Eugene (A.E.) and Anna Rebecca (A.R.) Huls would be dead.

-30-

Happy 122nd birthday Uncle Charley

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday Uncle Charley,

Happy birthday to you.

-30-

The beginning of the end

Today, the final countdown begins for me.

One hundred years ago today, my doomed great-uncle Charley sat down and typed this innocuous letter home. I can see my great-grandmother reading it with a smile before putting it away for future reading.

I imagine these final letters became either a source of comfort or despair as the final 10 years of her life loomed ahead.

Charles Henry Huls had 53 days yet to live.

David Isaac Pushkin had 54.

Happy holidays boys.

Charles Henry Huls

Logan, Ohio

December. 9, 1924

Dear Folks:

Charley "Pickle Face" Huls

I suppose you wonder why you didn't hear from me last week. I came home Thursday night intending to write then saw that Fred was ahead of me and told everything worth telling so I waited until now in hopes that I could give you some news.

The insurance man came around to see me today regarding the report I filed with Harbough and said he would take care of the thing. It seems to me that it took him an awfully long time to locate me, especially when the report I made out was received by the company the same day. I saw the date of receival [sic] stamped on it myself.

Well, I got another job that will require a lot of work and no remuneration [sic]. I was appointed chairman of the senior invitation committee. It is up to me to compile the list of around 1500 graduates in alphabetical order and under their respective colleges. I hope that I may be able to get my invitations free for doing the work.

Someone got a lot of graft from the invitations last year. Paper ones cost 26 cents and leather ones 56 cents each. This year they will cost 13 cents for paper and 26 for leather. The same quality of work will be had too. I imagine Harcourt gave quite a rebate to the committee last year because the same prices that I got were given last year by another company.

Fred says to tell you that he will probably be home for dinner Friday. He is driving my coupe down and will bring it back Sunday.

I won't be home until Saturday, the 20. I am through finals on Thursday but we are having the Christmas party for the poor kids Friday night and its a party worth staying over for. Besides I'll probably [be, sic] needed to help get them here and home.

We passed H.R. north of Lancaster when we came up last week and he sure was having a terrible time as you said. He looked like a kid on the end of "crack the whip" game the way he was holding on to the wheel. We didn't have any trouble at all with the chains, but we saw a lot that were slipping without them.

Our examinations begin Wednesday. I have two that day and two on Thursday. Fred has three on Wednesday and one on Thursday. I certainly will be glad to see this quarter end as I never knew the time I was so sick of school as I am now. I'm afraid it's because I don't have anything else to do, like Makio. I was busy all of the time the years before this and now I have so much time to kill that that's about all I do. It's so easy to keep putting off when you know you will have plenty of time to do things the next day.

I suppose Pop worked the big cross-word puzzle in the Sunday Dispatch and I wonder what luck he had. I worked most of the afternoon on it and succeeded in getting all but two letters in one word. I had H -- C -- A and the word was Hecla, a mountain. Some people think that the puzzles are a waste of time but I learned a bunch of new words Sunday. I got out my dictionary when all other means failed and found synonyms I never heard of before.

Tee Young and I went to Keiths tonight and I got the tickets alright. The fellow asked if I could identify myself and I happened to have a Charles Henry Huls card which was alright. He said it was so easy for any student to give my name that they had to ask for identification. It would be very handy if Pop would type a little note on one of the little letterheads.

Some of the fellows got a little sore at me because they said I was crabing [sic] about the meals. They seemed to think I wanted potatoes removed from the menu but the point I had in mind was to vary the style of serving them. For seven meals straight we have had mashed potatoes and I hate to look at them. The cook fixes them the easiest way for her instead of trying to please out tastes. If I were the Stewart you can bet that the menu would contain boiled, baked, and French fried potatoes between mashed ones.

With a four thousand word thesis to write before Monday and finals coming I have been pretty busy. I still have a couple of short fraternity letters to write tonight and it is almost 1 so I will close this one.

I almost forgot to tell you that we remembered where our knives were and did not buy new ones. But they were not in our laundry as you said they would be. However, I don't say that to criticize as I know that Pop is too busy to trifle with such things as sharpening knives. Fred can bring them back Sunday.

I am well with the exception of the cold in my head which I had when I was home. I'm going to souse myself with baum [balm?] tonight and expect to break it.

Love,

                Hen.

P.S. I am enclosing several pickle faces. Really, I can smile at times. I picked the front view for the Makio. Don't like it but there isn't time to have another taken.

Hen.*

*typed on letterhead

-30-

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. 

-30-

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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Tell everyone I said hello

I was incredibly touched when a woman in Ohio reached out to me in October 2022 to ask if I would like to have a postcard written by my late cousin Owen Douglas Huls, to his maternal grandmother Ann Shriner in our hometown of Logan, Ohio. Yes, please!

Written on a U.S. Navy postcard, it has no stamp just a notation of "Free" in the top-right corner. The postmark appears to read Nov. 1, 1943 from Jacksonville, Florida

Sun.

Dear Grandma,

I received your cookies & candy yesterday and they sure were good. I enjoyed them all eve. You sure can bake good. I also received the candy from Grace (possibly his maternal aunt Grace). Thank her for me will you. Tell everyone I said hello. How are you by now? Has it turned cold there yet. It is cold at nites [sic] here & warm in the day time. I graduate this Thursday. Then I'll move about 15 miles to the Air Base. I'll start to fly then. I'll be in a PBY (a flying boat and amphibious aircraft that was used in the 1930s and 1940s). Later I'll be transferred to either B-24 - B25 or B-26. Hope to get in a B-26. That's all for now so I'll sign off.
                                                                Love, 

                                                                        Owen

This is the only thing we have left of Owen. Tragically, he was executed on June 6, 1945 while serving in the Pacific and his body was never recovered.

Rest in Peace cousin.

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Michigan's Strychnine Saint

Recently I have been reading Tobin T. Buhk's book, Michigan's Strychnine Saint: The Curious Case of Mrs. Mary McKnight. According to the summary found on amazon.com:

The spring of 1903 proved disastrous for the Murphy family. On April 22, the infant Ruth Murphy died in her crib. Within an hour, her mother, Gertrude, experienced a violent spasm before she, too, died. Ten days later, John Murphy followed his wife and child to the grave after suffering from a crippling convulsion. While neighbors whispered about a curse and physicians feared a contagious disease, Kalkaska County sheriff John W. Creighton and prosecuting attorney Ernest C. Smith searched for answers. As they probed deeper into the suspicious deaths, they uncovered a wicked web of intrigue. And at the center stood a widow in a black taffeta dress.

I have not finished it yet, but I was struck by the mention of "little pink and white pills" that supposedly contained strychnine, quinine and/ or aspirin.  

"I had this strychnine and some quinine mixed together in some capsules," according to the accused murderer, Mary Murphy McKnight, who apparently used it to "calm her nerves."

Now these events took place 22 years before Charley and David were murdered in 1925, but it certainly illustrates how easy it was to get strychnine in the late 18th or early 19th centuries. So easy that Mary McKnight possibly poisoned another eight or so of her family members previously!

I have read that she was found guilty and sentenced to about 18 years in prison -- so she was out by the time the OSU strychnine poisonings occurred. Thankfully she appears to have never left Michigan. She supposedly died in 1941 and is buried in Detroit.

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