Chinese Laundryman in Westerville

[The Chinese laundry was part of the urban scene in the early twentieth century.]

Browsing through an old issue of the Otterbein College Tan and Cardinal, I saw an advertisement for a Chinese laundry in Westerville. From approximately 1917 to 1925, a certain “Hop Lee” ran a laundry at 12 North State Street. That conjures up all kinds of images, from the “No tickee, no shirtee” stereotype to laundries as fronts for opium dens. But I’ve married into a Chinese family, so I decided to look deeper.

Unfortunately, Chinese laundries do not lend themselves to research. Chinese immigrant men who ran laundries often were the victims of American mainstream prejudice. They kept very much to themselves, and thus appeared secretive and mysterious to outsiders.

Not surprisingly, Hop Lee mostly defies historical recovery. He was probably from southern China probably from near Guangzhou (Canton) or Hong Kong. His real name was probably Li. Many a Chinese man adopted the spelling Lee, closer to the pronunciation of Li to American eyes. Or, Hop Lee may not have been his real name. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was still in force, and men coming to this country sometimes used the names of dead relatives or friends who had been granted permission to enter.

The census of 1920 showed a 55 year-old Hop Lee living on Third Street in Columbus, with his younger cousin, Wing Haey (The spelling is probably phonetic). But this was not the same Hop Lee, a common name in the Chinese immigrant community.  Most Chinese laundrymen lived in or above their laundries.  Westerville’s Hop Lee appears to have done so.

Unfortunately, the most informative document on Lee is his 1919 death certificate.  “Our” Hop Lee was born in 1861.  His father was named Ching Lee.  We do not know the date of his emigration.  He was married, but his wife stayed in China.  Hop Lee was 58 when he died in Grant Hospital in Columbus, “following an operation for appendicitis.”  He was buried in Green Lawn Cemetery.

As I was just about to give up hope of finding anything more about Hop Lee, I spotted a quotation from him in a 1917 copy of the Public Opinion. Lee was quoted as saying he liked hot weather because it meant more laundry business. Unfortunately, he was quoted in stereotypical Chinese pidgin English, and we can only guess what wording he really used.

Whoever he was, Mr. Lee probably worked long hours for little pay. We can guess that he was lonely – the male female ratio among Chinese immigrants was 90% male to 10% female.  There is no evidence that his wife ever came to the States, even for a visit.  It was only postmortem that Hop Lee found companionship, of a sort.

In 1936, 17 years after his burial, Hop Lee and eleven other Chinese men were disinterred from Green Lawn.  According to the Columbus Dispatch, permission was granted to William Woo, a Columbus consular agent connected the Chinese consul in Cleveland.  Green Lawn Cemetery also approved the request.  The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Society in Columbus helped pay for the trip, and a similar charity in China would also help pay once the dead men arrived in China.  The twelve dead men from Columbus would eventually join 200 other dead men of Chinese birth who had died in Ohio.

Traditional Chinese burial customs have radically changed since the 1949 revolution.  China’s population is such that most residents are cremated.  But in Hop Lee’s time, 3000 years of tradition was firm and prescribed burial near to one’s respected ancestors.  Hop Lee’s wish was granted too late for him to see, but his family, I hope, derived comfort from his bones resting in China, and that his time in Westerville was relatively short.

[Revised 2022]

Christmas Cats in Perrysburg – and Iceland!

 

             Many languages assign genders to nouns.  German, French, Italian, and others all give their nouns a gender.  For example, the German word for dog, der Hund, is masculine, or male.  Die Katze, a cat, is feminine, or female.  The gender of any specific word varies; the German word for moon, der Mund, is masculine but feminine, la luna, in Spanish.  Some folks believe that there is mystical affinity between the word and the gender.  In art, women and cats are often portrayed together.  As far back as ancient Egypt the cat-goddess Bastet was understood to be female.  In our time, “catty,” an adjective meaning “nasty”, is usually understood to be a female trait (my apologies to the female half of humanity).

            This picture of milk-drinking, squirming cats, (check the buggy) was used as a Christmas card in 1916.  Katheryn (possibly Katheryn Kah) in Perrysburg used a “real picture” postcard of herself and her cats to send Christmas greetings to her grandfather:

            Dear Gran Paw,

            I would like to visit you but am busy with My family.

            Merry Christmas

            Katheryn

            Kittens and little girls rival each other in cuteness.  Katheryn looks like she is roughly a second grader.  Writing Christmas cards to grandparents is one of the cute tasks girls perform.  We can assume the “Family” mentioned in her message was the family of kittens pictured.  And the picture “fits” because of the cultural association of the female and the female.      

            The card was sent to a little town in Shelby County called Anna, and was addressed to “L. Kah.”  Anna, Ohio, is a town of about 1500 people.  Today it has a branch of the giant Honda of America complex.  In the early days, it was a small farming community.  Originally named Carey’s Station, for town founder J. W. Carey, the town was renamed Anna, for Anna Carey Thirkield, his daughter, about 1867.

            The address on the card show it sent to “L. Kah.”  Louis Kah was a big name in Anna.  Owner and proprietor of the Kah House hotel, Kah’s establishment had great reputation as one of the finest hotels in western Ohio.  He once hosted then-governor William McKinley, who was in the village waiting for a change of trains. Anna was also the hometown of Lois Lenski, award winning children’s author.

            Doubtless there were many cats in Anna in 1916.  Whether any of them had their picture taken is unknown.  Also unknown is whether anyone in Anna, or Perrysburg, sent Christmas cards which featured cats.  Although cats sometimes do adorn Christmas cards, the association is not immediate.

            Cats are frequently seen in folktales.  Puss-in-Boots we all know, the Cheshrie cat is famous.  “The Cat Came Back” is a well known children’s song.  In Japan, the “maneki-neko” holds a paw high to attract money.  Another Japanese cat character is Hello Kitty, who has brought in at least $84 billion for her creators. 

There is only one “Christmas cat” in folklore and that is Jólakötturinn (Yule Cat) in Iceland.  Unfortunately, the Yule Cat was a bad kitty.  Gigantic in size, it prowled the island looking for children who had not received any clothes for Christmas, and then ate them.  In a cold country like Iceland, this may have been a warning to share clothes with the needy.   Or:

According to Icelandic tradition, anyone who finished their chores before Christmas would get new clothes as a reward. Meanwhile, lazy children who didn’t get their work done would have to face the Jólakötturinn.

Bitter days and dark nights inspire dark holiday traditions.

            Katheryn and her milky pussycats represent the opposite tradition.  Her cats were bundles of fluff, warm and purring.  Together they stand for the life-giving, nourishing half of humanity.  Always be nice to cats.  Or the Yule Cat will start licking its chops!

Dr. Hollister of Wauseon, Fulton County, Ohio

 

     

          It seems like we all have disease and medicine on our minds these days.  It has been awhile since we faced a disease that we could not treat and, at the beginning, could not even understand.  It will be many years until we can write a history of Covid 19, and while it seems to be under control (for now), we must file it under the handful of diseases for which is not 100% curable.          

            There were and are many reasons a disease cannot be cured.  The state of technology, the availability and usability of medicines, and, sadly, the cost of treatments, all play a part.  Less troublesome now but a great hindrance once was the availability of transportation.  If you lived in the city, you were more likely to have access to trained doctors, hospitals, and drugs.  If you resided in the country, you were more apt to rely on quack medicines and poorly trained practitioners.  Even trained physicians had no access to modern transportation.  The (justly) praised frontier doctor who travelled five miles in a blizzard to treat a frontiersman is part of the folklore of our settlement.

One example of the stress and strain of early doctoring can be found in a letter from Joseph Waldron of Wauseon in Fulton County dated February 11, 1881.  Writing to his brother, Martin in New York State, Mr. Waldron faced a medical crisis, and a financial one.  He wrote:

Jessie was taken down with the fever.  She had the doctor for six weeks and then Charley had the fever and when it turned [,] the lung fever set in and Juley came down with the same fever.  But Dr. Hollister broked it up on her, and now little Philley is down and we are agoing to have the doctor for him to night. . . .

Joseph Waldron was a day laborer.  He had a much younger wife, Jessie, whom he had married when she was 17 and he was 36.  They had four children by 1880, and the sick ones, Charles, Phillip, and Julia were the youngest at 4, 6, and 9 years old.  They all, apparently, suffered from “lung fever,” an outdated term which could refer to anything from bronchitis to pneumonia to lung cancer.  None of the siblings succumbed to the ‘fever.”  This is not to say that they were not very sick, but they survived to move to Toledo.  Joseph Waldron died in 1912, having relocated to Camden, Oneida County, New York, whence two of his children followed him.

Whether the medical care was heroic or routine, the Waldron children were treated by a local doctor, Dr. De Witt Hollister (1825-1902).  Like his patients’ family, Hollister was born and educated in upstate New York.  His medical education was half-apprenticeship, half-college, the latter at Geneva Medical College, which he attended for “two terms.”  His first professional position was eighteen months in Jefferson County, New York,

 “after which he joined the tide of emigration to this then western country, and took up his abode at Wauseon, in the newly created county of Fulton.  At that time Dr. Hollister was the only resident physician in the place, and soon acquired a large practice; and, being a young man of good education and address, and possessing a thorough understanding of his profession,”

attracted customers from all over Fulton County.  Dr. Hollister married a local girl, Permelia Lamb.  After ten years, he joined another doctor, William Hyde, creating the practice of Hollister & Hyde.[i]

A taste of the heroic light in which Dr. Hollister was viewed may be seen in this recollection:

Doctor Hollister was a most welcomed settler, for up to that time we had to diagnose our own disease, and prescribe our own medicine, or be to the great expense of getting a physician who lived miles away.  None can appreciate the hardships that Doctor Hollister endured, as he  rode, night after night, on horseback, over the cow- paths through the dense forest, to render  relief to a settler who was suffering  from disease contracted from exposure, or the  unhealthiness of  the climate.  I say none but the early pioneer can appreciate the hardships that  Doctor Hollister endured to relieve the sufferings of his fellow men.[ii]

            Thanks to this scrap of a letter, we can appreciate the efforts of Dr D. W. Hollister in doing what needed doing to relieve the suffering of pioneer children.

 

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[i]  History of Henry & Fulton Counties edited by Lewis Cass Aldrich - Syracuse NY - Publ. D. Mason & Co. 1888.

[ii] A standard history of Fulton County, Ohio, an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and county.  By Reighard, Frank H., (Chicago, New York, The Lewis Publishing Company, 1920), p. 206.

 

Charles Stager Served as Sheriff of Lucas County in 1897

Charles Stager Served as Sheriff of Lucas County [Ohio] in 1897                      by Alan Borer

 

When we think of a “sheriff,” many of us think of a man in western garb, wearing a badge, and drawling, “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us,” or something like it.  Charles G. Stager, sheriff of Lucas County from 1897 to 1902, did not leave much in the way of letters or papers, but one thing he wrote was this:

Throughout the week ending today Clover Seed ruled comparatively dull and lower.  Receipts were liberal, while the demand was very tame and was of a don’t care order. . . .  Today the market ruled very dull, a sale of 100 bags March was made @8.10, closing dull. (March 25, 1893)

Stager used the word “dull” three times in four sentences!  Although this dates from a few years before his term as sheriff, it seems out of character for a prospective lawman.  But Stager lived at a time when the sheriff’s job was a political prize, a reward for party loyalty and work.  Charles Stager was a salesman first and foremost.  The sheriff’s job was an extra, a bit of praise, prestige, and remuneration.  Stager was a lawman, but not in the way you might think.

            Charles G. Stager was born in Toledo on June 10, 1860.  His parents, Gottfried and Dorothea, were both German immigrants, and German was the language of his childhood.  As an adult, Stager went into the wholesale garden and farm seed business.  He became a business partner with William F. Kratz in 1885.  Three years later Stager and Cratz went their separate ways, founding separate seed businesses.  With a store located at 123-125 Erie Street,[i] Stager advertised “Clover seed a specialty.” 

Stager became a successful businessman, but sadly his health took a turn for the worse.  Now he turned toward civil service, serving as Toledo’s police commissioner.  In 1896 was elected sheriff of Lucas County.  Sheriffs of the late nineteenth century had a reputation of political favoritism, corruption, and, party hack work.  Charles Stager was different.  Elected at the same time as Toledo Mayor Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones, Stager leaned toward the Progressive movement in the new century.  He received support from both parties in his campaign for sheriff:

Newly in office, Stager and Jones agreed on the need to reform the Toledo police department.  One of the issues the old department wanted approval on was to allow patrolman to carry a large club as a police baton.  Stager viewed these as a menace, a way of intimidating the civilian population.  With Mayor Jones’ “enthusiastic endorsement,” Stager “recommended the use of walking sticks” instead of cudgels.[ii]

            Other parts of the sheriff’s job were more mundane.  Stager was the defendant in a lawsuit, Sargent vs Stager (1899).  Sargent’s lawyer lost the case, but in 1902, he countersued under a legal maneuver known as replevin.  Replevin allows the loser of a lawsuit to retrieve some of the money lost.

            Stager was active in fraternal organizations.  He belonged to the Elks Club, climbing to the position of “exalted ruler” in the Toledo lodge:

….” A delegation of Elks will leave Cincinnati for Toledo.  They will arrive in time to make the town hot that night – so hot in fact that Lake Erie will be tepid as far as Sandusky Bay.  . . .  because of a testimonial to Charlie Stager, the Sheriff-elect of Lucas County.  It is to be tendered at the meeting of the Toledo Elks at the Valentine Block, and all because he, a Democrat, was elected by a handsome majority in a Republican county.”[iii]

In August of 1898, Stager and his wife Mary went to an Elks convention in Sandusky, and “were among the early arrivals.”  Among the huge crowds (at least 2,300), enjoying clambakes, dancing, and yacht races, was a Toledo marching group called the Toledo Cherry Pickers.  “Then came the Cherry Pickers in their bright red uniforms. . . . They gave several pretty evolutions along the line of march and were greeted with applause.” It is likely that Sheriff Stager greeted some of his Toledo friends in Sandusky.

Stager was also a member of the Knights of Columbus where, in December of 1898, he took part in a mock street battle:

“The Toledoans were led by that indomitable son of St. Patrick, O’Brien O’Donnell, ably backed up by Messrs John T. Solon, Frederick Schaal and Charles Stager. The engagement lasted an hour and although the dwellers on the shores of the Maumee were at a great disadvantage they went through with flying colors.[iv]

Stager died at the relatively young age of 49 on January 21, 1910.  His is buried in Calvary Cemetery.[v]  He left his wife and three daughters, the two elder of which taught for Toledo Public Schools.  Charles Stager accomplished much during his short life.

 

 

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[i] https://books.google.com/books?id=PugCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1248&lpg=PA1248&dq=stager+seed+merchants+toledo&source=bl&ots=xgwJmwxfOK&sig=ACfU3U2qHDU8luVaILHwwWcC-Tp3E_qGQw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGlubyruHyAhUHTN8KHdecDwoQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=stager%20seed%20merchants%20toledo&f=false

[ii] Marnie Jones, Holy Toledo: Religion and Politics in the Life of "Golden Rule" Jones, p.

 

[iii] Cincinnati Enquirer, November 9, 1897, p. 4.

[iv] The Catholic Telegraph, Volume 67, Number 48, 1 December 1898

 

[v] https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-DY99-CND?i=1352&cc=2128172&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AF6LW-H83

A Chicken Thief’s Confession

 

A Chicken Thief’s Confession             by Alan Borer

           

Otterbein University President W. G. Clippinger was astonished at the letter that came across is desk in the late summer of 1913.  It read:

Enclosed please find four dollars.  Some time ago, a ‘bunch’ of your students, and I was one of the number, stole several of your chickens for a mid-night roast.  I am ashamed of the action and wish to make things right.

            Clippinger replied:

Your letter . . . enclosing four dollars in payment for your feast is received. . . . I hardly know how to express my appreciation.  I did value the chickens and I value the payment of them but I value much more highly your manly confession.[i]

            As an educator, Clippinger understood that a guilty conscience was often a more effective tool than the many demerits he had at his disposal.  Confession is good for the soul, and here was a confession unsolicited!

            Before the modern age, many rural and small town homeowners kept a few chickens.  In an era before routine delivery service of food, the home grown chicken became a cultural centerpiece of Sunday dinners, holiday meals, and celebrations.  To steal a family’s chickens was a powerful slap in the face of a culture in which the food supply was less predictable than now.  Westerville residents might have agreed with this statement:

Long ago, raising barn fowl was critical to the existence of millions of families. . . To steal someone’s chickens was to steal from a family’s daily sustenance.  While the theft of other items might prove just as hurtful, a stigma was attached to those arrested as chicken thieves, who became known as the low-down, dirtiest of crooks. [ii]

            The theft, cooking, and eating of a college president’s chickens was risky.  I have no idea if Clippinger reported the theft, or if in fact the chickens had any sentimental value beyond their food value.  The motives of the thieves are also unclear.  Were they robbing the president as a way to bug him personally, or diminish his status as a symbol of Otterbein College?  Or were they just hungry youth who knew where to find insufficiently guarded chickens?

            Whatever the reason for this theft, Walter Clippinger was far too skillful a teacher to make a federal case of this.  He pardoned the student, and freely readmitted him to Otterbein.  Whether he ever treated them to chicken dinner is unrecorded.

 

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[i] Otterbein University Archives, Presidents Papers.

[ii] https://www.newyorkalmanack.com/2014/04/chicken-theives-historys-low-down-dirty-crooks/

Buying Swamp, Selling Farms – Florien Giauque

 

  

            Ask any real estate salesperson what the three best attributes that makes land valuable, and the answer will be “location, location, location.”  Location is important but, to an experienced salesman, other factors come into play.  If a salesman has a vision of what the land could be used for, then find an audience for it, he can sell it, if he has patience.  Even if the land was the desolate Black Swamp of northwest Ohio, it just took time.  Just ask Florien Giauque.

            The Black Swamp, famous as a bar to settlement, was a wetland stretching south-north from the Blanchard River to the Maumee, and east-west roughly from Fremont to Fort Wayne, Indiana.  With the water table at or near the surface, the heavily wooded area was flooded much of the year.  Thousands of years of autumn leaf falls enriched the soil with thick, sticky muck.  Not only were roads impassable, the area developed a bad reputation for banditry.  Outlaws were notorious for using the area as an impassable hiding place.

            Eventually, the swampland was logged by timber dealers.  Stave and hoop factories replaced the hardwood forests in swamp towns like Deshler, Holgate, and North Baltimore.  By the time the lumber craze was over, the land was unshaded and flat as a pancake, a “grand cattail and frog farm” was the saying.  The federal government, which still held title to the land, sold most of it to speculators and corporations.

            In Deshler, in Henry County, town founder David Deshler bought up 10,000 acres of the former swamp.  His son John formed the Deshler Land Company.  Buyers were slowly found, but defaulters were many. In 1885, the Land Company hired a new manager, Florien Giauque.  Giauque changed the fortunes of the Deshler Land Company, and as one contemporary writer stated, “Florien Giauque turned the cat-tail patch into a mellow grain field.” 

            Florien Giauque was born in 1843 in Berlin in Holmes County, Ohio.  His parents were from Switzerland.  Florien studied to be a teacher, but was interrupted by the Civil War, in which he served as a sergeant in the 102^nd Ohio Infantry.  After the war he taught, studied law, and passed the bar.  Giauque spent most of his legal career working on real estate cases for his Cincinnati law firm, buying and selling railroad land in Louisiana.  But in 1885, he found himself working in Deshler in his native state.

            Giauque knew the Black Swamp and its reputation – a “swamp with a past.”  He also knew that foreclosed land was readily available for purchase.  Giauque bought Henry County land, cut ditches, and laid tile, built modest farmhouses and barns, and “turned the thick black swamp ooze” into a mellow black loam.  “The miles of acres once crossed only by the water snake and the muskrat now are stamped by the feet of grazing herds.”

            Florien Giauque took undeveloped swampland and created a farming paradise.  He understood that raw, treeless acres had little appeal for settlers, but farm-sized portions, already ditched and tiled, would be salable and valuable.  In 1910, Giauque sold his own holdings – some 2,500 acres – to an Indiana real estate company for $400,000.

            By all accounts, Florien Giauque was modest about his achievement.  He “would rather tell strange things of the long-ago Indians and highwaymen slipped like specters from tree to tree in the dark green shade of the Black Swamp  than to tell his part in its change from savagery.”  He is barely remembered today; a business block in Deshler bears his name.  He died in Cincinnati in 1921.  But his real achievement, the endless ditches around Deshler, can be seen any time one explores the country nearby.

 

[Information comes from the article, “Heart of Great Black Swamp,” Chicago Livestock World, October 17, 1910, and Luana Henderson, Florien Giauque Papers  Mss. 1900  Inventory. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 2007.]

 

WSPD Radio Featured “Smith’s Tennesseans”

 

One would think that a country and western band that went by the name “Smith’s Tennesseans” would come from Tennessee.  But in this case, some of the band hailed from my mother’s hometown of Green Springs in Sandusky County, and several other players had Ohio connections.  In addition, their daily radio show in the 1930s and 40s was on WSPD, Toledo’s flagship AM station.  We don’t know all the details, but let’s see what we can remember about “Smith’s Tennesseans.”

            The band was formed by a husband and wife team.  Roy Smith was born in Tennessee, but wound up as a high school band instrument teacher in Jackson Township, Sandusky County. He owned a 100 acre farm was in near Green Springs, while living in the village on Euclid Avenue.  Roy played the fiddle, the bass, and sang tenor.[i]

 In 1923, Roy married Lola Borelis.  Lola grew up in Cleveland, but lived most of her life in northwest Ohio.  Lola Smith played several instruments, including piano, accordion, and organ.  She was listed as a “station musician” for WSPD Radio from 1933 to 1957, which was apparently the duration of the Tennesseans life.  Some sources list husband Roy as the bandleader, but by 1940, Lola Smith was in charge.

That year, other musicians included “Richard,” violin and bass, joined in 1935, “Slim,” guitar, bass, and yodeling, also joining in 1935, and “Smokey Joe,” banjo, guitar, and alternate yodeler.  Other members over the years included Glencairn James Giffen, of Clyde, Ohio, vocals and guitar.[ii]

In addition to their radio show, the group was in demand for dances in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana several times a week.  In 1937, they played at the Green Springs high school auditorium.  Many years later in 1951, they played to the Macomber High School in Toledo.  The musicians changed their name around 1940 to “Lola and her Circle Star Ranch Boys.”  Now equipped with fancier, cowboy-style costumes, the Ranch Boys published a book of their songs, including “Across the Texas Plains,” “Little Sweetheart of the Ozarks,” and the memorable “They Gotta Quit Kickin’ My Dawg Around.”

            When WSPD began television broadcasting in 1948, the Ranch Boys were featured performers.  Local television in those days was truly local, with much of the programming originating from local talent.  Lola Smith recalled later that she had to write out her own cue cards, in large letters.  The writing became painful, and she thought she may have to give up music, but the discomfort left her once she stopped writing cue cards.[iii]

In the 1950s, the name of the band appears to have changed back to Smith’s Tennesseans.  A contemporary ad called them “Toledo’s Favorite Attraction.”  After the band dispersed, Lola worked as a private music teacher from her home in the Old West End.  It is unclear what became of Roy Smith; Lola Smith died April 18, 1996 in Sylvania.[iv]  It is unfortunate that the band never made a record, but unless some other recording is found, we cannot say just what Smith’s Tennesseans sounded like.  We can say that they provided popular music for their local audience for many years.  That may be testament enough.

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[i] Lola and her Circle Star Ranch Boys, Smith’s Tennesseans: Cowboy and Western Songs (Chicago: M. M. Cole, 1940), p. 1.

[ii] https://www.genlookups.com/oh/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/1523

[iii] Toledo Blade, April 23, 1996.

[iv] Toledo Blade, April 23, 1996.