Soldiers in Aprons: The Housewives Who Changed America

100 Years ago this month… something happened in Ohio. Something that would have a huge impact on life as we know it and will likely       continue to affect life for a very long time.  No, it didn’t involve the construction of new buildings, or the fighting of a great war, or the brilliant oratory of a long-winded speaker or even the breakthrough of a dazzling new invention. For this event was as quiet and simple as the passage a new law. A new set of laws that would for the first time ever in Ohio,  create meaningful food purity standards. These were passed by the state legislature in May of 1913,  in concert with the new federal standards created to protect consumers from unhealthy and dangerous foods, and/or unscrupulous vendors and retailers.  Some might call it the birth of the nanny state.  If so, we can thank our grandmothers for its conception and delivery, for much of the labor to create these regulatory bureaucracies were driven by the determination of housewives, the everyday homemakers who were fed up with spoiled food, tainted products and the callous indifference of the retail food industry to sanitation issues.   This was 1913 America. When government regulation and oversight of such home and hearth  matters were few and far between.  After, all this was women’s work.  It was Mom’s job to run the house and to make sure that she got what she paid for. And that’s just what she did.  Until the early part of the 20th century,  it was largely believed that food safety and inspection should be up to the shopper and not the government. Caveat Emptor as they say. Sounds good in the abstract, but the women were not pleased with the daily reality of being ripped off or sickened from adulterated and poisoned food and drugs they bought at the local stores.  Food borne illnesses were commonplace, and sadly many would result in death.  As mass production of food products became even more pervasive in this new industrial age of the 20th century, the worries about what was in the packaged and prepared food increased.  With few laws or regulations, and without the right to vote, the women of America didn’t let that deter them from their desire to buy food and drugs they could trust. What they lacked in political power they made up for in sheer numbers and their determination to get the job done.  If the food industry couldn’t regulate itself, the women will find ways to get it done,  and, at the same time pressure the government to join them in their fight.  Thus, by 1910, was born the movement to create and nurture a network of women’s groups across the country giving rise to consumer advocacy. First started in New York,  new chapters of the ”Housewives League” began springing up in just about every corner of the country with local groups of women and wives ready to do battle in the marketplace to force the stores and food producers to clean up their act.   They also lobbied hard for more government involvement so that basic standards could be expected for food purity and measurements.  These women’s groups, especially the Housewives League, were not to be ridiculed or taken lightly. The voice of the women, throughout the country, became loud and powerful.  A dynamic force for change in the way stores and retailers did business. By 1913, the New York Times wrote of how these women, 750,000 strong, were not just complaining but effectively organizing and setting up local chapters which would often rate stores on four main criteria, namely, fair prices, clean shops, pure products, and efficiency.  Each store was rated by the women of the league. A bad rating could be a business killer. (move over Angies’ list!) While a 75% might be considered an “acceptable” score, the Housewives League continued to lobby those stores for improvements. Stores that didn’t comply or allow the League to rate them, were blacklisted.  Many soon came to their senses and complied with the demands of the housewives whose tenacity was rivaled only by their sheer power in the marketplace.

Toledo Housewives Were Leaders in Movement

Toledo had its Housewives League, as well, when it was formed in 1914 with 85 local women.  One of their first successes was to force what we now call the downtown “farmer’s market” to allow the general public to buy merchandise and products there on an equal footing with the local grocers and merchants, so they couldn’t monopolize the popular city food market which was located at that time on Superior Street. This victory opened the gates to the potential that housewives could bypass

One of Toledo’s Early Farm Markets on Spielbusch Ave.

the stores altogether and go directly to the farmers for their foods, increasing the odds for fresher and safer products, putting even more pressure on the food retailers to make changes. The Housewives League, however, continued its crusade to apply more leverage on the industry itself and on state lawmakers to pass legislation that would have the power of the government behind it.

In Columbus the passage of the new food purity laws in 1913 were just part of a much wider ongoing campaign through the U.S to meet the rising tide of concerns about food safety.  A tide of concern that had been pushed along by the publication of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”, a shocking expose of the filthy and squalid conditions of Chicago’s massive meatpacking houses.  The book served to ramp up the fears and jitters of an American marketplace fraught with mysterious new substances being added to foods for taste or filler.

Chicago Meat Packing House

A  Case in Point:  Prior to the state of Ohio having any enforceable legal standards, the  Ohio Food and Dairy Commission conducted routine tests of certain food products in an effort to find out just what ingredients were actually being used in each brand of food. In one test in 1888, in Ohio, it was found that of 30 different brands of baking powder tested, 20 of them were filled with “alum”. This early expose was shocking to many.  ”Alum” it was written,  ”was considered by the highest medical authorities to be injurious to health when used in food.” (It still is considered unhealthy to consume alum as a food product, although it is used in a variety of applications.) The Ottawa Illinois Free Trader, then detailed a complete list of each brand and the percentage of alum or other ingredients used in the powders. While we tend these days to take the matter of food purity for granted, our grandparents did not.

Housewives League meeting in Detroit

As a result, the purity question became a major sales tool as food companies often touted their brands as the “purest and safest”.  In many cities, including Toledo, so called ”pure food” shows became quite popular as housewives could come to the show to see the exhibits that would demonstrate why a particular brand of food product should be considered safer than its competitors.   In January of 1926, A “pure foods” show in Pittsburgh was reported to have  broken all attendance records as people gathered by the thousands to take in the exhibits and to sample everything from milk to tea.

The REAL Housewives of  America  

The Housewives League meanwhile grew in power and influence and busied itself in a wide variety of issues pertaining to food safety and sanitation. In Detroit and Toledo, one area of concern was how bread was sold. The idea of loaves sitting on the shelves and being exposed to indiscriminate handling by many public fingers was looked upon with disgust and prompted a campaign to force bakers and sellers to wrap their loaves of bread. Mary Alice Powell, the long time food reporter at the Toledo Blade wrote in a 1964 Blade article that one Toledo Housewives League member recalls that the “bread was full of germs fingered by consumers try to find the freshest loaf”. The 1964 article goes on to point out that a petition by the women gathered some 15,000 signatures in Toledo, demanding that retail grocers and bakers to wrap their bread when put on the shelves. When no action was taken in Columbus, the women took their case to Washington and soon thereafter, “wrapped bread loaves” became the legal standard in the state and elsewhere.     Mary Alice Powell also writes that it was the Toledo Housewives who also claimed victory in the fight to have milk sold in clean bottles. Prior to 1919 in Ohio, most milk buyers had to take their own milk jugs and containers to a traveling milk wagon in the city to get them filled. The Housewives League thought this was unsanitary and needed to be fixed. Once again, they took their concerns to state lawmakers and got laws passed to require that milk be sold only in sanitized bottles. Ohio was first to require this, soon followed by other states.

You can also thank the Housewives League every time you go to the grocery store and don’t have to pay sales tax on your food items. Yes it was those pesky women from Toledo and elsewhere in the state who thought food shouldn’t be taxed. In 1947, the Housewives League fought for and eventually won the battle to remove the taxes from your food.   The Housewives League stayed active in the Toledo area even into the 1960′s and 70′s, but by the mid 1990′s, the League disbanded. Not sure why.  Maybe it was a lack of interest, or a lack of time, but certainly not a lack of issues. While they may be somewhat different than they were back in 1913 when the first food safety laws were enacted, food and consumer issues continue to demand much of our attention. We have just as many concerns about what we eat and put on the dinner table as our grandmothers did 100 years ago  – whether it’s general health and nutrition, genetically modified foods, antibiotics in our meats, or mercury in our fish.  The writer can only wonder how will ours’ and future generation fight for the purity of the food?

56 Years Ago Elvis Rocked Toledo

                  The date of November 22nd in Toledo is remembered for a variety of news items that have made headlines over the years, not the least of which was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on that day in 1963. It was cold drizzly rainy afternoon in Northwest Ohio and anyone older than 55 probably relives that terrible afternoon and the following days with acute recall. Ironically, one of the biggest news events of our times did not make headlines in the Blade that day because the Toledo Blade workers were on strike and the presses weren’t rolling.

Another major event that was to take place the same day was the long-awaited opening of the DiSalle Bridge over the Maumee River setting into place one of the key pieces of the I-75 corridor. But as the tragic events unfolded in Dallas that Friday afternoon, Toledo’s community leaders opted to cancel the plan for that ceremony.

ELVIS ALSO MAKES HISTORY IN TOLEDO ON NOVEMBER 22nd

Another memorable event that took place on November 22nd in Toledo’s history was the first appearance of Elvis Presley on a Toledo stage.   The year was 1956, and this was a special Thanksgiving Day show at the Sports Arena as part of a four city tour that Elvis was making just one day after he ended his music contract with Sun Records in Memphis and signed with RCA.  Elvis historian Alan Hanson  writes that Elvis’ fame had been increasing in the weeks leading up to the Ohio tour after making his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.  He had just filmed his first movie in Hollywood and the night that Elvis arrived in Toledo,  “Love Me Tender”, which had been released that day, started a run at Toledo’s Paramount Theater.  According to the newspaper ads, Presley was booked for two shows at 2:30 and 8 p.m. He’d be preceded by six opening acts, and he would appear for just 30 minutes. The Arena held 7500 seats and promoters were hoping for a sell out. They didn’t make that goal, but they did manage to sell over 13,000 tickets for both shows combined with ticket prices at $2.00 and $2.50. The gross take was $28,000, breaking the Sports Arena’s previous record of $24,000 dollars that had been set by a Bob Hope show.  Toledo Blade reporter Charles Gilmore would write that Elvis looked bewildered when he came out on stage to greet the screaming fans and he also took note of Presley’s controversial torso twisting or “bumps and grinds” and the noise in the arena “rose to a higher pitch” as Presley moved his torso in rhythm with the beat.  Gilmore wrote that at times that the screaming of the Toledo fans reached a level of hysteria and when Elvis went into the show closer with “Hound Dog”, the kids broke from their seats and rushed the stage and the aisles..as 20 security guards watched helplessly. 

PRESLEY’S TOLEDO APPEARANCE TRIGGERS A BRAWL

Elvis backstage in Toledo 1956

Reporter Gilmore apparently did not share the young crowds enthusiasm for the “Hillbilly Hellcat” and his words of disdain for the music and the show drew a flood of angry letters to Blade editor’s in the days that followed.  Another angle to the story of the Elvis Toledo visit focused on fight incident involving Elvis at the Commodore Perry on the day that rock and roller and his entourage arrived in the city. While sitting in the Commodore Perry’s  Shalimar Room bar, Presley was confronted by 19-year-old Toledoan Louis Balint, who shouted, “My wife carries your picture but doesn’t carry mine.”  According to “The Blade”  a “free-for-all”  followed Ballint’s accusation and was eventually broken up by Toledo Police who found Presley earnestly punching Balint who was trying to toss one of the musicians, Scotty Moore, over a railing.  Balint, a local sheet metal worker, was carted off and  later sentenced to seven days in the Workhouse because he was unable to pay the $19 fine..  Balint would later claim that the fight had been staged and was fake, saying someone had offered him $200 to punch Elvis and claim that he was jealous because his wife carried Elvis’ picture in her wallet. He also says he was supposed to say that he was just 19 years old instead of his real age of 22, because the Elvis promoters thought it would appeal more to Presley’s fans if his accuser was still a teenager. It has never been proven whether Balint was telling a tall tale to save face, or whether the Elvis Presley promotion machine had in fact staged the fight. Whatever the case, it is a part of the “King’s” rough and tumble, tough guy lore. 

It should be noted that while there are stories about Elvis appearing sometime later in his career at the Civic Auditorium in Toledo, there is no written record of such a show ever taking place.  The only other time Elvis did appear in Toledo was in April of 1977.  In that last Toledo appearance, the 42-year-old rock icon filled Savage Hall at the University of Toledo. Four months later, Elvis would die of a drug induced heart attack at his Graceland home in Memphis.

Toledo’s Dell Hair, First of a Rare Breed of Cop-Poets

Cops who put down their pistols and pick up pens in the gentle pursuit of poetry, may seem like a rare breed, but perhaps not as rare as you might think. Happened to read recently about an undercover cop in Los Angeles who is also a poet and says he is one of a growing number of officers who have something to say in verse. So he is trying to organize these poet-police officers into some type of national cop-poets-society.  If this should come to fruition, I will suggest they make a special place in their ranks for Toledo Policeman Dell Hair, the nation’s first cop-poet, at least the first one who was nationally recognized for his verse. While not considered a great poet, he was popular and was published numerous times in the course of a career that included walking the dark streets of downtown Toledo, fighting crime while composing rhyme.

 He was born Adalbert Hair on a farm near the small western Michigan town of Morrice back in 1871. Always the romantic, he left that community behind as a young man to join the U.S. Army Cavalry Regiment in the American West where it is said that he helped put down down the last of Geronimo’s Apache uprisings. From there, Hair eventually made his way to Toledo where in 1906, he joined the ranks of the Toledo Police Department. This of course was long before squad cars, so Hair spent much of his time on foot as a patrolman. While he was on duty, it is reported that he not only worked out poems in his head, but, often gave those suspects he arrested, on-the-spot renditions of his verse, as he hauled them back to the police station.  From those many days and nights on the streets, in 1908, he published a collection of poems that he wrote entitled “Echoes from the Beat”.

 About a year later, Hair left the Toledo Police Department, under controversial circumstances, and formed his own downtown private security company, which was really a poetic way of saying he hired out as a night watchman to check on downtown stores. But he did it well, and did it for many years until he died. All the while, writing and publishing his poems and even becoming involved in city politics.  A Toledo New Bee article in 1909 reports that Dell Hair spoke to a political rally in a campaign against Toledo Mayor Brand Whitlock, in which Hair claimed he was fired by the police department because Whitlock, also a writer, was “jealous of his literary accomplishments”. Hair was not shy about voicing his opinions and was outspoken on many issues of the times, often putting those concerns about city problems into iambic pentameter. He was also popular with many in the city, especially the downtown merchants whose stores he protected at night.  Hair even tried running for mayor in Toledo in 1915, but returned to his police work and his poetry.  Dell Hair, lived at 1005 Salem Street in Toledo and was married to his wife Charlotte, had several children and continued writing poetry and staying on the downtown beat, until his death from the flu in 1932.

 During his lifetime, he wrote and published many books of poetry. Many of which ares still available on E-bay and other used book sites. Some of the titles to look for are “Roses and Thorns”, published while he was in the Army, also “Songs of Darkness, Light and Death” from 1895, “Nature Beautiful”, published in 1929, “Violets and Thorns” and “Echoes from a Dell” in 1922.  Dell Hair was described by those who knew him, as a large man in stature, a big and burly guy who, despite his love of poetry, always put his respect and admiration first for his fellow officers and firemen. In dedicating “Echoes from the Beat”, he wrote : “In honor of the great love I bear for the police and firemen who, ​​without hesitancy, risk their lives for the welfare of others, I dedicate the third volume of my ​​poems”.​

 Just what motivated Dell Hair to be a cop and writer of poetry, we’ll probably never know for sure, maybe he didn’t know either. But Jessee Fourmy, the cop in Los Angeles who I mentioned at the start of this story believes it has to do with a cop’s natural instinct to study and understand human nature. He says they are seekers of truth, which also the goal of the poet.

 Fourmy says there are so many cops now writing poetry on the West Coast, they have started their own journal called “Rattle”, in which former Portland police officer-turned-poet James Fleming writes that”Cops and poets are intruders into other people’s lives. They both probe for character, motive, history. They both want to know what people are up to. A person of interest can end up in a poem or in jail.”

 And a police poem can end up in an editorial. In fact, the Toledo Blade used one of Dell Hair’s old poems in 1964 when controversy arose over the old Spielbush Fountain at the Civic Center at Spielbusch and Cherry Streets. The decaying old stone structure was destined to be torn down, despite the cries of those who wanted to save it. The Blade proposed that a marker be erected near the site of the fountain with a poem from Dell Hair, in which he waxed profoundly about how the fountain not only quenched his physical thirst, but satisfied his muse of inspiration. This from the “Echoes from the Beat”

 Old beautiful fountain so holy and good,adorning the place where the old market stood.

Where mammoth iron bars were bolted in rows, Where horses fought flies now a green carpet grows.

Thy dome is not lofty, thy cups are not gold,The people here flock like sheep to the fold.

Mothers to children, for pitchers will call, There is plenty to spare and enough for us all

On every morn between three and four, I quench my thirst from thy bountiful store

As in the tin cup, I thy purity view, A short little verse is whispered for you

Oh beautiful fountain this is my song of the memory erected to one that is gone

All thanks to the son who lowered the rod, that brought to the people one blessing of god.

To this writer’s knowledge that marker was never placed at the site and the Spielbusch fountain is long gone. But the words of poet-policeman Dell Hair live on. Likely will outlive all of us as his verse is passed from generation to generation, perhaps a little dusty with time, but still there, to drink in, like a fountain that just keeps flowing.

From the Trenches to Toledo: Letters Tell The Personal Stories of War

By the time the United States entered World War One in the spring of 1917, the  earth had already been shuddering with the thunder of battle for three years through Europe and on the high seas. Many Americans, but not all, were ready to join the fight against the Kaiser and put an end to the long nightmare of German ambition.

Toledo, like the rest of the country, sent her boys to the front to help in the cause. During this time, the news stories of the day reflect an emboldened American spirit of pride and patriotism and a compliant willingness to sacrifice  both blood and treasure to the effort. Toledo did both. Thousands of dollars of were raised to help fund the war through what were called Liberty Loans and Toledo was one of the top leaders in the country for such fund raising, and likewise, Toledoans also offered thousands of young men to fund the need for human lives on the front lines in France, in what would become a brutal trench war of attrition against the hated Germans.   By the time it was over on November 11th, it had been the costliest war in terms of human life, in the history of humanity. Over 8 million dead. For the United States, 116,000 military troops died in battle or from disease or accidents in the short 19 months of deployment.  Over 400 young men from the Toledo area would not return home alive, having died on the battlefield, or of disease or by accident.

The Toledo News Bee newspaper at the time was a great repository of war information, reporting daily on the situation at home and abroad. One of the most poignant features I found in the pages of the newspaper were the letters from Toledo “Yanks” serving in France during those months just before the fall of the Germans in November of 1918. The letters lend a human perspective to the events. A truly American perspective through the eyes of young men, many of whom had never traveled much beyond Lucas County, but whose sensibilities were now transported to a strange new world against the harsh landscape of war that would change their lives forever.

“When we landed in France we were shipped in boxcars, they packed us in like sardines. We had to split up and sleep in shifts during the ride at night.” So writes William Kieswetter to his father J.L. Kieswetter of 828 Michigan St. ” The speed of the French trains would make one seasick. One could walk backward twice as fast as we moved forward. We were five hours in going 20 miles. On the night of October 31st, we saw several bombs dropped on Nancy, killing many people.”

Private Edward Major wrote to his father F. Major at 1806 Ray St. Toledo..” I was wounded in the thigh on the morning of November 1st, just after daylight. We were going over the top. As we went over the top, a gang of German machine guns opened fire on us. We jumped into a shell hole and listened to the bullets buzz over our head. Soon it became quiet, so one of the fellows said “let’s go”, so we started. Started was all. From the minuteswere showed ourselves we drew a hornet’s nest of machine fire. But  this time our fellows kept going. I was one of the lucky ones. I got plugged. But it is not so bad, these hospitals are a great place to get some rest.”

“Wine, women and song are what Paris lives under” so wrote J Frank Coveney to his sister Mrs. Stanley Lanker in Point Place. “ I never saw the likes of it before in all the cities I’ve been in, both in the United State and over here.” Coveney goes on to write, “We are billeted and set in a small building about 10′ x 12′. It is pretty crowded. This is one of the battlefields and graves are all around us. One grave they say has 10,000 French soldiers in it. A good sized city – isn’t it?” Some of the German prisoners are sure bum looking fellows and gaunty. They seem to be glad to be taken. I guess their stomachs are full of war.”

For some of the Toledo soldiers, the adventure of war also involved other adventures besides those on the battlefield. Louis Gerding of Toledo wrote to his mother Ann Gerding of 119 Maumee Avenue about his new kindled friendship with a “French girl”.

“I’ve got the best little girl over here. She is teaching me French and I am teaching her English. I sent you her picture about a month ago. If you didn’t get it, here’s another one. In another month, your son will be able to speak French. Just think of it! We had a party about two weeks ago. I sure had a good time We had all the beer and eats we wanted. We also had a little show and also the band was here, so you see we never get time to get homesick.”

The sight of an American soldier, a Yank, with the companionship of a French girl was apparently not an unusual occurrence, so penned, Toledoan David Redding of the Chief Surgeon’s office to his father John Redding who worked for the Wabash railroad and the nephew of Rev. Thomas Redding of Maumee. “Everywhere..one can see an American soldier with a girl, while the French soldiers walk alone. The American soldiers are the cakes-of-the-walk in the town. I am learning French rapidly. I don’t mean I can speak fluently but just can make myself understood.“

Corporal Bennie Rosencranz of Toledo wrote to his family that it was candy that was in short supply in France. ” We get all of the tobacco and cigarettes we need and at less than they cost in the United States. Candy is very scarce, however, and when the Y.M.C.A. gets a supply, which is not very often, it lasts about a day.”

Other Toledo soldiers wrote of their eagerness to defeat the Germans and come home.

“At last we are here and ready to do our best to lick the Kaiser.” So wrote Toledoan Clinton Hart to Mrs. John Holzer of 1230 Oak Street. “We are all in fine condition, we were on the boat just 17 days.” One cannot judge the beauty of France by these camps, for Army camps in war times are not pleasing to the eye. Only old men and women are to be seen. All of the men who can wear the uniform have gone to war, but the women are making a wonderful showing. They keep the chief industry going, which seems to be the making of wine in this locality. Our long days of drilling are over and now the real show is about to begin. I feel good enough to lick any German that walks and I sure will hand it to him.”

Others were even more  belligerent in their regard for the Germans. “We are over here to lick Germany, all of us in the Army are willing to do that.” wrote Shirley C. Matheny of company C to his mother Mrs. J.W. Matheny of 319 12th Street. “If we can’t make these baby killing, conceited pig-headed Huns crawl and say Kamerad to us then we don’t want to come home. They have stopped calling us the contemptible little Yankee army now, we’ve gone up in the world. They now call us barbarians and they know whenever they are facing Yanks, they had better fight like hell or beat it while the beating is good. It’s very simple, get Fritz on the run and keep him running and the war will soon be over.”

For many of the young Toledo soldiers deployed to Europe, the experience was one of cultural enlightenment. They were getting the chance to see a world they had only heard of, or read about before. Many communicated those experiences to their loved ones back home.  Carl Hoefflin wrote to his mother Mrs. George Hoefflin of 1919 Hurd Street about his life in France “ The people surely do live strange over here. They wear wooden shoes. The girls drive three or four horses. The buildings are made of stone and are very pretty. The streets are also beautiful.”

“About 25 of us are living in a sawmill at the present time“, said Private Geogre Fulkert of 731 Pinewood, in a letter to his wife and family.  “Some of the boys are living in hay lofts. There are numerous ancient buildings here. One church is 289 years old. Some of the houses are older than this church. This is one place that indicates what women can do. They go out in the field and pitch hay and they operate street cars and do other things that I thought a woman could not do.”

And Miss Mary Ges of 137 Steele St. read in a letter from her soldier friend Walter Dieffenbach of his observations of this strange and foreign land. “It is rather interesting to note that the movie scenes and descriptions of French rural life depict conditions very accurately.”The farm houses, barns. sheds, etc that are built around a central court are very picturesque, but the romance of sleeping in the second story of a cowshed, as fell to our lot, is nothing to be enlarged upon from the standpoint of comfort.“

And while many of the Toledo Yanks reveled in these new experiences, they were also quick to point out that There is “no place like home”. Ferd Gladieux, a Company B machine gunner of Starr Avenue in East Toledo in writing to his father, George, summed it up this way.  “ We boys are all having a good time and all enjoying good health, so there are no kicks coming from any of us. I just got through with my breakfast. It was some breakfast. I had seven eggs. It makes me think of home and it’s the one thing Uncle Sam doesn’t give us.”

The Summer In Toledo That Changed The World

Maybe it’s my undying love for radio broadcasting that inspires my interest in its history and early beginnings, and after spending over 40 years in broadcasting, I was recently surprised to learn that the first radio station broadcast in America, maybe the world, happened in downtown Toledo in the year 1907, many years prior to those early days of radio broadcasting in the 1920′s when stations in Detroit and Pittsburgh were going “on the air” and claiming they were radio’s first on the air. Not really. The real “first” in wireless radio, or telephony as it was called then, occurred in Toledo. Here’s the story, as I have pieced together from numerous news articles written over the years.

This particular chapter in both the history of Toledo and radio, unfolded during the heat of a rabid race by many inventors to explore this new technology called “wireless”. Most of those inventors of the day were still testing how “wireless” could be used as a way to communicate using telegraph as the primary communications vehicle. The notion of actually transmitting a human voice and receiving it “through the air”, without wires, was beyond the boundaries of even the most fertile imaginations. But great innovations require great dreams and many of those early dreams were pursued in downtown Toledo. In a news article written by the NEA news service in 1925, Lee DeForest, considered the “father” of wireless broadcast radio, found himself in Toledo in the summer of 1907 and it was here that he made his first real breakthroughs in his quest to find a way to send voices through the air. A task he probably couldn’t have done without the help of a Northwest Ohio man and fellow believer, Frank E. Butler. Butler, had been a train dispatcher and telegrapher for the New York Central railroad in Toledo. But Frank Butler also had a passionate interest in the possibilities of this new technology of “wireless communication” and conducted his own experiments to see where they might lead. He wanted to do more than just tinker and wanted to leave his job and go to work with the renowned ”wireless” pioneer Lee DeForest. He would write in later years that everyone thought it was mistake for him to leave his good paying job with the railroad to pursue these electrical dreams with DeForest, but his passion couldn’t be ignored.

“The railroad position carried a large salary with abundant opportunity for advancement, while my new “job” paid only a meager amount and offered no apparent assurance of a future. The idea of communicating through space without wires was at that time considered fantastic, an idle dream, an impossibility, a game for fools. Many thought it was a fake”

Butler join DeForest at the St. Louis World’s fair in 1904…where DeForest had set up a popular exhibit demonstrating to people and potential investors just how telegraph signals could be broadcast without wires. This was new abstract territory for most minds to comprehend and many who saw the DeForest wireless telegraph machines work, were still skeptical and thought it was fake. Butler, however knew better, he not only understood the technology, but also grasped the enormous potential of this new “science” and what it could mean to the world. Butler struck up a friendship with DeForest and began working as his chief assistant. Shortly thereafter, he traveled with DeForest to Florida and Cuba to set up wireless telegraph stations for the U.S. Navy between Florida and Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

After the Navy contract was completed, Lee DeForest,however, found himself in a legal tangle with his investors and was kicked out of his own company, American DeForest. He was left on his own to chase new horizons for this technology. Undaunted by this turn of events and a lack of funding, DeForest and Butler were determined to pursue the idea of electrically sending the human voice through air without wires. To achieve that end, DeForest had developed the so called ”Audion Bulb”, a crude two element vacuum tube of sorts, which allowed him to detect or amplify a radio signal. Butler and DeForest then built two crudely designed sending and receiving units and in July of 1907 took them to Put-in-Bay at South Bass Island on Lake Erie to an annual yacht race. This race would become their first real test. DeForest placed the transmitter on the 75-foot yacht, “Thelma”, renamed the “Electra” for the race, and set up the receiving unit on shore near what is now the Jet Express dock. Frank Butler later recalled that because the yacht had a mahogany hull, he and DeForest , snuck onto the boat and nailed two sheets of copper to its sides to help give it a better ground system when the copper was submerged in water. It worked. As the race progressed, DeForest was able to send to Butler, who was back on shore, voice accounts of the race as it was taking place, thus making the first “ship to shore” radio voice transmission in the world. News of this broadcast “first” was greeted with much skepticism and indifference by the media and the rest of the world, who perhaps thought this was just exaggeration and fakery. Butler and DeForest, however, were convinced that success of wireless voice communication was now at hand. Without any income, however, the two men needed a place to do their experiments. Butler convinced the inventor DeForest that they should go to Toledo where Butler’s in-law’s would give them a roof over their heads and give them a place to live and eat. Butler had already rented space from the Spitzer family, securing the roof of the Nicholas building in downtown Toledo, so they would have a place to experiment and continue their work. The race to radio’s future was running at full speed high above Toledo’s downtown streets as DeForest and Butler designed and built even more radio sets in that summer of 1907. They set up laboratories in both the Nicholas and Ohio Buildings downtown, often broadcasting music from an old phonograph when they weren’t talking between the two buildings in downtown Toledo. In one innovation milestone, noted in the Toledo News Bee in August of 1907, the two men also achieved the first “phone patch” communication with their system, as DeForest talked with Butler’s mother-in-law Julia Manning from their home at 818 Collingwood. In a phone call between the Old West End home to the Ohio building.. Butler held up the phone receiver to the microphone so she could talk with Lee DeForest, at the Nicholas Building via the radio signal. A small achievement, with big significance.

As DeForest and Butler continued showing the world what they could do, success and recognition would follow. In a 1925 interview with Butler, who was then working as a sporting goods and radio manager for a store in Toledo, he said that after the Toledo experiments, Lee DeForest got a large order for 40 wireless radio sets for the U.S. Navy to be used in the fleet of Admiral Bob Evans for a round the world cruise of naval vessels, so they could be connected with voice communications. There would be many more orders and new breakthrough and even more recognition for DeForest. The rest, as they say, is history. DeForest would go on to become known as the “Father of Radio”, while Butler would eventually live out his life in Toledo in relative obscurity. He did form the American Wireless Institute and did write numerous articles about his years with DeForest which he treasured for the rest of his life.

“Surely, the most enthusiastic radio fan cannot realize the exceptional thrill which is now mine as I listen-in on my radio receiver and compare its wondrous achievements to those of the struggling, experimental days when I assisted Dr. De Forest in his elementary pioneer work; in the building of his first few “Audion bulbs”, and shared with him the marvel of listening-in for the first time to a wireless telephone. “

Radio, would of course, have a profound effect on the world. It still does. It was the “Internet” of our grandparents age and a miracle of communication that would change every facet of life and how we perceive it. It brought the voice of the world to our living rooms and to our minds.

Today, 105 years after the summer of 1907, when radio history was made in Toledo, the Nicholas building, still stands, Lee DeForest remains a giant in radio history, a special sign commemorates the first “ship to shore broadcast” at Put-in Bay, and Frank E.Butler, who died in January of 1948 at the age of 71, is remembered only by a few, as the young man, who dared to live a dream that changed the world.

Famous and Forgotten, Toledo’s Laddie Boy, The First Presidential Pet

There have many “first dogs” who’ve wandered the hallways of the White House over the years, but you may not know that the first “First Dog” to garner regular newspaper coverage in the United State was a dog from Toledo.  It was during the administration of  President Warren G. Harding of Ohio.  In the spring of 1921, the Hardings received a seven-month old Airedale from Charles Quetschke, Harding supporter in Toledo. The Harding’s named the dog Laddie Boy and with no child of their own, this loveable Airedale would soon become treated like a member of the family. Both Harding and his wife Florence shared a love of animals and the First Lady, also an advocate for the care of abused and neglected animals, soon began employing this handsome dog as a poster “child” for the national promotion of animal rights issues.

It soon made Laddie Boy the first presidential dog with a national identity. He was a very important dog, allowed to roam the White House grounds, attend meetings with the President and was even given his own custom-made Cabinet chair. President Harding himself would take the time to write letters to children on Laddie’s behalf. Within months, this young dog from Toledo, Ohio became the most celebrated dog in the nation. Children across the country loved Laddies and on July 26th each year, he was given White House birthday parties at which other neighborhood dogs were invited to join.

I guess it would appear that Laddie Boy was the first and only Toledoan ever to reside in the White House. Having been born as the Caswell Kennels in Toledo in 1920,  he was sired by the internationally
known Airedale Champion Tintern Tip Top, owned by Charles Quetschke of Toledo.  Quetschke was a man of some interest in the area, having led a bit of an adventurous lifestyle over the years as a boxer, sports promoter, motorcyle racer and champion dancer. He is credited with being the man who started the Toledo Kennel Club and the Maumee River Yacht Club.

The legend and life of Laddie Boy, however began to change when Warren Harding took ill while visiting San Francisco in August 1923.  As Harding lay on his death bed, it was reported that Laddie Boy, back at the White House, could sense his master’s impending death and howled constantly for three days before Harding passed away.  When Florence Harding eventually left Washington to return home to Marion Ohio, the Smithsonian Institution reports that she gave Laddie Boy to Harry Barker, the Secret Service agent who had been assigned to protect her, and that Laddie Boy soon found a new life and home with the Barker family in Newtonville, Massachusetts. Laddie Boy, however did not vanish into oblivion, but was recognized by thousands of newsboys around the country who each donated a penny for a memorial to Harding and his faithful canine companion. The pennies were melted down and cast into a life-size sculpture of Laddie Boy.  Today, that sculpture resides at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, but we are told it is not on display.  Maybe, (this author’s opinion), it is time to bring the sculpture back to Toledo, the birthplace of this most celebrated Presidential pet.

A side note to that idea, is that in a 1992 Toledo Blade column by Mike Tressler, he wrote that when Laddie was given up by Florence Harding to her favorite Secret Service agent back in 1923, kennel owner Charles Quetschke of Toledo, who gave the dog to the Hardings, “begged” to have Laddie returned to Toledo, but to no avail.

Laddie Boy passed away on January 22, 1929. The New York Times ran a story the next day, describing the terrier as “magnificent,” and reported that the “end came after the dog had been ailing for many months of old age, and died while resting his head on the arms of Mrs. Barker.”  Laddie Boy was buried at an undisclosed location in Newtonville, Massachsetts.

In a stange footnote followup to this story, earlier this summer in Marion at the Harding historic home, the custom made gold collar of Laddie Boy was stolen, it was apparently the only item taken in break-in at the Harding Home and Museum in Marion.  A groundskeeper back in June arrived one morning and found a ladder leaning against the home and a second story window had been pried open. Many of the rooms were in disarray, but nothing else was missing except the treasured collar.  Marion Police distributed photos of the collar that had been made from Alaskan gold nuggets and the name “Laddie Boy” was written in raised letters on the center. So far it has not been found.

 

THE STORY BENEATH PROMENADE PARK

       In the course of researching and writing about local history, you discover very quickly that you are not alone. There is in fact a growing fraternity of like-minded souls who also spend their days and hours immersed in the pages of time, looking for undiscovered and forgotten truths about our past. For some of those spelunkers of local history, the searches are personal.  Such is the case of  Doug Tracy, of Columbus, who, since retirement a few years ago,  started tracing his roots and found himself being led back to the streets of Toledo where many of his family members led notable lives of public service.   Some of those stories are a part of Toledo’s historical landscape.  It has become part of Doug’s purpose in life to share those stories with others and I am pleased that the Toledo Gazette can offer itself as a venue for that purpose. I know you’ll enjoy them.

The following story is the story of Toledo Fireman James Fraser, written by Doug Tracy, his  great-great grand nephew. 

Beneath Promenade Park

Toledo’s Promenade Park lies quietly along the riverfront where Water Street meets Madison, providing no indication whatsoever of the tragic events that took place at that very site in early January of 1894. Beneath the concrete and sod, unbeknownst to the passers-by who visit the park, lie the remains of the ‘brave and fearless’ Toledo firefighter Captain James Fraser, who valiantly died battling the King-Quale grain elevator fire, the largest fire in Toledo’s history –  a fire that very nearly destroyed all of downtown Toledo that cold winter night.  You will not find a marker or a plaque at the site where the massive grain elevators and other offices once stood, but Captain Fraser is still there somewhere beneath the grassy fields of the park.  Despite an intensive search of the ashes and still-smoldering rubble in the days following the fire, Captain Fraser’s remains were never found.  Only Captain Fraser’s brass suspender buckle, a pair of his glasses and a partially melted brass fire hose nozzle were found, grim testament to the intense heat of the inferno.

At the age of 12, ‘Captain Jim’, as Fraser was known to his firefighting brothers, came to America from Fermoy, Cork County, Ireland, with his 11 siblings, mother and father.  The Fraser’s sailed from Liverpool, England, during the height of the horrific Irish Famine, arriving in New York City in 1849.  Within a year, the entire Fraser family had found their way to Toledo and set up shop as shoemakers, the family trade.  In 1864, young Captain Jim enlisted in the 130^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry and found himself guarding Confederate prisoners at Johnson’s Island, followed by duty at Bermuda Hundred, Virginia, in support of the siege of Petersburg.

Following his discharge from the Union Army, Captain Jim worked 8 years as a sailor on Great Lakes ships before being hired as a Toledo fireman in 1872.  He rose through the ranks of the Toledo Fire Department and was appointed Captain of Engine House #1 just weeks before the King-Quale Elevator fire erupted the evening of January 3, 1894.

The first fire alarm came just before 6:00 p.m., when a grain elevator worker noticed smoke and flames at the top of one of the tall wooden structures.  Within minutes, a series of 3 massive grain-dust explosions created an immense blaze.  Captain Jim and his crew were among the early responders to a rapidly growing fire that was already out of control by the time they arrived.  Captain Jim and his partner, Alfred Blaine, entered the King Elevator with their dry fire hose, planning to work their way to the top of the building, signal firefighters below to turn on the water and pour a stream of water downward.  They managed to reach the 3^rd floor, but were immediately knocked to the floorboards by a fiery explosion that occurred just as they broke through a door.  A stunned Alfred Blaine yelled in the dark to Captain Jim to “follow the hose” to safety, but never heard another word from Captain Jim.  Blaine somehow managed to reach the stairway and stumbled down a flight, landing near a window.  Dazed and badly injured, he lunged toward the light of the window, only able to summon enough strength to partially break  through the glass, severely cutting himself in the process.  His comrades below saw him hanging out of the window, bleeding profusely, and carried him to safety.  Captain Fraser was not so fortunate.  He was never seen again.

Throughout the rest of the night, a wind-driven shower of sparks and embers ignited building after building in its path in a seemingly unstoppable advance from the waterfront toward the heart of the business district.  First the King elevator, then the Quale elevator, followed by the Chamber of Commerce building, Wonderland Amusement Center and scores of smaller storefronts, were all consumed by the conflagration.  The firefighters were powerless to stop the onslaught and late in the night had given up all hope of saving the rest of Toledo’s thriving downtown.  But in the wee hours of the morning, a miraculous 180-degree wind shift took place, allowing the exhausted firefighters to bring the fiery beast to its knees.

Early the next morning, while thousands of curious onlookers silently surveyed the many blocks of devastation, Captain Jim’s comrades painstakingly sifted through still-steaming debris at the northeast corner of Madison and Water streets, the exact location where Captain Jim was last seen entering the King building, searching for any trace of their beloved comrade.  The next day, January 5, 1864, a Toledo Blade headline declared “Fraser Is Dead”, noting that, “Captain Fraser was one of the bravest firemen that ever wore a uniform.  He was absolutely without fear.  Intense heat and suffocating smoke had no terrors for the gallant officer.”

Three days after the fire, while the debris still smoldered, all hope of ever finding Captain Jim was officially abandoned.  Fire Department Chief Chris Wall reflected on the loss of his dear friend:  “Twenty years ago, when, as a boy, I began to work with the Toledo Fire Department, old Jim Fraser taught me how to do it best, and from that time until Wednesday night, he needed no one to point out the work, or tell him how to handle it.  He was not ordered into the King building; he did not need to be.  He saw what was wanted and his own sense of duty took him there without the word of command.  Neither did he order his men there.  He said, ‘Come,’ and led the way himself.  ’Don’t let go of the line,’ he has told me many a time, ‘you can always find your way out by it,’ and Jim Fraser never feared a fire before him or behind him, so long as he had a stream of water to fight with.” [Toledo Commercial Times, January 6, 1894]

A reporter in that same edition of the Toledo Commercial Times, went on to describe Captain Jim as, “A brave and noble man.  Personally he was a pleasant man to meet, of kindly heart and gentle disposition.  The children of the neighborhood of No. 5 (sic) Engine House will mourn over his death, for he was a dear friend to them.  His gentle, kindly nature found pleasure in the company of the little ones, and hardly a day passed but what they came to him in little knots of five and six to ‘play’ and pass away a happy hour.”

On January 21, 1864, throngs of solemn Toledo citizens congregated at Memorial Hall to pay their last respects to Captain Jim.  At the service, the eulogies were many and heartfelt. Fire Commissioner L. G. Richardson paid tribute to Captain Jim’s devotion to his city and his country, saying, “Born in a foreign country, Ireland, he came to America and soon offered his services and his life for the preservation of the nation of his adoption.”

After his death, Captain Jim’s legacy of service and devotion was carried on by subsequent generations.  One nephew, George W. Fraser, became Chief of the Toledo Fire Department in 1914, and another nephew, Lewis B. Tracy, was a career policeman and Captain of Detectives with the Toledo Police Department during the early 1900’s.

Where is Toledo’s Danny Thomas Statue?

I read in the Blade this morning that this week, on the 21th anniversary of his death, Toledo native, comedian Danny Thomas is getting his own postage stamp.  And  as well he should, for Danny Thomas (Amos Jacobs), was truly     deserving.  This Toledo icon was not just a great entertainer, but a great humanitarian whose legacy lives on at St. Judes Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Memphis, which he founded in 1962.  That facility will celebrate its 50th year of operation this year and I note that last summer a new statue of Toledo’s native son was unveiled in front of St. Judes as they prepare for this year’s celebration. (Photo with family members Jun, 2011)

That photo brought to mind that at one time Toledo had a statue to Danny at the Danny Thomas Park on Broadway in South Toledo (That location I never understood, because Thomas grew up in North Toledo).   Toledo’s statue to Danny, however, was vandalized sometime in the 1980′s and removed from the park.  But in 1991, after his death, there were promises by Mayor John McHugh to have it restored and “displayed prominently ” in the city. If that happened, then where is it?  Maybe you know?  Let us know. Or is the statue benignly stuck away someplace, out of sight, out of mind?  I’m eager to know and in the meantime, we’ll make further inquiries as to its whereabouts. Maybe this would be a good time for Toledo to make room for Danny’s statue?

The Seneca County Train Disaster, the Deadliest in Northwest Ohio

I love to ride trains. There is a feeling of romanticism that washes over me as the steel wheels roll and rumble on the rails beneath, taking you not just to a place, but  to a place in time.  During such a journey it’s easy to conjure up those days when our grandparents and relatives used the rails as their primary means of rapid transit.  But those travels were often filled not so much with romance, as with smokey cars, hard seats, rougher rides and the potential for disaster.  Rail accidents and wrecks were all too common in those days.  So much so,  they may have been regarded as we think of car accidents and traffic dangers - a day-to-day reality that we’ve come to accept, or at least acknowledge, as a cruel cost of modern living.   And so it  was, 125 years ago this week in 1887, when on the bitterly cold morning of January 4th, an eastbound freight train and a west-bound B&O passenger train met head-on on the tracks near Republic in Seneca County.  Newspaper accounts said the Baltimore and Ohio passenger train, with two sleepers, a smoker car and 65 people aboard, was traveling at 60 mph when it ran head-on into the stalled freight train about 11 miles east of Tiffin near the small village of Republic. The engineer of the passenger train said by the time he saw the stalled freight on the tracks it was too late to stop. He managed to jump to safety before impact and watched in horror as the two locomotives collided, then rose in the air together, as if in a deadly dance, before crashing to the ground.

The impact was thunderous, awakening nearby farmers from their early morning slumber.  At least three of the cars of the passenger train telescoped  into each other, including the smoker car where at least 15 people were seated. Witnesses said a fire was sparked after the crash and there was little hope for the men women and children inside the car. Many were burned beyond recognition as the car caught fire.  In all, it is said that as many as 22 people were killed, but no one knows for sure. A dispatch from a Tiffin reporter said.

    ” Fire broke out in the smoker car and soon spread. Many were killed outright, others wedged in between broken cars and were slowly consumed. The screams were heartrendering. No assistance could be given until a  farmer awakened by the crash came with other neighbors and worked like heroes to save the perishing. As of this writing, nineteen bodies have been discovered, They lie burned and disfigured in the snow beside the tracks.”

The tragedy could have been worse, for no one in the sleeper cars was  killed because, according to one news account, a quick thinking survivor was able to get out of the burning cars and uncouple the sleeper cars from the flaming wreckage and push them away from harm’s way.   According to the Republic Ohio community website, some of the unidentified bodies were taken  to the Republic town hall for a mass funeral, then taken to a local cemetery and put in a mass grave, buried as “unknowns”.   One of the saddest tales of that night was the story of the Joseph Postlewaite family of West Virginia who had just sold their 10 acre farm to relocate to Missouri.  Mr. Postlewaite had all of his assets on him, amounting to over a thousand dollars in cash and checks.  He and two young sons were seated with him in the sleeper. They all perished in the blaze, and their assets were lost to the flames. His wife, meanwhile had remained in the sleeper car with three other children. While she and the three children survived,  she was left a widow, with only 50 cents to her name.  I have yet to discover whatever happened to the widow Postlewaite and her children.

It’s been over a century since that terrible night, but the memory of the great train disaster at Republic is  kept alive by many locals who insist that on certain nights they can see a “ghost train” on the tracks that still run past the south flank  of the village.  A light, they claim, from a phantom train can be seen cutting its way through the darkness of the Seneca County countryside, flashing past the local Farewell Retreat Township Cemetery where many of the “unknown” victims rest to this day.

Toledo’s Summer of Hell

There have been many long, hot summers in the Glass City, but none that would shake the very foundation of the city’s future as did the summer of 1931. This one had nothing to do with the weather, but rather the nation’s stormy economic climate that would trigger a financial panic we should hope, we never see again.

As the city’s economy faltered in 1931, amidst a serious national economic downturn,  a banking crisis began to take shape in Toledo with the collapse of Security Home Trust Company  in June of 1931.   A state audit earlier that spring showed the bank was having serious financial difficulty and was  insolvent. Within weeks word had spread and corporate depositors began withdrawing their funds.  On the sunny and warm Wednesday morning of June 16th, a line of  anxious depositors and investors started gathering outside the  doors of the bank at Huron and Madison.  They were  hoping to get whatever they could of the deposits the bank held inside. They waited for naught.  The bank didn’t open its doors. Its ten branches also remained closed.  Security Home Trust Company was history. The move left other bankers in Toledo with white knuckled paranoia as they feared their banks could be next if a sudden wave of withdrawal fever should begin. In a quick move to head off that possibility, the state banking superintendent and  three other big banks in Toledo put a 60 day waiting period on cash withdrawals in hopes of blocking any panic induced runs that would surely put a catastrophic strain on their solvency. In the meantime, they assured the public in advertisements and news articles that the banks were solvent, and their money was safe, but because of the current “hysteria”, they were going to implement these controls.

But two months later, when the banks were to lift those limits, fear was still palpable and on August 17th, 1931 the  three banks decided not open at all.   As Time Magazine wrote the next week. “

“The closings brought to Toledo as grave a financial crisis as could possibly overtake a large U. S. industrial community. For last week only one of the city’s great banking institutions could pay depositors; 70% of the city’s banking deposits were frozen; eleven building-&-loan associations halted payments on their $50,000,000 deposits.”

The other banks that failed to open included:

Ohio Savings Bank & Trust Co. (deposits $45,526,000″)

Commerce Guardian Savings Bank & Trust Co. (deposits $21,328,000)

Commercial Savings Bank & Trust Co. (deposits $13,069,000)

American Bank (deposits $1,509,000).

In all 5 banks were closed along with 34 of their branches. More than 100 million dollars in deposits were tied up. The mood was grim at best and the city was in turmoil. Four banks did manage to stay open, and one of them was Toledo Trust, which actually used the crisis to brag about their solvency, even bringing in four truckloads of  11 million dollars worth of  fresh currency from the Federal Reserve in Cleveland. The trucks  parked outside the bank , to visibly demonstrate their slogan as “The Strongest Bank in Northwest Ohio”.

As the word spread of the bank closures, the city was on edge and civil unrest was feared.  Toledo police called back officers on vacation and a unit of the National Guard was put on alert. The situation sent ripples of anxiety across the region. Hundreds of area bankers got together to discuss strategy and scores of bank examiners were summoned to Toledo to help sort through and fix the Toledo problem that threatened to set off a tidal wave of more panic and closures.

The great Toledo bank crisis was one of the worst in the nation, during the great depression.  Bank depositors in Toledo lost more capita than in any other city in the nation.

It would be convenient to write that these institutions were simply victims of a bad economy, and the so called “perfect storm” of circumstances. But that would wrong.  While the failing economy certainly set the stage for this drama, there is ample evidence that the main actors were ruled by their own greed and personal panic.  Bankers who grabbed what they could, while they could with a “depositor-be-damned” attitude.  If you think the great bank panic of 2008, rife with insider manipulation and  amoral avarice was a new phenomenon, think again.  I suggest you read “ Banksters, Bosses, and Smart Money: A Social History of the Great Toledo Bank Crash of 1931”   Written by  Toledo historian Timothy Messer-Kruse, it examines and details just how the owners and insiders at these failed Toledo banks managed to line their own pockets first with millions of dollars as the panic set in, thus hastening the demise of these institutions that were entrusted to hold and keep secure the savings and assets of the general public.  During the 60 day withdrawal moratorium, many of the directors and owners used this chance to sell off assets,  cashed out their own deposits and were even giving themselves unsecured loans.  They, in effect, stole the life rafts for themselves as the ship was sinking.

The brazen actions did not go without notice. After numerous public hearings to deconstruct what had happened,  some of the bank officers and directors from various banks were later charged by prosecutor Frazier Reams in 1934. But while he was trying to get criminal indictments and convictions, the most severe consequences ultimately passed down, were censure and civil actions against the bankers and some of their directors.

Eventually, thousands of depositors affected were paid most of their money, but in increments that were strung out over years.