Glen W. Hall: Leader of Ohio's Deaf Community

Glen W. Hall passed on through this life on Saturday, February 18, 2012, at aged ninety-four. However, to his community, the Ohio Association for the Deaf and Portsmouth, Ohio, it is the passage of their leader.

I was honored to open the celebration at Moreland Funeral Home in Westerville by playing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Then I sat and watched the story of a life unfold as his family and friends, all of them using the deaf’s sign language, told of Glen’s successes.

Ben Hall, Glen’s son, started it by telling humorous stories of his dad growing up during two World Wars, his life as a boxer, a multisport athlete from the 1930s, a whitewater rafter in his eighties, a mechanic, a pressman for a newspaper in Sandusky, a union pressman who fought the discrimination of being deaf in his hometown of Portsmouth. And all along the way, Glen used his strength to help deaf folks find interpreters and find employment.

Ryan Hall told of traveling to California with his grandfather in 2011 to find a long lost brother and how the three men bonded. Others came forward to tell stories of how Glen was the leader in the Columbus Colony for the Deaf, how he was a bowler, how he helped them find a job, how he care so much about the deaf community of Portsmouth that he brought people together.

The sign language of others told how Glen Hall was the organizer and life-member of the Ohio Association of the Deaf and how he attended meetings nationwide for the benefit of his people. He packed life into ninety-four years and he is the last of the orginals.

But Glen Hall’s legacy lives in his sons, his grandson and those who celebrated his passing through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He made an impact that you didn’t have to hear.

Arnett Howard

Coach Fred Taylor and the 1960 Basketball Buckeyes

Fred Taylor was an Ohio boy who grew up in Zanesville and went on to graduate in 1950 from the Ohio State Unversity. He played center on one of the best ever Buckeye teams.

During his senior year, the Buckeyes has a 22-4 season, a record until ten years later when Fred coached the team to a 25-3 season and the NCAA Championship. That team was so outstanding that the 1959-60 season was described as “The Year of the Buckeyes.”

Center Jerry Lucas, forwards John Havlicek and Joe Roberts and guards Larry Siegfried and Mel Nowell deserved every bit of praise they received. This group of Ohio natives, led by Lucas, became the nation's top scorers, hitting nealyr fifty percent of their field goals. The 6’8” Lucas from Middletown, Ohio, had been the country's top high school scorer, wracking up 2,460 to break Wilt Chamberlain’s 2,252 point record set at Overbrook High School in Philadelphia.

Lucas was a straight shooter off the court as well. An “A” student majoring in business, Lucas carried a full course load and was proud that he was attending the Ohio State on an academic scholarship.

Lucas’ teamates were also an impressive group. Larry Siegfried was the Bucks' leading scorer in 1958, averaging nearly twenty points a game as a sophmore. Under Fred’s coaching Larry sublimated his desire to be an offensive star and teamed with Columbus native Mel Nowell, an unbelievably tough guard.

Forward John Havlicek also figured into Fred’s emphasis on defense. An all-state high school athlete in all sports, Havlicek once told a reporter that if the team members had tried to score individually as they had in high school, the scoreboard would have shown one hundred-fifty points a game.

“I knew that wasn’t going to happen,” he said, “so I forgot about the offense because I knew that concentrating on defense was the quickest way to make the team.” John’s patience was rewarded. He got his chance to shoot for the Boston Celtics and became the fourth leading scorer in the NBA history.

Joe Roberts, another tall and talented member of that famous team, was a fine forward and aggressive player who unselfishly and repeatedly set up Lucas to shoot. Although he was not one of the five starters, Dick Furry was another excellent forward who got a lot of play. Also on that famous team was Bobby Knight, who while not a star, showed a lot of hustle.

Like football coach Woody Hayes, Fred Taylor did everything in his power to see that his players graduated. He was not a “user” who saw these players as finely-tuned athletes whose sole purpose was to bring glory to Ohio State. Fred was very realistic and urged his players to be realistic about their chances of turning pro.

He often reminded even his most talented players that only a handful of college stars were selected by the professional teams. “The odds are not very good that you’ll make it,” he told them bluntly. “If you don’t get your degree while doing something you enjoy, then it isn’t worth it to you.”

To his credit, all of Fred Taylor’s players graduated.

Jimmy Crum,
From Jimmy Crum: How About That!

Annetta St. Gaudens Saves a Natural Setting for City Children

Annetta St. Gaudens was a nationally known sculptor working in the St. Gaudens artist colony at Cornish, New Hampshire. By 1910 she had inherited a dramatic gorge above Worthington, part of William Thompson’s farm platted in 1803. Although there was a mill on the property, the stream and ravine were preserved in their original state. William Thompson, one of the original Worthington settlers, was the great-great grandfather of Annetta.

Annetta graduated from the Columbus Art School (precursor of CCAD) in 1885, studied in New York, became an assistant to Augustus St. Gaudens, and in 1898 married his younger brother, Louis.

In growing up on her family’s farm in nearby Flint Township near Worthington, she modeled animals from clay. As a young Columbus ceramicist, Annetta became acquainted with geology professor Edward Orton, senior, the first president of OSU, and others who were promoting the arts and social services in Columbus. She shared professional interest in the ceramic clays of the ravine on her farm with Edward Orton, junior, who succeeded his father as Ohio geologist in 1899 and established the department of ceramic engineering at the Ohio State University.

Annetta St. Gaudens actively supported early 20th century social movements such as temperance, women’s suffrage and environmental preservation. The latter was reflected in her bird and animal ceramics. In 1910 she gifted ten acres of the scenic ravine to the Neighborhood Guild Association (NGA), which ran Godman House on Goodale Street.

Godman House was modeled after Jane Adams’ Hull House in Chicago and their summer camp became Camp Johnson. Edward Orton Jr. was an active member of the Neighborhood Guild board of directors and the camp became a summer retreat for children of impoverished neighborhoods, such as Flytown.

After his return from service during World War One, Edward Orton Jr. approached Annetta St. Gaudens about selling her remaining farmland to the NGA (soon to become the Godman Guild.) Annetta accepted a mortgage to be paid off in ten years, Orton donating the funds to the Guild for annual mortgage payments, and the Guild raising funds for buildings and development for the camp.

Both Orton and St Gaudens served on the board as development began and she stayed at Godman House when she was in Columbus on board business. It remained Camp Johnson into the 1920s and the mortgage was paid off before Edward Orton’s untimely death in 1932. The camp was renamed Camp Mary Orton after his wife and the natural beauty of the setting has been preserved for generations of camp goers since then.

Christine Hayes

Alta Weiss: A Medical Student With A Baseball Career

Alta Weiss had come from Ragersville, Ohio to be one of the only women in the Starling-Ohio Medical College in Columbus in 1910. But this was not the unusual thing about Alta. By the time she arrived in Columbus in 1910 as a twenty-year-old, she had already had a career in baseball.

Ragersville is south of Sugarcreek in Tuscarawas County. Alta Weiss’s father was the doctor there for fifty years. Alta was born in 1890, the second of his three daughters. She was naturally athletic and, legend has it, could hurl an accurate corncob at a family cat at the age of two, complete with wrist-snap and follow-through.

Alta not only pitched well, but she was an excellent shot with rifle and shotgun, played basketball, tennis, piano, violin and sang. But baseball was her first love.

Her father, Dr. George Weiss, provided her with an outlet when he established a two-year high school in 1905 so that Alta could play on a school team. He also founded Weiss Ball Park in Ragersville and by her fourteenth year, Alta was playing first base and pitching for the town team.

When the family was vacationing in Vermilion in 1907, Mayor H.P. Williams arranged for a game between two local teams, with Alta guest-pitching. She struck out fifteen men in the first game and nine in the second. On September 2, 1907, Alta, wearing a long blue skirt, took the mound for the semipro Vermilion Independents, pitched five innings and then played first base. The Independents won, 4-3.

Overnight she became the “Girl Wonder” in Ohio newspapers. She played the rest of the 1907 season, pitching seven more games, attracting much attention to Charles Heidloff, the manager of the Independents, who even booked League Park in Cleveland. Alta led the team to a 7-6 victory over the Vacha’s All-Stars. She was seventeen.

Her father encouraged her, built a heated gymnasium on his property so she could practice pitching and work out with weights during the winter. He purchased a semipro team and called it the Weiss All-Stars. He hired Heidloff as manager and Alta switched from a skirt to bloomers. The team had a barnstorming spring and summer in Ohio and Kentucky, playing at county fairs and special events, with fans tossing money in the infields after particularly good plays.

Alta was always accompanied by her older sister, Irma. Alta always pitched five innings, then played first base. Irma rubbed Alta’s arm with arnica, a plant extract, each evening. The Weiss All-Stars ended the 1908 season with a 21-19-1 record.

Alta attended the Wooster Academy and then she came to Columbus. Irma passed away and Alta had to buckle down to study medicine. When she graduated in 1914, the only woman in her class, the Columbus Citizen wrote, “Miss Weiss will take the State Board medical examination next week and then go home to Ragersville where she will practice medicine with her father for the summer. In the fall she will go to Harvard where she will enter the physical culture training school to fit herself to teach physical training.”

Alta did not become a physical education instructor. She practiced with her father, then, briefly, at the Girls Reformatory in Delaware. She practiced in Sugarcreek during World War One, taking over the practice of Dr. A.H. Syler during his war service. Alta worked during the horrible influenza epidemic and was discouraged in medicine.

She continued to don a baseball glove occasionally and play with local teams. In 1925 she established a medical business in Norwalk, Ohio, was married for eleven years but her marriage ended in separation.

She took over her father’s practice in Ragersville when he died in 1946. She phased the practice out and then retired, but was always ready to encourage a young ball player from her rocker on her Ragersville porch. Her grand-nephew described her as “eccentric…she owned ten cats, drove a 1940 Buick for years, and read three newspapers a day.”

Alta Weiss died in 1964.

Christine Hayes

The Baker Art Gallery

Baker’s Art Gallery, 106 South High Street, Columbus, Ohio, was founded by Lorenzo Marvin Baker, born in 1834 in Copenhagen, New York. He was active in Columbus from 1860 until 1897.

Lorenzo came to Columbus in 1854 to clerk at the Neil House Hotel, he was also an officer at the Ohio Penitentiary. He went into the photo business in 1862 and established a gallery, one of the finest rooms in Ohio. They were awarded the gold medal for the best examples of photographs at the Semi-centennial in Boston and the World’s Fair at Chicago.

He employed two of his sons, Lorenzo and Duane Baker, as well as John Samuel Schneider, in the best known portrait studio in the state capital until well into the twentieth century. Lorenzo Baker won prizes at the Ohio State Fair beginning in 1874 for photographs, both plain and finished in watercolor and ink.

Lorenzo M. Baker lived until Febrary, 1924. Duane Baker, educated at the Ohio State University, took over the firm’s business affairs early in the twentieth century and was an active photographer in Columbus until his death in 1934. The third partner in the business was John Samuel Schneider, active in photography from 1880 until 1912.

What I really find fascinating about Baker's Art Gallery are some of the famous names and otherwise interesting folks that walked through their door to have portraits done: Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley, actor-entertainer Al G. Field, sharp-shooter Annie Oakley and 1892 Columbus Baseball Club, among many actors, actresses, government officials and persons of the times.

The Baker Art Gallery existed in Columbus until the 1950s.

Arnett Howard

John Glenn: Flight, February 20, 1962

Liftoff was slow; the Atlas rocket’s 367,000 pounds of thrust were barely enough to overcome its 125-ton weight. I wasn’t really off until the forty-two inch umbilical cord that took electrical connections to the base of the rocket pulled loose. That was my last connection to Earth.

It took two boosters and the sustainer engine three seconds of fire and thunder to lift the thing that far. From where I sat the rise seemed ponderous and stately, as if the rocket were an elephant trying to become a ballerina. Then the mission elapsed-time clock on the cockpit panel ticked into life and I could report, “The clock is operating. We’re under way.”

At 2:19 the booster engines cut off and fell away. I was forty miles high and forty-five miles from Cape Canaveral. The rocket pitched forward for the few seconds it took for the escape tower’s jettison rocket to fire, taking the half-ton tower away from the capsule.

Pilots gear their moments of greatest attention to the times when the flight conditions change. The G’s built again, pushing me back into the couch and I reported, “Cape is go and I am go. Capsule is in good shape.”

Five minutes into the flight I would achieve orbital speed, hit zero G and be inserted into orbit at a height of about a hundred miles. It happened as programmed; the weight and fuel tolerances were so tight that the engines had less than three seconds worth of fuel remaining when I hit that keyhole in the sky, “Zero G and I feel fine. Capsule is turning around.”

Through the window, I could see the curve of Earth and its thin film of atmosphere. “Oh, I exclaimed, “That view is tremendous.” Over the Canary Islands, almost to the west coast of Africa, I could still see the Atlas rocket making slow pirouettes behind me, sunlight glinting from its metal skin. It was beautiful, too.

Friendship 7 crossed the African coast twelve minutes after liftoff. Flying over the Indian Ocean, I began to fly out of daylight and this was something that I had been looking forward to; a sunset in space. On Earth we see beautiful reds, oranges and yellows with a luminus quality that no film can fully capture.

It was even more spectacular than I imagined, not just the colors at the red end but the greens, blues, indigos and violets at the other end of the scale. It made spectacular an understatement for the few seconds view. The sun was fully round and white as a brilliant arc light, then it swiftly disappeared and seemed to melt into a thin line of rainbow-brilliant radiance along the curve of the horizon.

I reported, “The sky above is absolutely black, completely black. I can see stars up above.” Gordon Cooper’s familiar voice came over the headset at Friendship 7 neared Australia, where he was at the station at Muchea, on the west coast just north of Perth. “That was a short day. Kinda’ passes by rapidly, huh?”

John Glenn

From John Glenn: A Memoir

Gloria Hoover Markets The Edible Buckeye

The omnipresent “buckeye” confection, made of peanut butter and chocolate, is a Columbus institution. Postcards with the recipe printed on them can be found around town. The edible buckeye is a staple at football tailgating potlucks and I have to send them to my niece in California every Christmas.

But who organized these little morsels? I happened upon a 1970 Wonderful World of Ohio magazine and the mystery was solved.

Gloria Hoover won a “Best Rolled Cookies” blue ribbon with her grandmother’s anise-seed sugar cookie recipe at the Ohio State Fair in 1965. These cookies went on to win the coveted purple rosette for best cookies at the Fair, presented to her by none other than Art Linkletter.

She received calls from people wanting the cookies. Gloria, a former art and philosophy major at Denison University, was not particularly interested in becoming a cookie tycoon. But she succumbed to the growing demand and started a baking venture in a tiny upstairs room in Granville, Ohio.

This is where she developed the “Hetuck” cookie, which is a Native American word for buckeye. The first box of the new Hetuck cookies was delivered to Governor James Rhodes' office in Columbus. The Hetucks first outlets were in Granville, Newark, and Columbus. When soon-to-be president Richard Nixon spoke at a 1966 rally in Newark, Gloria was there to present him with Hetucks.

In April, 1967, congressman Clarence E. Miller of the 10th District of Ohio was sponsoring the planting of a buckeye tree on the Capitol grounds in Washington DC., Gloria flew to Washington and presented Hetucks to congressman William H. Harrison, great-great grandson of President William H. Harrison of Ohio.

By 1968 the Hoover cookie industry expanded to larger digs. Her wares now included Teresa’s Anise Cookies (Teresa was her grandmother’s name), Hetucks, Vanilla Sugar Cookies, and Pub and Mug Cookies.

Gloria hired others to bake, while she handled the sales and promotion, flying to conventions and shows. (Did Cheryl learn her cookies from Gloria?)

Gloria designed a “Wonderful World of Ohio” dress to help promote her products. Hetucks were marketed on special small trees with paper buckeye leaves and pretend cardinals. Especially coveted were the Hetucks packaged in a metal treasure chest.

But does anyone know of the Hetuck name anymore? Where did Hetucks leave off and the normal chocolate buckeye begin? Perhaps readers of the 1970 magazine seized chocolate and peanut butter in their own hands and took off with her idea.

Christine Hayes