Henderson history: Getting old doesn’t necessarily mean not working
Many of you, I’m sure, heard your parents and grandparents talking about long-gone people you never met but nevertheless feel you somehow know.
Very few of you have direct memories of the people I’m writing about today because the last one died in 1960, but some of them you’ve no doubt heard of.
All of them were born about the time of the Civil War and were mostly in their 80s when Francele Armstrong wrote about them in The Gleaner of Oct. 10, 1948. The hook she hung her story on was 15 people over 80 who were still working; she apologized for having to “draw a circle” and exclude farmers. For the same space consideration, I’m focusing on those people editors of The Gleaner thought warranted front-page obituaries when they died.
Artist Lida Williams was 90 in 1948 but she didn’t like revealing her age; it doesn’t appear in Armstrong’s article nor in her obituary. She was a graduate of Columbia University and for more than 50 years she taught art in the city schools until retiring in 1937. But as of 1948 she was “still earning her daily bread by painting portraits and miniatures,” Armstrong wrote.
Several of her works hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City at various times, and a portrait of John James Audubon (done from a photograph) is in the collection of the Audubon State Park Museum.
According to her obituary in The Gleaner of June 11, 1949, some of her more notable pupils included Gerhard Bosch, whose depiction of the old courthouse and curb market hangs in the county judge-executive’s office; Warner Williams, whose sculpture of Richard Henderson is also in the courthouse; and John Oscar Hambleton, who was a costume designer and color consultant both in Hollywood and on Broadway.
N. Powell Taylor, 84, was Henderson’s highly respected senior attorney in 1948. “One of Kentucky’s ablest orators, he possesses one of its keenest minds and sharpest wits,” Armstrong wrote. He was elected state senator in 1896 and in that capacity witnessed the assassination of Gov. William Goebel in 1900.
He served six years as county attorney, six years as commonwealth attorney and was also city attorney for a while.
With only 10 minutes preparation, according to his obituary March 17, 1950, he gave the nominating speech for Gov. Ruby Laffoon.
“He was a silver-tongued orator of the old school,” said Solomon O. Heilbronner, longtime secretary of the Henderson Bar Association. “His statements to a jury were always clear, concise, and logical, and his arguments were always convincing.”
He was a man of wide interests, particularly in history, government, and astronomy. The Gleaner of March 5, 1950, reported him speaking to the Henderson County Historical Society less than two weeks before his death.
“Instead of being content to dwell on the wisdom and greatness of those who made our history it is important that we – every man, woman and child today – who are making history every hour of every year, should so conduct ourselves as history-making citizens that our ancestors and those who come after us can be proud of us.”
His wife was Alice Partridge Taylor, namesake for Henderson’s Christmas concert, who told The Gleaner he worked until his last. He had just telephoned for a taxi to take him to Henderson Circuit Court when he slumped over from a heart attack.
Frank Haag, 86, was selling fire insurance in 1948 but had an eventful working career before that. He and his brother, Fred, owned the Henderson Hotel; they sold it to Charles F. King, for whom the name was later changed to the Kingdon Hotel.
The Haag brothers also owned The Gleaner in the 1890s. Haag was a member of the first Henderson City Commission when it was seated in 1922, along with Mayor Clay F. Hall and Commissioner John Cunningham. He was also city treasurer and city auditor.
He was active in the real estate field between the time he co-owned the Kingdon Hotel and when he became commissioner. His obituary is in The Gleaner of April 9, 1953.
I’m sure nearly all of you have heard of Susan Starling Towles, who was the Henderson County Public Library’s first librarian. After teaching and administering the Henderson Female Academy, she stayed in the library job from 1904 until 1949. Much has been written about her over the years so I’m not going to go into too much detail.
Technically, she was semi-retired as of 1948 but she continued in the “shaping of policies, selecting of books, and handling of accounts.”
She died in her sleep the first day of 1954 at the age of 92; according to the front-page story the next day she was “the grand lady of Henderson society and culture and charity.”
Eva Meade was a pioneer Henderson businesswoman with a hat shop in the Masonic Temple for 18 years. She was the first woman member of the Henderson Retailers Inc.
She was “behind the counter” in retail stores for 58 years. After her husband’s death in 1910, she took a job in one store and then moved to another. “Out of a job at 67, she made a job for herself by opening her own on a shoestring,” according to her obituary in The Gleaner of July 15, 1953.
Henry Levy had a furniture business but retired in 1932. He went back to work in 1941 at Lambert-Grisham Hardware Co. because “time weighed heavy on his hands,” according to Armstrong.
He was the oldest member of the Adath Israel congregation and read the Jewish services every Friday for many years. His obituary on Oct. 8, 1950, said he would have been 85 in 13 more days.
His brother, known as Mike although his first name was Meyer, was Kentucky’s oldest practicing pharmacist and from 1912 until April 1960 he operated a drug store at the corner of Washington and Holloway streets, according to his obituary Dec. 28, 1960.
“He was known as a kindly man who had a genuine interest in each of his customers and his solicitude was an important part of the therapeutic qualities of the medicines he dispensed.”
I’ve documented Levy began practicing at least as early as 1890 – a full 70 years. He had been semi-retired for several years but closed the drugstore soon after the death of longtime employee Ray Richmond.
The obituary of Jacob Alles, 96, is in The Gleaner of Oct. 9, 1955, and the previous May he had received a $500 payment from his life insurance company for beating the actuarial tables. He and Lida Williams were the only ones in Armstrong’s column who were 90 years old in 1948.
He was the founder of the furniture store that still bears the family name. His son, Herman, had taken over the day-to-day operation of the store by 1948 but Jacob still kept the books and mailed out the bills until his death.
The store has been at its current location since 1918 but Jacob came to Henderson in 1896. “He is said to never have pushed his customers for payment of bills, believing that he would receive his money when the person was able to pay,” according to his obituary.
100 YEARS AGO
The traffic semaphore for the Second and Main street intersection, which had been ordered in early September, was in place and being operated by Officer Rupert Sutton, “who works it like he’d been on the job for years and years,” according to The Gleaner of Oct. 14, 1923.
“It is a very neat device and the manner in which it is operated greatly facilitates traffic and prevents accidents.”
50 YEARS AGO
A reader posed a question to The Gleaner’s “Question Box” feature of Oct. 14, 1973, asking what was going to happen to the old hand pump located at First and Holloway streets, which was soon to be part of the site of the new Central School.
“Many people think of that pump as a landmark. Many years ago, before water lines were installed in that area of town, people from that community obtained their water there.”
A spokesman for the school architectural firm said the pump would be preserved but would no longer operate because of land elevation changes.
The concrete basin and part of the piping for the pump remain to this day.
25 YEARS AGO
City Manager Jeff Broughton’s long-awaited review of the Henderson Fire Department left neither Chief Mark McCarty nor his critics unscathed, according to The Gleaner of Oct. 9, 1998.
The review was prompted by a letter signed by 41 members of the department that had been presented to the Henderson City Commission on Aug. 11. Broughton said portions of the letter included “insubordinate statements” and that repetitions could lead to disciplinary action.
“By way of rumor, innuendo, and half-truths the author has discredited the chief, the department and the city.”
Broughton found most of the accusations against McCarty without merit, although the most significant did not comply with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The firefighters alleged McCarty intentionally withheld paying overtime to carry the expense over into the new fiscal year. That practice was discontinued.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Henderson history: Getting old doesn’t necessarily mean not working
