Out Junkin' and a Find

     There was a time that I frequented local antique shops, actively engaged in "the hunt".  I playfully called it "out junkin".  Most times this was a singular activity.  Not too many of my friends enjoyed old memorabilia. However, today I had a friend and it was her idea to visit a local resale shop.   I love finding old memories from my childhood and unusual, unique stuff.  

     I am a collector.  I joked that these collections would be my retirement money, reselling them.  Sadly, the joke is on me.  Current generations with any disposable incomes are traveling light.  Simply put, they don't want the old "junk".

     To be fair, I haven't been in an antique store in ages.  I have enough stuff in my home to set up my own shop.  Some purchased, some given to me from friends and older family members as well as items I kept from closing three family estates.  The most precious and valued are antiques previously owned by my maternal and paternal grandparents.  Which leads me to the subject of this blog.

     My mother was an only child.  Consequently, she inherited everything she wanted to keep when her mother died.  Mom loved glass and kept some beautiful old pieces of functional brilliant glass, pressed glass and crystal pieces.  When Mom died, many of the pieces came to me. 😇

     

       When I saw the glass candlesticks in the resale shop (photo at the beginning of the blog), I knew they looked familiar.  And, indeed they are an exact match to ones in a cabinet in my kitchen.  Candlesticks from my maternal grandmother's (Martha Frederick Stark) and Mother's estates.

     The seller at the resale shop listed them as Duncan Miller.  There were no visible markings on the shop's candlesticks, nor are there any on mine.  The Duncan Miller Glass Company went through several incarnations over it's existence.  Formed in 1865, George Duncan purchased a factory on the South Side area of Pittsburgh.  Along with his sons, the company was known as George Duncan & Sons.  In 1877 George Duncan died and his son, James Duncan became the head.  In 1892 the factory on the South Side burned.  James rebuilt in Washington, Pennsylvania in 1893 and the company was renamed George Duncan's Sons & Company.  In 1900, following James Duncan's death, the company became Duncan and Miller Glass Company.  The company ended the production of glass in 1955.  Wikipedia has a very informative article on the Duncan & Son's Company.

     I was surprised to learn that the molds and equipment were sold to the US Glass Division in Tiffin, Ohio in what was called their Duncan Division.  That would be the old Tiffin Glass Factory where I would visit and purchase glass in the late 1960's while a student at Heidelberg College.  Small world!

     I have many questions and theories regarding the candlesticks.  If they are pieces of pressed glass from the Duncan factory, they probably are Duncan and Miller circa 1900 and after.  My maternal grandparents married in 1914.  They could have been a wedding present or purchased by them.  Another possibility is that the candlesticks were owned by my maternal great grandmother (Lucinda Orr Frederick) and following her death in 1909, they were given to my grandmother.

     I have blogged about other Duncan glass pieces that my maternal great grandmother, Lucinda Frederick, owned.  She had Three Face glassware which following her death was given to her son, Robert Frederick.  The story I was told was that Robert's wife was not a fan of the glassware and gave it all to the Goodwill or whatever charity organization was in operation in Pittsburgh in the early 1900's. 

     Will I ever get the answers to my questions regarding these candlesticks?  Probably not; however, I do know they are over 100 years old and a precious piece of my family history.

P.S.  I was able to junk today and didn't buy a thing. 😀

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2023, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Social Distancing in the Age of Covid-19--A Positive

The Back Story
   
     There was a day, fifty years ago, the first year Ted and I were married, probably in the spring of 1970, that we purchased our first piece of furniture.  I have always been in love with antiques, perhaps that is the reason I love genealogy.  Ted and I saw in the local Tiffin, Ohio newspaper that there was a sale of antique furniture at a farm outside town.  Not being from Tiffin, I have no idea where we drove that day.  I think it was somewhere out River Road, perhaps near what is called The Screaming Lady Bridge.

     In those days we did not have much cha-ching and antiques were a popular commodity.  We wandered about the collection of sale items spaced here and there on the front yard of the farm house.  So many interesting pieces.  One, in particular grabbed our attention at the same time.  It was an old secretary with a writing desk and space on the side for books, enclosed by a bent glass door.  I had to have it!  The price was not too dear.  Ted found the sellers and bought it.

     As we continued looking around, who should be run into but Ted's parents, his sister and his brother in law.  His mother was rather unhappy.  She had seen a piece of furniture that reminded her of one her mother once owned.  Unfortunately, it was already sold.  You can guess which piece it was and who the new owners were.  She probably carried that one to her grave.

     The secretary has been a prized possession for fifty years.  It has been moved from Tiffin to Boston, from Boston to North Reading, MA, from North Reading back to Tiffin.  From Tiffin to Cleveland, from Cleveland to Lakewood, OH, another two moves within Lakewood and finally it has spent over 30 years in North Olmsted.  Moved with great care, the bent glass door removed.  Not often do you find these secretary's with the original bent glass.  This one is intact.

The Positive

     So, trying to stay busy while being laid off and social distancing in the house, I decided to paint many of the rooms and doors in my house.  To be honest, I am not the worlds most engaged cleaner.  I have always worked and in my free time find other more interesting ways to occupy my time than deep cleaning the rooms in my house.  To date, the most challenging room has been the living room.  It has not been painted since 2002 and probably not deep cleaned since about 2010. 

     Today, in preparation of painting the first wall, I had to move that old antique secretary away from the wall.  Although I did not have much light, something on the back of the piece caught my eye.  Something I had never noticed before.  It was a sales tag nailed to the back of the secretary with the names of the manufacturer and the buyer.  What sweet find.

     FOR: 

 W. H. Hetrick

Oak Harbor, Ohio

FROM:  
BAKERS

Manufacturers of Furniture

Allegan, Michigan

     Now the genealogist in me is kicking in.  W. H. Hetrick, could be William H. Hetrick who has census reports in Oak Harbor, Ottawa County, Ohio in 1920 and 1930.  William was born in August, 1869, Sandusky County, Ohio.  I found that William was a salesman in a furniture store on the 1910 census.  So rather than William becoming the first owner of the secretary, it was probably being shipped to him at the furniture store in Oak Harbor where he was employed.  I had ball parked the secretary as having been made around 1910-1920.  By 1920, William was the manager of the store and continued to work there into the 1930 census.

     I was able to find William's obituary.  A very enterprising man, he was a furniture dealer and owned a funeral home.  He was a member of the school board and the US Lutheran Evangelical Church in America.  William married to Rozella Setzler in 1891 and together they raised five children; Lloyd William Hetrick, Viola R. Hetrick Hoedt, Grace L. Hetrick, Edwin H. Hetrick and Norman John Hetrick.  On March 26, 1938, at age sixty eight, William died at his home on Ottawa Street in Oak Harbor.  He is buried at Oak Harbor Union Cemetery, Oak Harbor, Ohio.   

More Research

      So, William was also a funeral director and owned a funeral parlor.  Back to google.  

     Taken from the Robinson-Walker website. " A century ago, it was common for furniture store owners to get into funeral service as well--after all they were the ones building the beautiful caskets.  This was the case for Hetrick & Son Furniture in downtown Oak Harbor back in the 1920's.  The W.H. Hetrick family opened Oak Harbors first funeral home in a large Victorian home that was built in the late 1800s at 165 East Water Street.  After World War II, the Hetricks sold the funeral home to Glenn and Mary Robinson."   Today the funeral home is known as the Robinson-Walker Funeral Home.  

     Often funeral directors lived in the houses where they had their business.  I can find no evidence William lived at the East Water Street house.  Federal census reports list the family at 352 Oak Street in 1910 and 312 Ottawa Street in 1920 and 1930.


     However, on the 1940 census (1935 and 1940), living at 165 East Water Street are two of William and Rozella's sons with their wives; Lloyd William Hetrick, listed as the director of a funeral home and Norman James Hetrick listed as a clerk in retail furniture.  This census was after Williams death.  The sons were living upstairs of the actual funeral parlor.  I also found on Lloyd William's World War II draft registration card that he and his wife, Ethel, lived at 165 East Water Street and his place of business was listed as the furniture store at 169 West Water Street.

   I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2020, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Souvenir Spoon of Helen M. Reif

This morning I decided to begin cleaning and putting away some of the "treasures" I found while cleaning out my mother-in-laws condo. This eventually lead me to take a few photos of the various items and while trying to find some room in my cupboards, I happened upon this spoon.

It belongs to me. I purchased it from an ebay seller back in 2001. Actually, I was in the ebay market for anything Tiffin, Ohio and when I saw this souvenir spoon, I decided to get it as a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law who has lived here entire life (save currently) in Tiffin.

She never got the gift. I decided to keep it along with several other's that I found out on ebay. My reason: I went to college in Tiffin, married a fellow from Tiffin and lived there for several years following my wedding day. The spoon collection remained in my kitchen, forgotten....until today.

Close up of the bowl of the spoon which is beautifully engraved with the word "Tiffin".
Back of the spoon with the makers mark, Helen Reif's initials engraved in the back of the handle and the underside of the bowl of the spoon--which IS a golden color.

Robert Wallace and SonsSterling Silver
Back when I purchased the spoon, I wrote the sellers to see if they had any knowledge of the name of "H. R."--the initials on the back of the spoon. I was thrilled to find that they did know who the spoon originally belonged to.


After reading their e-mail, I filed it away with the spoon. Today, I decided to do a little detective work to see if I could find out any information on Helen and to find out how close the spoon selleres story was to the actual life of Helen Reif. I hopped on ancestry and was able to find a relation who had information on the entire Reif family. The seller's information was partially correct.

Helen M. Reif
Born: August 7, 1894 in California
Died: August 13, 1975 in California

Parents: John F. Reif and Caroline Ella Grammes
Sibling: Frederick William Reif

Sources:

Kovel, Ralph and Terry. Kovels' American Silver Marks: 1650 to the Present, Crown Publishers, New York, New York, 1989, page 368.

Lohse-Marzi Families from Ohio, Ancestry.com, Helen M. Reif

© 2010, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser