The-Leaf-Picker-Upper (again) but with more on its inventor, Fred Gedge, and operator, Joe Sontag

Last year I posted this amazing photo of Wyoming's early "leaf-picker-upper." In November and December of 1941, the photo was published in at least a dozen newspapers from Massachusetts to Texas to California. It still amazes me. This year, I'm reposting, but with information about Fred Gedge, its inventor, and Joe Sontag, the man running the machine in the photo.

Fred (Fredrick George) Gedge (1887-1966) was born in Covington, Kentucky. His father, Julius Gedge, was a salesmen when Fred was young, but later was partner in the Gedge & Gray Company, which manufactured machinery used in mills for the production of food, beverages, and other products. Juliuis’s partner, George A. Gray, was his sister’s husband.

A Gedge-Gray horizontal mixer in Alexander's Grist Mill, Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
Source:  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HAER OHIO,18-VAVI,2--11. 

The family moved to 12 Walnut Ave in Wyoming about 1904. Fred attended the Ohio Mechanics Institute, worked for Proctor & Gamble for a year, and then was a manager in his father’s machinery manufacturing business until 1927.

Julius Gedge Family Home, 12 Walnut Ave.

The Gedge & Gray company operated out of a plant in Hamilton, Ohio, until it was destroyed by a 1913 flood. After the flood they moved their manufacturing facility to Lockland, Ohio, constructing a factory at Hosea and Cooper Avenues.

Help Wanted Ad
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, March 10, 1920.

Fred Gedge married Grace Tabbs (1886-1951) in 1915. Grace was originally from Louisville, Kentucky. Her father died when she just 4 years old; Grace’s mother lived with the couple until her death in 1930. Grace and Fred made their first home at 130 Springfield Pike, Wyoming. Fred enlisted in the Army during WWI, but the war ended about the same time his training did.

Fred and Grace Gedge's First home, 130 Springfield Pike.

In February 1930, Fred left the manufacturing business and began to work for the Village of Wyoming as what was officially titled “service inspector,” but was effectively the equivalent of a “village manager.” Later that year Fred’s father died, and the couple moved back into his family home at 12 Walnut Avenue.

Frank S. Bonham was Mayor of Wyoming
Source: Hamilton Evening Journal, February 27, 1930.

In addition to running the affairs of Wyoming, Fred was a member of the Hamilton County Regional Planning Commission from 1944-1954, and its chairman for much of that time. When the City of Wyoming adopted a new charter in 1949, he officially became the first city manager, and held that position until he retired in 1955.

Fred's wife Grace died in 1951; they never had any children. In 1952 Fred married Emily Knight Smith, a widow, and they moved to the house at 357 Beech Ave.  Emily passed away in 1962, and is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, in a plot with her first two husbands.  Fred lived until 1966 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Glendale, near his parents, brother and first wife, Grace.

Home of Fred Gedge and his second wife, Emily, 357 Beech Ave.

Joseph Charles (Joe) Sontag (1887-1970), the man operating the leaf-picker-upper in the photograph, was a lifelong resident of Wyoming. His father, Julius Sontag, immigrated from Germany in about 1880, first settling in Cincinnati, and moving to Wyoming not long after. He both worked as a blacksmith for manufacturing companies, as well as had his own business of shoeing horses and making iron tools and implements.

Joe's mother, Philomena Rieninger,  was born in Indiana to German immigrant parents. When she was in her late teens her family had hard times. Her father, a farmer, ended up in the poorhouse, and Philomela and her siblings were put out to work as household servants. She and at least one brother ended up moving to Cincinnati, where she met and married Joe's father, Julius, in 1884.

Joe's parents moved out to the Park Place neighborhood, where they raised their family of two girls (Catherine and Flora) and two boys (Joe and Julius). Park Place was annexed into Wyoming in 1904. The Sontags first lived on Springfield Pike, then Charlotte Ave., and by the 1920s owned land on the 1500 block of Maple Ave., where several of the children also established homes. Joe never married and lived much of his life with his parents and then his widowed mother.

Sontag home on Maple Ave.
Source: Google Maps Streetview

Joe spent his whole life working with automobiles and other vehicles. In 1910, when he was 22, the occupation listed for Joe in the census was "Automobile Tester." City directories and later censuses continue to list him as working as a mechanic or driver for garages. In World War I Joe was in the Army in Company E of the 405th Telegraph Battalion Signal Corps, served time in France, and was a Sergeant at the time of his discharge at the war's end. In the 1920s he was a "Garage Foreman" working in Cincinnati, and by 1940 was working for the Village of Wyoming as an auto mechanic.

My Own Old House (part 4): The Schramm Family

After the Whitteker Family moved out, there is a gap of a few years where I am not sure who rented and lived in our house. But in 1893 Otto B. and Sophia Froehlich Schramm purchased the home from Joseph and Cecilia Jewett. The Schramms lived in our house for over fifty years

Otto B. Schramm (1857-1943) was born in Buffalo, New York, to German immigrant parents, Augusta and Ludwig Schramm. Before 1865 Augusta brought Otto and his brothers, Julius and Herman, to Cincinnati and remarried. Her second husband, Conrad Mette (a copper smith), was also a German immigrant. The Schramm boys lived with their mother, stepfather and younger half-siblings in a building that still stands at the southeast corner of Schiller and Main Streets in the Mount Auburn section of Cincinnati, across from the Rothenberg School, just north of Liberty Street from Over-the-Rhine. The family lived in a multi-unit building, filled to the brim with German immigrants and their children.

Building at Southeast Corner of Main and Schiller, Cincinnati.
Source: Google Street View.

Building at Southeast Corner of Main and Schiller, Cincinnati.
Source: Google Street View.

According to the 1880 Census there were 21 people in six families living in the right (south) side of this building and 24 people in three households in the left (north) side of the building. The 1891 Sanborn maps show a cooper (barrel making) shop to the rear of the building; it was run by one of the residents, Christian Benus. The map also indicates a saloon in the first floor of the north side of the building.

Sanborn Insurance Map, c. 1891.
Source: Ohio Link.

Otto’s wife Sophia Froehlich Schramm (1859-1943) was the girl next door (or the next floor). Also the daughter of German immigrants, when Sophia was in her teens her father, Jacob, died. She, her mother Melissa, and sisters Frederica and Anna, lived in the same building as the Mette/Schramm family from the late 1870s until she married Otto in 1882.

Otto and Sophia’s parents and many of the other residents of their building and neighborhood worked as craftsmen, laborers, and employees of local manufacturing firms. As a teen, Sophia worked as a gold leaf cutter, as did two of her sisters. However, Otto’s life took a different turn, and he became a white-collar businessman. According to the 1870 Census he was an “apprentice to a lawyer,” at age 13. This may be an exaggeration of whatever form of work he was doing to help out in a lawyer’s office. In 1940 he told the census taker that he had attended high school for two years. In 1880 at age 23 Otto’s occupation is listed as stenographer—he worked for a number of years for the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton Railroad.

In 1882 Otto and Sophia married and moved from Mount Auburn to the suburban village of Carthage (now part of Cincinnati). While Otto’s occupation continued to be listed as stenographer in City and County Directories and in the 1900 Census, he developed a much larger involvement in local business than that title might suggest. Sometime between 1880 and 1890 Otto founded and ran a coal supply company. The coal yards were located in Lockland, Ohio, on the north side of Poplar (McLaren) Avenue, just east of the train tracks that separate that village from Wyoming. In 1900 he won a contract to supply 1,400 tons of coal to the County Infirmary, according to an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Sanborn Insurance Map.
Source: Ohio Link.

Source: Wyoming Historical Society.

In 1887 Gideon G. Palmer, Wyoming resident and president of the Palmer Flour Mills in Lockland, nominated Otto B. Schramm to be a member of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce. In 1888 Otto and four others founded the Lockland-Wyoming Building and Loan Company. 

It is likely that Otto and Sophia rented the home on E. Mills Ave. (then called Wiley Ave.) before they purchased it in 1893 from Joseph and Cecilia Jewett; they may have moved there in 1890. Otto and Sophia raised four children in the home: Alice Florence Schramm (1883-1965), Fredrick Schramm (1887-1900), Arthur Felix Schramm (1890-1968) and Sophia Schramm (1895-1901). Unfortunately Fredrick and Sophia both died of diphtheria as children. While now preventable through vaccination, diphtheria—caused by bacteria—was a common cause of death into the 1920s.

Otto and Sophia’s eldest daughter, Alice, was born while they were living in Carthage, and was 10-years-old when they bought the house on E. Mills. In 1904, when she was 21, she married Clifford Scott, who had grown up in nearby Carthage and Hartwell. Early in their marriage, they lived on Oliver Road in Wyoming and Clifford worked in a spring factory. They had two children at that point, Lowell Schramm Scott (1905-1973) and Marguerite Alyce Scott (1908-1999). Unfortunately, the marriage was rocky. In November 1913 Alice filed for divorce, claiming that Clifford “frequently struck and beat her” and had a habit of “calling her names, striking her and throwing things at her.” A divorce was granted in January 1914, but the two remarried just six months later.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, November 13, 1913.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, January 28, 1914.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, July 19, 1914.

A few years later, when Clifford registered for the World War I draft in 1918, the family was living in Devon, Connecticut, near Fairfield, where he continued to work for a firm that made springs. The couple’s third child, Howard Arthur Scott (1919-2000), was born while they were in Connecticut. Less than a year later, when the 1920 Census taker came around, Alice and the children were living with her parents in our house on E. Mills, without Clifford. But in the family was soon back together again, living in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1922, where Clifford worked as an auto mechanic. 

In the mid 1920s the Scotts returned to Cincinnati, and lived at 40 Ferndale Avenue, just a few blocks away from Alice's parents, and Clifford once again had a job in spring manufacturing. In 1931 Marguerite married Herman H. Miller; the couple began a family in Dayton, Ohio, but often visited the Schramm family home. During the 1930s Alice and Clifford divorced again. Subsequently, Clifford moved to Los Angeles, and Alice and 20-year-old son Howard moved to the Oakley section of Cincinnati where they lodged in the home of two elderly, widowed sisters. Eldest son Lowell lived with his grandparents in the house on East Mills, and worked as an accountant for a gas company. In October of 1940 Howard enlisted in the U.S. Army, and in February of 1941 so did Lowell.

Arthur Schramm, son of Otto and Sophia, was three years old when his family bought the home on E. Mills Avenue in 1893. Arthur grew up in Wyoming, attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, graduated in 1913, and became a civil engineer. After college, he lived in Roswell, New Mexico, married Beatrice Greiner, and worked for a tile manufacturing company. Sometime before 1923 Arthur moved to Houston, Texas, where he wed his second wife Kate Laprade (1882-1971). The 1930 Census reports him living in Kansas City, Missouri, where he spent the rest of his career with the packers and stockyard division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Kansas City, Missouri; he was head of the department when he retired in 1958. Arthur was also a Life Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Arthur married Kate Laprade and had one daughter Mary Katherine Schramm (1926-1988).

Kansas City Stockyards, 1943.

Source: Library of Congress.

After her sons joined the Army, Alice lived for a time with her aging parents. But in December of 1943, the following obituaries appeared in the Cincinnati Post and Cincinnati Enquirer.

Source: Cincinnati Post, December 20, 1943.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, December 21, 1943.

Otto, Sophia, and their children who died of diphtheria, Frederick and Sophia, are buried in Cincinnati's Spring Grove Cemetery. Their graves are marked by the flat stones in the foreground of the photo below.

After their parents' death, Alice and Arthur inherited the house, but sold it within a year. One of them left their mark on the house--this graffiti is on the back, second story, up under the eaves. I'm guessing it was done by a teenage Arthur, maybe given the job of painting the metalwork on the roof valleys and gutters (because the paint is red). It says "A.D. 1907 - A.S."

From boxing gypsies to Civil War prison to Olympic medals in archery

Poking around in the past you never know what you will find and where it might lead you.

This week I was looking for something to write about for the blog and started by searching old newspaper articles, to see what happened in Wyoming  in some past July or August. The most interesting article I found was about an impromptu boxing match between traveling gypsies that occurred on Clark Avenue, apparently locally known as "Lovers' Lane" in July of 1905.

Cincinnati Enquirer, July 25, 1905.

I wanted to do more with this post than just re-print an newspaper article, so I considered what else I could research and write about. The article mentions the "Town Hall" a reference to the old Wyoming Amusement Hall, which was two buildings earlier than our current Civic Center, on the same site. The village maintained its offices in the building until it burned in a 1907 fire. There were tennis courts on the property, which is possibly where the audience of tennis players came from. But writing about the history of that corner could be a long post of its own, so I put that idea aside. I've already written about Springfield Pike, so I thought I would look into the history of Clark Avenue.

Clark Avenue was laid out in 1874 as part of the Wyoming Land and Building Company (WLBCo) Subdivision.

By 1905, when the gypsies had their boxing match on the street, there were only two homes built on Clark Avenue...

...this one built in 1875...

Source: Google Streetview 

 ...and this one constructed in 1882.

Source: Google Streetview

They were both at the western, Springfield Pike, end of the street, so I guess it could have been a secluded little "Lovers' Lane."

I started out guessing that the street was named for William A . Clark, who owned property in Wyoming (his house is noted on the map above, on Burns Ave. across from Durrell Ave.); was a "Director" of the Wyoming Land and Building Company subdivision, and an investor in other Wyoming real estate ventures; and who later was part of the village government. But ultimately I question why the street would be named for him, and not any of the other investors (see my final note at the end of this post for another guess at who the street was named for). However, I learned a lot about the very interesting life of William A. Clark.

William A. Clark

Source: Spalding's Archery Guide, 1910.

William A. Clark was born in Ohio in 1842, to Sarah Goudy and John Clark. In 1850 the Census lists their family living in Sycamore Township, Hamilton County, Ohio, on a fairly sizable farm--at his death in about 1863, John Clark owned a farm of almost three hundred acres that stretched from what is now Galbraith Road, toward the north, along both sides of Reading Road to about where Southern Avenue is in Reading.

William served in the Civil War, in the 6th Ohio Infantry (The Guthrie Gray Battalion). According to an article about his life and death, published in Forest and Stream magazine in 1913, William was injured at the battle of Stones River, captured, and spent time in Libby Prison and imprisoned on Belle Isle, both in Richmond, Virginia, until being released in a prisoner exchange.

Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia
Source: National Archives.

He returned to his unit, and was again injured in the battle at Chickamauga, left on the battlefield, and captured by Confederates. The article went on to explain "Mr. Clark always claimed that his life was saved by a surgeon in the Confederate hospital, who, finding that Mr. Clark was a fellow Mason, prevented proposed amputation and gave the wounded man special attention for several weeks." He was again released in a prisoner exchange, but this wound, a partial disability in his right arm, kept him from returning to combat.

After the war, William married Mary Jane Rankin of Lisbon, Ohio (located between Pittsburgh and Cleveland) in 1866. They moved to Cincinnati before 1870, when the Census lists them living in the 8th Ward and William having occupation of "clerk in store;" in the 1880 Census his occupation is listed as "clerk in shirt store." City directories indicate he worked for many years at the southeast corner of Walnut and Fourth Street for A.J. Clark Shirt Manufacturers and Dealer of Men's Furnishings (A.J. Clark also owned property in Wyoming in the 1870s, and his wife Helen's brother lived in my house in the 1870s - see this post). William may have been related to the owner of the firm, but I have not figured out through what connection.

Source: Kenny's Illustrated Cincinnati, 1875.

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer, October 2, 1874.

Sometime before 1874 William A. and Mary Jane Clark purchased two lots in the Wilson Subdivision of Burns' farm: Lot  50 (two homes are now on this lot: 97 Burns Ave., built in 1926, and 101 Burns Ave., built in 1875) and Lot 51 (now 107 Burns Ave., built in 1870). I don't know how accurate those construction dates are--they are from the County Auditor's records. Maybe the family lived at 107 Burns for a few years and then built 101 Burns, but I found evidence that the Clarks lived in the home at 101 Burns in both 1875 and 1910. The family included children Carrie (b. 1868), Georgianne (b. 1872), Albert Rankin (b. 1877) and William W. (b. 1880). In 1880 the census reported their household included both of William and Mary's widowed mothers, as well as a young woman who was a servant.

William A. Clark Home, 101 Burns Ave.
Source: Google Streetview

107 Burns Ave.
Source: Google Streetview

Once in Wyoming, William got involved with local real estate and village government. In addition to being a Director on the board of the Wyoming Land and Building Company, he was a stockholder in the Park Place Land & Building Company, which was established in 1875 to sell lots in a large subdivision to the north of Wyoming (which is now part of Wyoming).  By 1897 he was Superintendent of the Wyoming Water Works (which had been established in 1892) and held that job through at least 1910. He also served as Wyoming Village Clerk for many years, and for a time managed the Wyoming Light, Water, Heat and Power Co.

When he wasn't working, and despite his injured arm, William was a leading proponent and practitioner of the sport of archery. In 1879 he helped found the Ohio State Archery Association, and was a member of the Highland Archers, a Wyoming-based archery club. William was also an early leader of the National Archery Association, serving as its Secretary and as its President in 1891, 1898, and 1901. William was national archery champion in 1886, 1887, and 1897. His children also became skilled archers; son Albert was national champion and 1900, and there were many years that daughter Georgia placed highly in the competition.

William A. Clark
Source: Spalding's Archery Guide, 1905.

Albert R. Clark
Source: Spalding's Archery Guide, 1905.

In 1904, the third modern international Olympics were held in St. Louis, Missouri, and included archery among the sporting events. However, this was only the second time archery was a part of the Olympics, there was no international archery organization nor any international rules, and only Americans competed in the sport at the 1904 Olympics (which, overall, were sparsely attended).

Source: Wkipedia

Some indigenous peoples of the world demonstrated their own forms of archery at the "Anthropology Days" held in conjunction with the Olympics and the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. See this article.

Source: Spalding's Athletic Almanac, 1905.

Source: Spalding's Athletic Almanac, 1905.

Nevertheless, Cincinnati and Wyoming were well represented at the 1904 Olympic archery event. William A. Clark was on a team that placed second in the team competition, earning him a silver medal. Wyoming had several other medalists in that Olympics. C.S. Woodruff was also part of the men's silver medal team, and his wife Emily Woodruff participated in the women's events. Eliza Pollock was on the gold-medal winning women's team, and received two individual bronze medals; her husband Henry W. Pollock was also an archer, but I'm not sure if he competed at the Olympics. Archery was the only sport in which women participated at the 1904 Olympics; there were six female archers at the games.

Clark Avenue, 2015.

So the next time you walk down Clark Avenue, whether by yourself, or with a lover, see if you can imagine yourself back to 1905, a dirt road, and a boxing match between traveling gypsies, watched by aristocratic tennis players dressed in white. Maybe standing among them was a Olympic-medal winning Civil War veteran with a wounded arm, who walked over from his office at the Village Amusement Hall to see what all the commotion was.

Now, I haven't forgotten the original question - Who is Clark Avenue's namesake? While William A. Clark's story is very interesting, the road may not be named for him; there is another potential candidate. John. A. Clark was the executor of the estate of Joseph T. Wilson, the man who first subdivided Burns' Farm. Maybe the street was named for him? But determining that would require more research, and another blog post!

4th of July, 1905

I wonder who it was with the interesting sense of humor -- the author of the article or the leaders of Wyoming? At least there were fireworks!

Source: Cincinnati Enquirer July 2, 1905.

Since it is a bit blurry:

Fourth of July will be celebrated in the usually quiet village of Wyoming in a manner calculated to whoop things up. There will be a drill by the Fire Department in the morning, followed by a potato race, in which Mayor A. A. Taylor, Solicitor James E. Robinson and the members of Council and Board of Education will take part.

The prizes are a small measure of potatoes, a rubber ballon and a tin whistle. A baseball game will take place at 10 a. m. between married and single men, after which a presentation of diplomas to survivors will be in order. Major George Fox will present medals to winners of athletic contests and has laid in a large supply of sole leather.

At 5 p. m. Hon. J. H. Bromwell will be introduced by the Mayor, and will hand out an old-fashioned Fourth of July oration, and as soon as night falls a magnificent display of fireworks will be exhibited.