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.

*Central Elementary possibly had to be rebuilt/remodeled after the Collinwood school fire in Collinwood, Ohio (a Cleveland suburb) on March 4, 1908. Also known as the Lake View School fire, 172 students (including four of my mother's known relatives), 2 teachers and 1 rescuer died in one of the deadliest school disasters in United States history.

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A fine face

I found two tiny clippings* mentioning a message received by my great-grandparents that I thought were worth mentioning.

RECEIVES MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT

Editor and Mrs. A.E. Huls received a message from President and Mrs. Coolidge last Thursday morning expressing their sympathy over the death of Charles Huls. They stated they had seen his picture and were impressed by his fine face. The recent death of their own son makes them doubly sympathetic.

To Our Boy

Charles H. Huls

The Huls and Troxel families were pioneers of Hocking County, so Charley's death reverberated about the county. While I cannot find at this time the original editorial in The Logan Republican, a religious newspaper called Our Hope published weekly by the Western Advent Christian Publication Association had this to say in its April 1, 1925 edition:        

        Many of our readers have met Brother and Sister Huls of Rockbridge, Ohio, and many others know them through the pages of "Our Hope." We published a picture of their beautiful home in the special issue of February 18th. Brother Huls' brother* conducts a newspaper in Logan, Ohio, whose son was taking a special course in the Ohio State University and a few months ago was one of the victims of the poison taken by mistake, regarding which newspapers had much to say. His father wrote an editorial appearing in his own paper entitled "To Our Boy," in which the father expresses his terrible grief and hopes blasted, for he had made much preparation to pass on his business to his boy, who was making special preparation for it. He also speaks of that fine Christian faith and trust that enables one to bear the griefs and disappointments of life.

        We take the liberty of passing on just a few paragraphs of this editorial to our readers and extend to the bereaved family and friends our deepest sympathy.

        He was the embodiment of confidence, not an empty confidence, but one born of his determination and ability to do things.

        It was this confidence largely that inspired the erection of our new building. The hard work, the big responsibility, the danger of going too far were all lightened by the thought that we would have the co-worker so abundantly endowed with the spirit of success.

        What a prospect for us all and what a tumbling down of prospects, his loss has caused.

        Without his comradship [sic], without his counsel, we must bear the burden alone, content to plod along the best we can without his inspiration, his confidence, his ability,

        But the greater loss is in the home. May we be pardoned for saying that not enough families are endowed with the spirit of comradeship that marked our home. Few pleasures were enjoyed that were not shared by all. We were comrades whether at home or away from home. That comradship [sic] is broken, the quartet has lost one of its members. Discord was almost a stranger in our home, and harmony, peaceful harmony, was always present. And while this thought at first seems to emphasize our grief, there is under the clouds a silver lining. Nothing to regret, no harsh words or actions to mar the recollection. It is a blessed memory.

        But even this hour of grief is brightened by the overwhelming sympathy of friends and neighbors and the wide circle of the friends of our boy. From the sunny south to the lakes and from points east and west come tributes of praise for the dead and words of comfort for the living. From the president of the college, his teachers and classmates, from dozens of fraternities and college societies, from friends and neighbors, come the letters, nearly a hundred of them, all breathing a spirit of comfort. As we write this a bunch of unopened letters lies in our desk.

        And the flowers, so symbolic of his short life, what a profusion of them. They were simply wonderful in their beauty and abundance. From sources unexpected came these mute tributes to our boy, these silent messages of consolation.

        Then there were the other flowers, not floral tributes, but the tributes from the hearts of kind neighbors and friends, who seemed so eager to lighten the burden and share the grief.

        The sweet influence of these roses of friendship will linger long in our memories, long after the natural flowers have lost their fragrance and scattered their petals. 

        May the Ruler of all give us strength to carry the load, and, in a measure, reach some of the ideals of our boy. May his example inspire within us a life worthy of the one we have loved and lost for a time, but not forever.

        There is a time coming when this sin-cursed earth will be made new, when such scenes as we are passing through will all be in the past, and where we can renew the companionship of those we have lost. Then and not until then will the heartaches be cured, broken ties reunited and true happiness restored.

                                        --A.E. Huls

        *I believe the newspaper got the family relationships incorrectly. Great-grandpa Gene's only brother lived in California where he died unexpectedly later that same year. I believe they are referring to Joseph W.  and Emma Frasure Huls. Joseph was Great-grandpa Gene's first cousin who married the sister of Gene's first wife, Mary Jennie Frasure Huls. They raised Gene's son Walter after Jenny either died in childbirth or shortly thereafter. She was buried with her baby. Joseph is also the man who built in Rockbridge a nearly identical version of the A.E. Huls house in Logan.

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Whitewash

A.E. Huls was a broken man. He built his fabulous new fire-proof Huls Printing building at

A.E. Huls

 51 E. Main Street in Logan (which still stands and is currently used for county records) in 1923 in anticipation of Charley's graduation and joining the family business. 

Now Charley was dead. (1925 was a doubly bad year for Great-grandpa Gene when his younger brother, William Miller Huls, died unexpectedly on July 16, 1925 in California.)

At some point after Charlie's death he wrote and published am extremely long, maudlin, almost Victorian eulogy, "To Our Boy." Not surprisingly I cannot find it online.

I also know that he was furiously writing letters. I don't know if he typed, but I can see him churning out letter after letter. (See all the responses that were saved under Additional correspondence.)

I do not know when my great-grandfather finally became convinced that Charley had died from strychnine poisoning, but it wasn't until December 15, 1926 when Great-grandpa Gene started complaining about a "whitewash" and filed a $15,000 claim against the state of Ohio, according to newspaper reports.

        "My son's death was purely the fault of the university and the State Board of Pharmacy. They were running a cut-rate drug store there with a clientele of 10,000. It was not Inspected by the state. Had it been Inspected my son would not have died."

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PURE STRYCHNINE!

In late fall or early winter 1987, my late 83-year-old grandfather wrote a letter to Benjamin Balshone, R.Ph. Balshone, who died in 1991, published at least two books that I can find, so maybe he was interested in writing a book about the strychnine killings. A registered pharmacist, he had at least some connection to the O.S.U. College of Pharmacy where there are awards named after he and his wife, and he was a board member of the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy from 1973-1977.

Part of that letter appears in The History of the College of Pharmacy at Ohio State University in  Chapter VI, simply entitled, The Poisonings.

I am publishing it here in its entirety. The mistakes Grandpa caught and corrected by hand are enclosed with (parenthesis). The mistakes I caught are enclosed with [brackets] and/or a sic. Emphasis is all his.

Dear Mr. Balshone,

Please forgive me for (not) having responded to your letter of September. I was in the hospital at the time the (letter) arrived and it became misplaced while I was not at home.

At 83 my memories sometimes become a little hazy, but I will endeavor to relate some of the events as I remember them. However I would suggest that (you) research the files of the Columbus Dispatch of that time and also the files of the Logan Republican, published by my father, A.E. Huls. Those files are on micro-film at the Ohio State Library.*

My brother and I roomed together at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house. He had been suffering from a cold and went to the University Health Service for an excuse from classes he had missed (something concerning a new (rule) about cutting classes, the details of which I can't remember). They gave him a prescription for cold capsules. It was filled by the pharmacy in the Colle(g)e of Pharmacy building.

He took one of the capsules at dinner that evening at the fraternity house. He had a date that evening and told me I could have his car if I would take him "down to the corner" which was the name for Fifteenth and High streets. As he went to get into the car is [his, sic]  legs collapsed and he could not walk. We carried him up to our room and called a doctor.

While the doctor was working on my brother, I went into the bathroom with one of the capsules, intending to take it as I also had a slight cold. Just then a fraternity brother came in saying the doctor wanted to see me. I put the capsule on (a) marble window sill and went to our room. The doctor told me my brother was dying. He was having convulsions and s(u)ffered an agonizing death.

Another student, a David Puskin of Canton, Ohio, died about the same time after having taken cold capsules from the University Pharmacy. Actual cause of the deaths was not known, but there were speculations about spinal menengitis [sic] and other similar causes of death.

The (U)niversity issued calls for the remaining capsules to be returned for a(n)alysis. Upon returning to school after my brother's funeral, I refused to turn the capsules in my possession over to the University (the capsule I had intended to take was still on the window ledge when I returned). The University found some of the capsules returned contained a trace of strychnine.

I took the capsules in my possession to Ray Hoyt, then City editor of the Columbus Dispatch and a friend of my brother. He took them to a private and independent chemist chemist [sic] and the result was PURE STRYCHNINE!

That of course broke the case wide open. Many believed it was murder. I refute this as my brother knew no one in the Pharmacy Department. It may have (been) an attempt at "wholesale slaughter' which has become so prevalent today. Personally I believe it mere carelessness on the part of students and faculty in the College of Pharmacy. Evidence given at the formal inquiry suggests this.

After a while (t)hen Go(v)ernor Vic Danahey called for an investigation of the P(h)armacy Department and he appointed the Dean to investigate the tragedy (to investigate itself).

For years I had a transcript of the hearing and investigation but it has become lost or misplaced. However I would believe an original is still on file by the State of Ohio.

The State of Ohio finally paid $10,000 to the parents of each student who died, which I believe was the standard death claim paid for industrial deaths at that time.

This has been written strictly from memory. I suggest that you review the newspaper files mention(e)d* and make inquiry as to the availability of the official report.

Sincerely,

Fred E. Huls

P.S. My typing also has slipped a little -- please excuse!

This letter shows a few errors.

• Grandpa always said Charley was murdered. Not intentionally, but randomly. It was no accident.
• Newspaper reports say Great-Grandpa Gene filed a claim for $15,000 but only received $7,500 -- as did David Puskin's father. However, Gene wrote a letter stating he received $10,000.
• I have found an R.G. Hoyt who was City Editor for the Columbus Dispatch in 1925.

*Grandpa Fred spent a considerable amount of time, money, and effort making sure the Logan Republican was on microfiche. Those films cannot be currently found.

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