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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Genealogy 101

It has been suggested that I introduce myself, in order to share why this story has had such a huge influence in my life over the past 50-plus years.

My name is Greta Huls, but I strongly believe my story begins in Hocking County, Ohio when it was newly formed on March 1, 1818. Its name is from the Hocking River,  which is said to be from a Delaware Native American word "hock-hocking" meaning "bottle river."

My great-great-great-grandfather William Huls moved to Ohio from New Jersey in 1827 to assist in the building of the Hocking Canal.

Capt. William H. Huls stands to the front left.

His son, my great-great-grandfather Capt. William Harrison Huls, later served in the Civil War with the 58th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Co. H.

A.E. stands behind his father William H, Huls.

His son, my great-grandfather Alpheus Eugene Huls (also known as A.E. or Gene to family and friends) began printing and publishing (Millville Tomahawk, Logan Republican) in 1883 and built his Huls Printing building in 1923.

Great-grandpa Gene married Mary Jennie Frasure in 1889. They had two children: Walter Harrison Huls, who was born in 1890, and an unnamed infant who died with its mother either in birth or the same day. They were buried together at Centenary Cemetery in Hocking County   

Gene and Anna R. Huls

Great-grandpa Gene married my great-grandmother Anna Rebecca Troxel in 1899. They had three children: Anna Troxel Huls who was stillborn in 1900, Charles Henry Huls who was born in 1902, and Frederick Eugene Huls who was born in 1904.

(Anna Rebecca's father was Henry Troxel who was born in Hocking County, Ohio in 1825 -- where he also later died in 1900. He made the "family fortune" when he was a young man who bought the salvage rights to a barge that sank on the nearby Hocking Canal. He deeply regretted his lack of education so made certain his four children received one. He even waited until all four were college age before sending all four to college simultaneously!)

My grandfather, Fred. E. Huls, reluctantly went to work for the family business in 1926 after he completed his term as editor for the 1926 Makio yearbook. He never got his engineering or journalism degree. He married in 1928 and had his first child, a girl, nine months later. However, it was another 12 years before my father was born.

My father Frederick "Fritz" Eugene Huls II was born in 1941. Grandpa Fred did the same thing his own father had done, and forced my father to join Huls Printing in 1963 despite my father's own interests. It might have gone better if Grandpa had left my dad back in the print shop, but Grandpa wanted Dad in front running the business and being a Family Face. Sadly, that business arrangement collapsed within 10 years.

Meanwhile, I was born in 1964 to Fritz and Patricia Anne Taylor Huls of Bay Village, Ohio. My earliest, happiest memories involve the print shop and the people there. I was crushed when Grandpa Fred retired and moved to Arizona in 1971. Dad didn't seem to feel the same way, and the business was eventually sold to Evans "Sandy" Hand sometime between 1971-1975. We moved to Arizona in 1975. 

The Huls Building today.

Sandy successfully ran the Huls Printing Co., until he retired and sold the building in 2001 to Hocking County. Separated by a parking lot with the Hocking County Court House, the Huls Building now provides the county with much needed storage space. Even when I last visited in October 2001 that building was still impregnated with the smell of inks and solvents.

In my opinion, Grandpa Fred gave up too soon on the family dynasty. My late aunt (his firstborn) wanted to go into the family business, but grandpa discouraged her saying girls could only write for women's pages -- typical for the 1940s and 1950s. I became interested in journalism, writing, and photography early on. I think knew I had ink in my blood. When I did receive my bachelor's degree in Journalism with emphasis in Photojournalism from Northern Arizona University in 1989, I sent Grandpa Fred an additional tassel with a card that said, "It took 64 years, but we finally got the journalism degree!"

Meanwhile, I grew up hearing about my Hocking County ancestors. Every street or road in Hocking County seemed to have a personal story. Even as a young child I had a sense of pride in what my ancestors had accomplished in the region. I became interested in family genealogy before I even knew what genealogy was! Part of that was the oral traditions passed down. Hocking County is in the Appalachian foothills so we had a strong sense of family and oral tradition -- something my Cuyahoga county born and bred mother didn't understand for decades. I knew stories about my 19th century ancestors that made them real, not just grim-faced people in albumen cabinet cards.

I grew up hungry wanting to know more, so I keep digging....

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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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The printer's devil

A.E. Huls, Millville, Ohio

A. E. Huls was understandably upset. Not only was his son dead, but now his dead son's name was attached to a growing scandal.

My great-grandfather, Alpheus Eugene Huls, was born in 1866 after his father returned from the Civil War. A. E., or Gene, started his printing company (above) where he also published the Millville Tomahawk out of a tiny office in Millville (later Rockbridge) in 1883. To supplement his income he was issued one-year teaching certificates in 1885 and 1886. He eventually moved to Logan, Ohio where he published the Logan Republican and ran the Huls Printing Co.

Charley was born Dec. 13, 1902 in Logan, Ohio to Gene and Anna Rebecca Troxel Huls. He was Gene's first surviving child from his second marriage. Grandpa followed on Aug. 10, 1904. They, and their older half-brother Walter Harrison Huls, were groomed to become printers and newspaper publishers.

However, the boys had other plans. Walter became a life-long teacher and Grandpa was more interested in his erector sets and wanted to become an engineer. That left Charley, who thankfully wanted to follow in his father's footsteps.

Charley started as a printer's devil -- an apprentice in a printing establishment who performed a number of menial tasks, such as mixing tubs of ink and fetching type. Grandpa worked there too, but his heart wasn't in it.

After Charley graduated from Logan High School in 1921, he enrolled at Ohio State University in its Commerce and Journalism program, where he quickly became involved with the university newspaper and yearbook. Grandpa enrolled there as an engineering student the following year.

Neither got to follow their dreams.

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