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.

-30-

All's well that ends well

The Ohio Democrat

Logan, Ohio

28 Aug 1902, Thu • Page 2

As I was going through the old clippings and photographs that I still have, I noticed these three newspaper clippings. All are from late summer and fall of 1902.

First my great-grandfather tore down "the old Kinlie house" around August 28 to build his new family home, financed with his wife's inheritance.

The Ohio Democrat

Logan, Ohio

Dec. 4, 1902, Thu • Page 3

Amazingly, his "handsome dwelling" was mostly* finished probably just in time for Thanksgiving on Thursday, Nov. 27 . . . but it burned on Sunday, Nov. 30.

The Hocking Sentinel

Logan, Ohio

04 Dec 1902, Thu • Page 4

Then my poor great-grandmother gave birth to her eldest son, Charles Henry Huls, just two weeks later on Sunday, Dec. 13, 1902.

All this makes me wonder if Uncle Charley was born in Logan as we thought, or was he born in Millville/Rockbridge in her childhood home?

*I say mostly because my grandfather had early memories of assisting with finishing touches around the house and he wasn't born until 1904.

-30-

Homestead act

Well, my last post might have been little incorrect.

According to my father, another amateur genealogist, William Henry King was homesteading in Independence, Kansas not serving with the Grand Army of the Republic. Additionally, the GAR was a social fraternity for Union veterans of the Civil War.

Whoops.

I think I saw somewhere (and now I can't find where -- dratted memory loss) that W.H. King was involved with GAR post #4, named after General James B. McPherson, causing my earlier assumption.

The GAR was founded in 1866 in Decatur, Illinois, and included hundreds of "posts" in every state and even a few overseas. Its highest membership was 410,000, but it ended by 1956 when its last known member died.

W.H. King and his family, was shown in the 1870 US census as a farmer in Brush Creek township, Scioto County, Ohio. Apparently W.H. King took advantage of his possible signing bonus for the 53rd OVI and moved his wife Angeline and toddler son Horace out to Independence, Kansas.

According to my father, at some point a previously unknown to me child (it wasn't Horace and it wasn't Franklin) was bitten by a rattlesnake and died, causing the entire family to return to Ohio by 1874. That is where his first wife Angeline died in 1874 and buried in her family cemetery in Brush Creek township, Scioto County.

Just what happened to that poor family within a span of four years?

-30-

Declaration of Independence

Oh my! My brain just exploded.

William Henry King

Apparently, my great-great-grandfather William Henry King was stationed in Independence, Montgomery, Kansas with the Grand Army of the Republic in 1871 -- exactly when Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family were there in Little House on the Prairie. They were my very favorite books in the late 1960s and 1970s.

I can't help but wonder if "Pa" Charles Ingalls met or knew W.H. King. Laura mentioned the soldiers there.

Did W.H. King's first wife, Angeline Smith King help "Ma" Caroline Quiner Ingalls give birth to Caroline Celeste "Carrie" Ingall's on August 3, 1870?

Were the Ingalls family still there and did Mrs. Ingalls return the favor and help Mrs. King give birth to her second son, Franklin Forest King, on February 11, 1871?

Angeline King died February 13, 1874, and W.H. King married my gggrandmother, Mary Alice Hazelbaker, on July 21, 1874. (Their granddaughter, Alice Thelma Hamilton, married my grandfather, Fred Huls on February 6, 1928 -- the same year William Henry King died on August 26.)

Those two King boys weren't motherless for long!

-30-

Still looking for clews

Thoughts of Great-Uncle Charley always crowd my head the last week of January. What would he have been like? What kind of man would he have been? Would he have been kind to his future great-niece?

Would I have even existed?!

His remaining letters shown his final week was fairly humdrum, other than a persistent cold and that darned toothache.

A CNN story in September rekindled my interest in the Tylenol Murders, which I wrote about in The ripple effect. I reached out to the husband of one of the surviving family members and he passed my request to talk on to his wife, Kasia Janus. She wrote back to me in November but I have heard nothing since then so maybe she changed her mind or decided it was too painful.

However, I saw a CBS story today that reminded me so I wrote to Ms. Janus again. This new story brought up touch DNA and how a survivor had been swabbed so her DNA could be compared to DNA found on her bottle 40 years later.

I admit I got shivers. If only there was surviving evidence from Uncle Charley's or David Puskin's murders, or from the other five men that were poisoned but survived, that we could use 98 years later. I know that our families wouldn't get justice after all these years, but could we get closure?

I think so. My father, the oldest surviving Huls at this time,  might. I certainly would and I think my brother would, too. Maybe even my cousins.

But as an amateur genealogist, this new field of genetic genealogy fascinates me no end.

Criminals beware! The geeks are coming for you!

-30-

The billboard song

Grandpa Fred used to recite a poem that fascinated me as a child. Where did he learn it? School? Campfires? Uncle Charley? The fraternity? I can certainly see its lyrics becoming a bit more "off color" in that situation.

Sadly, I never wrote it down or recorded it as a child and there are many, many, many versions online. This is about the best I can do:

As I was walking down the street a billboard caught my eye.

The advertising that was there would make you laugh or cry.

The wind and rain had almost washed that old billboard away.

But the advertising painted there would have that billboard say:

Have a smoke of Coca-Cola. Chew catsup cigarettes.

Watch Lillian Russell wrestle with a box of Cascarets.

Pork and beans will meet tonight in a finish fight.

Hear Chauncey DePew speak upon Sapolio tonight.

Bay rum is good for horses; it is the best in town.

Castoria cures the measles, if you pay ten dollars down.

Teeth extracted without pain, a nickel or half a dime.

Ingersolls are selling now, a little behind the times.

Chew Wrigleys for that headache. Eat Campbells for that cough.

There's going to be a swimming bee at the village watering trough.

Buy a case of ginger-ale, it makes the best of broth.

Shinola's good to curl the hair, it will not rub it off!

Author unknown 

Apparently as it changed over the decades people began singing it to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious which curiously works.

-30-

Witness to an execution

A detail of Charley's life that I am currently trying to track down is which execution did he witness while a student journalist at Ohio State. Yes, Charley was invited by a friend at the Columbus Dispatch to witness an execution and he invited grandpa Fred to join them.

Ohio Historical Society

Grandpa declined, thank you very much.

Capital punishment has been a part of Ohio’s frontier justice since it became a state in 1803. An execution was carried out by public hanging in the county where the crime was committed until 1885 when a law was passed that required executions to be carried out at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus.

Thankfully only two Hocking County men were hanged in that timeframe: Elias Primmer (the father-in-law of my first cousin, three times removed) in 1856 and Isaac Edwards in 1895.

In 1897, the electric chair, considered to be a more humane form of execution, replaced the gallows in Ohio -- only the second state to do so. (Ohio-born Thomas Edison helped develop it in New York despite being opposed to the death penalty.)

Ohio's chair ultimately had an automatic timer which first sent 1,750 volts through the condemned person's body for 20 seconds, followed by 50 seconds at 600 volts, before finishing with 10 seconds of 1,750 volts.

Known as "Old Sparky" to the public (and "Old Thunderbolt" to inmates) it killed 312 men and three women, beginning with William Haas, 17, of Hamilton County in 1897 and ending with Donald Reinbolt, 29, of Columbus in 1963.

I have narrowed my search to 37 men (slightly more than half of whom were white) who were all convicted of murder and electrocuted between the fall of 1921 and January 31, 1925:

1. Frank Moto, 26, white, Aug. 29, 1921  
2. Sylvester Brown, 27, Black, Sept. 9, 1921 
3. Andrew Davy, 38, white, Sept. 20, 1921 
4. John Cooper, 42, Black, Sept. 30, 1921 
5. Arthur Harding, 38, Black, Feb. 24, 1922
6. Walter Wright, 28, white, March 1, 1922 
7. Harry Bland, 27, white, March 1, 1922 
8. Leroy Tyler, 34, Black, March 3, 1922
9. John McGuire, 30, white, March 3, 1922
10. Roy Champlin, 27, white, March 25, 1922 
11. John Vaiden, 26, Black, May 5, 1922 
12. George Bush, 41, Black, May 5, 1922 
13. Samuel Purpera, 19, white May 9, 1922
14. Dominic Benigno, 26, white, June 14, 1922
15. John Gackenbach, 21, white, June 20, 1922
16. Steve Myeskie, 22, white, June 23, 1922 
17. Ludie Shelton, 24, Black, Jan 26, 1923
18. Charles Habig, 32, white, Feb. 16, 1923
19. Charles Arnold, 64, white, March 2, 1923
20. Henry White, 41, Black, March 2, 1923
21. Stanley Forbes, 27, white, April 13, 1923
22. Noble Holt, 27, white, April 27, 1923
23. James Wellions, 40, Black, July 13, 1923
24. Adam Roberts, 41, Black, Sept. 6, 1923
25. Irvin Layer, 38, white, Nov. 2, 1923
26. John Karayians, 33, white, Dec. 8, 1923
27. Edward Long, 23, white, Jan. 4, 1924
28. John Nelson, 28, Black, Feb. 1, 1924
29. Mike Sipcich, 56, white, Feb. 8, 1924
30. William Hollis, 24, Black, March 28, 1924
31. Clem Head, 31, Black, April 15, 1924
32. Charles Brooks, 52, Black, April 28, 1924
33. Louis Rossi, 35, white, April 29, 1924
34. Vincenzo Caparra, 33, white, June 24, 1924
35. James Avant, 41, Black, Dec. 5, 1924
36. Alexander Kuszik, 19, white, Dec. 12, 1924
37. Joseph Kane, 21, white, Jan. 9, 1925
    

In 1972, the United States Supreme Court declared the death penalty to be unconstitutional. Although Ohio reinstated the death penalty in 1974, it did not resume executions until 1999 and none chose to use the electric chair.

On November 15, 2001, Governor Bob Taft signed House Bill 362 eliminating the electric chair as a form of execution. 

On February 26, 2002, Ohio’s electric chair was decommissioned and finally disconnected from service. The original electric chair was donated to the Ohio Historical Society on December 18, 2002, and a replica electric chair was donated to the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society. 

As of 2022, the only method of execution in Ohio is lethal injection.

-30-

Of golden weddings and pocket-watches

Pinterest

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. 

-30-

Playin' hooky

The Hocking Sentinel, Aug. 24, 1905

I find it oddly reassuring that uncle Charley was not always the perfect son.

He, too, worried his parents and ditched school -- even if it was only kindergarten or first grade.

Master Charles Huls and little Miss Bertha Delp, two typical young Americans, decided to cut loose from their family ties, last Friday afternoon, and see Logan. After some two hours of strenuons [sic] search and mental agony their parents found them at the lower end of town, near the trestle "watchin' for the train to go over."

Grandpa Fred did not join them. He was only a year old and too young for such shenanigans.

-30- 

Sins of the father

While trying to discover which, if any, of the State of Ohio's executions great-uncle Charley witnessed I discovered yet another murder* with a family connection. Sadly, this time we are related by marriage to the convicted killer.

Elias Primmer was convicted of killing John Fox and the attempted murder of his wife. Eight months later he was hanged by the neck until dead on Nov. 26, 1856. His was the first legal execution in Hocking County. Little Noah Primmer was about four.

Mary L. Huls married Noah Primmer in 1880, but she died in 1881 just five months after their marriage. 

Elias Primmer was the father-in-law of Charley's first cousin, one time removed. Mary L. Huls was the sister of the Joseph W. Huls of the Letter Scandal.

Noah remarried in 1890. Charley would not have known any of them, except possibly Noah Primmer, Mary's husband, who died in 1912.

(*My cousin Martha Mae King and her husband Jerry Martin were both murdered on Sunday, May 21, 1978 by the .22 Caliber killers.)

-30-

Fatal error

For Memorial Day I would like to respectfully remember another cousin who was almost forgotten: ARM2 Owen Douglas Huls.

ARM2 Owen D. Huls
1924-1945

He was another ancestor that I grew up hearing about. Supposedly he had been beheaded by the Japanese during World War II, which was an error. (We now believe Owen's story somehow got confused with the historic photo of Australian commando Leonard Siffleet about to be executed that ran in LIFE magazine during the war.)

Born July 9, 1924 in Logan, Ohio, Owen would have been Charley's second cousin, one time removed. (He's my third cousin, once removed.) I don't know if Charley met his infant cousin before his death, but it's possible.

Owen's parents moved with Owen and his sister Marianne to Columbus by 1930, where he lived a typical Ohio boy's life until WWII reared its ugly head. He graduated from Grandview High School in Columbus in 1942, and joined the U.S. Navy 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.

Owen's body was never recovered, but his name is inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing at Manila National Cemetery at Ft. William McKinley, Manila, Philippines. He is also memorialized at Union Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio.

Owen was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, the air medal, and the Purple Heart among other combat medals.

Owen and the other members of his doomed plane are featured in the book, Fatal Error: The Final Flight of a Navy WWII Patrol Bomber, by Gary Cooper. (Owen's sister Marianne cried when she was interviewed for the book because she thought her brother had been forgotten.) I am deeply indebted to Mr. Cooper for writing about yet another cousin of family legend.

-30-

Appearing, is Fear

I find it fascinating how we seem to forget the health issues previous generations struggled against.

The Cincinnati Enquirer 

Monday, Feb. 2, 1925

(I'm looking at you anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers.)

As an example, I was confused when I was younger why my maternal grandmother lost her operatic voice after a case of strep throat. She still sang professionally, but couldn't sing opera anymore. It wasn't until it occurred to me that she did not have access to any antibiotics at that time that I finally understood.

Nowadays, when we hear the words "Spotted Fever" we tend to think of  Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a feverish disease caused by hard-shelled ticks. 

But in uncle Charley's day, the words "spotted fever" would cast fear upon a community.

According to the April 30, 2019 online edition of The Lancet, "The high fatality of the meningococcal disease epidemics observed during the 19th century meant that this disease was considered one of those with the worst prognosis, only comparable to the plague and cholera."

Yikes, no wonder the campus was in a panic.

Serum therapy helped, but it wasn't until the 1930s and 1940s when sulfa and antibiotics were developed that the widespread fear diminished. But those only worked on the bacterial versions of meningitis, not the viral. When the meningococcal vaccines began in 1969 there was widespread relief and rejoicing.

Recently however, the abuse of antibiotics has created drug-resistent varieties causing increasing incidents of sepsis. Scientists again are looking into serum-therepy as a treatment.

-30-

Big C, little c

This a difficult story to share.

I admit I was horrified when I first discovered the Ku Klux Klan had a presence in Ohio. It wasn't a huge presence, but it was there. I knew this because I had long been told the story of my future grandmother, Alice Thelma Hamilton, and her sister, my great-aunt, briefly attending a rally at the local Hocking County fairgrounds out of "curiosity."

At that time and in that area the KKK mostly focused on (or against) Jews and Roman Catholics. 

It took me awhile but I finally found at least some confirmation in the Wednesday, Aug. 29, 1923 edition of the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum. My grandmother was 16 and her sister 13 at that time!

As they approached the spectacle they were approached by a hooded figure who said, "Girls, I think you need to go home." It was their father, my great-grandfather. They knew it by his voice and his shoes, and he was apparently there with his three brothers-in-law.

But I was startled when I found this paragraph in the Saturday, Feb. 7, 1925 edition of the Zanesville, Ohio Times Signal  in a not too widely distributed wire story about the poisonings and its investigation:

    It was revealed today that still another angle had been pursued by Prosecutor Chester in his questioning of students when it was learned that some of those examined had been asked whether they were members of the Ku Klux Klan. All but one of the young men affected by the poison capsules were Catholics and he was a Jew.

Now either this was either a mistake, because I know Charley was not a Roman Catholic, or the writer meant catholic with a little "c."

Most protestant churches use the term catholic, with a lower-case "c," to refer to the belief that all Christians are part of one Church. Because of that we have the phrase "one holy catholic and apostolic Church" in the Nicene Creed, and the phrase "holy catholic church" in the Apostles' Creed.

I sincerely doubt the KKK was behind the poisonings, but it's a horrifying thought.

Oh, five years after the rally and three years after the poisonings, grandpa Fred married my grandmother Alice Thelma Hamilton.

-31-

Family feud

I apologize for the lack of a post yesterday, but I went down several productive rabbit holes.

Firstly, I finally made contact with someone from David Puskin's family! I certainly hope to bring their perspective and experiences to this blog.

Secondly, I found another "clew" about a long-rumored family curse. (I adore that archaic spelling!) Well, it turns out to be more of a family feud that thankfully didn't go the way of the Hatfields and McCoys.

Grandpa Fred once told me that there was a family curse. Supposedly, someone cursed the men in the Huls and Troxel families to die horrible deaths. (Strychnine, anyone?)

Do you remember Joseph W. and Emma Frasure Huls? Emma was the sister of great-grandpa Gene's first wife, Mary Jennie Frasure Huls.

Joseph, who was great-grandpa Gene's first cousin, married Emma on April 13, 1884. Their one and only child died within two days in 1892. 

(Joseph is also the man who built a nearly identical version of great-grandpa Gene's house. This feud must have been awkward for these close cousins.)

A.E. (Gene) and Mary Jennie married in 1889, and Walter was born in 1890. Cousin Joseph and sister Emma raised Gene's son Walter after Jenny died, either in childbirth or shortly thereafter in 1895. Gene and Anna married in 1899.

My great-grandparents' first child, Anna Troxel Huls, was a stillbirth in Jan. 5, 1900. That's when things possibly fell apart.

My first clew was a weird, tiny newspaper article I almost skipped on page 7 of The Stark County Democrat from Canton, Ohio on Friday, Dec. 28, 1900,

Sent Improper Letters.

       A strange family feud has been disclosed through a warrant issued by United States Commissioner J.L. Adler and an arrest made by order of United States Marshal V. J. Fagin. Mrs. Anna E. Huls, wife of Joseph W. Huls a resident of Logan, O., and one of the most prominent citizens of Ohio, is charged with sending through the mails improper letters, postals and drawings to her sister-in-law, the wife of Capt. W. Huls, of Rockbridge, who is a man of wealth and prominence in social and church circles. 

    There is to be a hearing on Dec. 29, in which District Attorney Bundy and Assistant District Attorney Mouliniar will represent the government, and it is said the evidence will be of a very sensational nature.

Okay, that's weird. Especially when I could find nothing else.

Until today, when I found this in the Sunday, Dec. 30, 1900 edition of the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune:

MRS. HULS IS ARRAIGNED.

Family quarrel at Logan, O., Gets Into United States Court.

Special Despatch [sic] to Commercial Tribune 

    COLUMBUS, O., Dec. 29. -- Mrs. Anna E. Huls, of a prominent family of Logan, was arraigned before United States Commissioner Johnson today on the charge of sending obscene drawings and letters through the mails. Mrs. Huls is said to be worth $100,000. The objectionable matter reflected upon Mrs. Joseph Huls, a cousin by marriage. The defendant was a Miss Toxen [sic], and is said to have jilted by Joseph Huls.

    A.E. Huls married a sister of Mrs. Joseph Huls. This sister died, her last request being that her child was to be taken by Mrs. Joseph Huls, if A.E. Huls married Miss Toxen. He did so and a struggle for possession of the child followed.

Sadly, that didn't clarify much for me. Dates, names, and relationships are a jumbled mess. Personally, I strongly suspect that great-grandpa Gene's editor friends played with the names as a favor to him, but Miss Toxen instead of Troxel? Seriously?

The other weird thing is the first article mentions "the wife of Capt. W. Huls," my great-great-grandparents. Were they also somehow involved?

How does this relate to Charley? Well, he was the first child to live of my great-grandparents' marriage and he died a truly horrible death. I somehow doubt that 25 years later Emma Cordelia went to the O.S.U. pharmacy and spiked the quinine capsules, so that lets her off the hook as a suspect.

But I still want to know more.

 

-31-

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....

-30-