It’s 1918 in Champaign IL and in the early morning light we see a tall, spare man, neatly dressed in jacket and tie, fedora placed just so upon his carefully trimmed sandy red hair, making his way down Springfield Avenue. He’s a few blocks from his destination, the railroad station where he is an agent for the Big Four Railroad. In my mind’s eye, I see him nod to passersby, a gracious but aloof man making his way to work. He’s had a light breakfast in his rooming house at 304 W. Springfield, perhaps exchanged pleasantries with his fellow boarders, and he will spend his day poring over account books, conferring with colleagues, literally making the trains run on time. His noon meal, taken at his desk or at a nearby diner, will be eaten quickly. He will not socialize with his fellow workers. At day’s end, he’ll redon his coat and hat and walk back to his rooming house, take his evening meal with landlady and lodgers, maybe spend a few hours in the parlor listening to news or a ballgame (his passion) before retiring to his solitary space for his nightly rituals. I see him record his day’s expenses in his neat hand in a ledger, send cordial regrets to his mother, explaining he cannot travel home for the weekend, write a fond note to his young daughter, enrolled at St. Theresa’s Catholic school in Decatur, or to his even younger son, staying with his parents in Mattoon, IL. His thoughts drift to issues in the office, to problems of supporting his distant children, and maybe to memories of his late wife. He shakes that off; regrets, anger, desire, grief, despair are not friends to him.
He’s 39 years old, born on a farm, one of nine children, seven of whom live to adulthood. He has four brothers, at least one of whom gets to steal Herbert’s dream of farming. Early on, it must have been clear to him that he would not get the family farm; it was sold for $28,000 in 1902. Instead, he went to business college, graduated in 1899 and was hired by the Big Four Railroad. He would spend his entire working career in train offices. But when his son’s plans of pharmacy work didn’t pan out, Herbert installed him on a farm and focused his business sense on tracking expenses, making loans, monitoring the progress of the enterprise, and visiting often and happily.
He was monumentally successful with the railroad, ultimately advancing to District Station Accountant in the Cincinnati office of the New York Central Railroad. When he retired in 1945, he declined a party, accepted his superior’s regrets in his retirement graciously, asked for his lifetime rail pass, and moved on with his life.
His personal life seems to have been quiet and predictable. He traveled some with his daughter and son-in-law, visited the farm happily (the grandchildren there were his “little dears.”) Though he adored his daughter and deeply cared for his son-in-law, their kids were something else. Denny, Joyce, and Mary don’t remember much warmth from the man, perhaps because we violated his sense of dutiful behavior to his beloved daughter, our Mom. Susan was perfect, of course, and has loving memories of sitting with him listening to ball games. Debbie was five when he died; she has no memory of him.
To the best of my knowledge, this handsome, fit, successful man never dated, never owned his own home, didn’t travel on his own. His address book lists relatives and colleagues, few friends. His one vice was a pipe, which ultimately gave him the cancer that killed him. Cheryl recalls a Packard that he gave her mom. Given where he lived when he was in Cincinnati, first in an apartment on Polaski, then on Clifton, and finally in his last years, on Glenway, a car would have been advantageous. But his was a lean life.
The few materials I have of his are bleak. We’re told that when his wife died, her sisters swept in and cleaned the place out. As a child I was horrified by this, but it may not have happened until his first transfer out of Mount Carmel to Champaign. Knowing his kids would not be with him, he’d have no need of things, so he kept nothing. Sadly, if he had photos, diaries, letters, or other memorabilia, they’re in the wind. My deepest regret is that I can't find a wedding picture of the couple; actually, we have no pictures at all of Ida and Herbert together. It may be that Ida's family rescued all sorts of memorabilia, but it's lost now. That thought saddens me more than I can express.
Is this who Ida married, this serious, quiet man? The few extant hints I see about her suggest she had some attitude, was persnickety (dressing her daughter in white and keeping her in her crib til daddy came home); pictures of her support this, but this could have been an artifact of her illness. My guess is that she was already ill with tuberculosis when she married in 1908, (her March 1915 obituary in the Mattoon paper says she was ill for five years!) though she may not have known it. So did Herbert marry a soul sister, someone with the same sense of doing the right thing, presenting a stalwart face to the world? Or for a few bright years, did he laugh, chase Ida around the kitchen table, toss children in the air, go on picnics and to dances? His brother Mel was a hell-raiser who married Ida’s sister Pauline (who seemed intent her entire life on being outrageous), usually successfully. I’d like to think that for a few years there was joy and play in Grandfather’s life.
So that tall man walking down Springfield Avenue, toiling at his desk at the railroad, taking his evening meal with strangers: He will soldier on, as he’s done his whole life. He undresses, performs his nightly rituals, and climbs into bed; I hope to sleep. He will need his rest to meet the greyness, the duty, of the rest of his life.
For nuts and bolts, read on
So the topic of today’s blog is Herbert Augustine Bushu, spouse of Ida Wolf, father of Herbert and Pauline Bushu, and grandfather to nine grandchildren. In anticipation of this blog, I sent out a call to my eight sisters and cousins, asking them to share what memories they may have. I heard back from five of the eight, which is an excellent response rate. It’s always possible someone else will chime in, but my experience is that if someone doesn’t respond pretty quickly, the request will get lost in the pile of emails. I spent today checking the variety of data I have about grandfather, and it’s time to write about the man while he’s fresh in my mind. So I’m going to go with what I have.
The problem I face is the reticence of both grandfather and his daughter. With the exception of Susan, the Rivers’ sisters found grandfather a silent, rather intimidating man. I cannot recall a single conversation with him, a moment in his lap, a story he might have told, a hug, a feeling of emotional attachment (though it should be kept in mind that I was 11 when he died). Denny and Joyce remember him similarly. I know Susan thought he was a very quiet man, thoughtful and shy; she recalled sitting with him on the porch at Ryland, listening to the ball games and counting the train cars as they chugged along the tracks. I remember the porch too, but I was a prickly, shy child, and if I sat with them, I haven’t a clue.
Cheryl remembers sitting on his lap at the zoo or watching trains come into the station. She also told me that she remembers him coming to their farm – the farm he loved so much – to die; she recalls him screaming in pain. Cassie, his nurse, asked Nancy and Cheryl to come into his room, and he called them “his little dears.” (I’m willing to bet he didn’t call Joyce, Denny or me little dears.)
We all know that mom adored him, that Dad (Daniel) had a lot of respect for him, enough that he was included in mom and dad’s trips to Temagami. When mom was deciding whether to join dad out west during the war, dad advised her to confer with her father. The fact that she packed up her three kids and maid and followed Dad west points to grandfather’s belief in mom’s strength and, perhaps, some reflection of his own decision, long ago, to send Ida to Colorado to heal while he stayed behind to work.
This isn’t much, is it? But I’ve been thinking about this man for a while, and I think that the hallmark of his manhood is duty. For his entire life, grandfather did what he was supposed to, in a thoughtful, attention-avoidant, serious, purposeful manner. I think he may have sublimated what he wanted his entire life, first for his family, then for his wife, and finally for his children. I’ll try to explain how I came to that conclusion.
Herbert was born in Paris, IL, in 1879, the sixth child, third son of Francis J. Bushu and Agatha Burkey. His parents had moved to Paris because of a farm. Moran Bushu, Francis’ father, had moved to Paris to join his son James who had moved there some time earlier, and with his dad, bought a large farm that grew crops and raised pigs and cattle. Moran, our immigrant ancestor, had farmed in France, and the family had bought land in Somerset, Ohio about 15 minutes after they arrived there in 1827. Lester Bushue insists farming is in the Bushu blood, and while I don’t think it’s anywhere near mine, I am almost positive that Herbert would have been delirious had he been able to live his life growing crops. But it was not in the cards.
When Moran (Herbert’s grandfather) died, all his children quitclaimed their share of the farm to Herbert’s Uncle James. There’s some evidence that Herbert’s dad, Francis, shared ownership of the farm, which was focused on raising prize sheep and pigs, but it isn’t clear that he was an active participant in the business. And when James, who had no children, died, the farm must have been sold. Francis J.’s obituary says he moved to Il in 1872, and in 1891 moved to Mattoon where he engaged in farming until he sold the farm in 1901 (actually 1902 according to the newspaper). FJ and Agatha move into town and begin an active social life. Regardless, though Herbert may have wanted to farm, that didn't appear to be in the cards, so he instead went to business school, graduating in Dec 1899, and was hired by the Big Four in Mattoon as an office boy. He worked his entire life for the railroad, ultimately reaching District Station Accountant in Cincinnati, Ohio.
In 1901, Herbert was promoted to the Mt. Carmel office of the railroad “to a pleasant and easy position,” but by 1902 he’s back in Mattoon as stenographer in the Big Four Office. At some point, he must have been moved back to Mt. Carmel because the newspaper notes in 1905, and again in April 1906, that Herbert, of Mt. Carmel, is home visiting for a few days. Somewhere along the line while in Mt. Carmel, perhaps in church, Herbert meets the lovely Ida, and love blooms. From here on, newspaper mentions are simple, indicating he’s home visiting family for a few days. The only newspaper mention of Herbert and Ida’s wedding is the social note that Melvin traveled to Mt. Carmel to attend his brother’s wedding. The newspaper doesn’t indicate if his parents attended. [Thus far, Mount Carmel newspapers are not available online; I hope to get back to Mount Carmel again, but until then, we must live with my limited information.]
This essay isn’t about Herbert’s siblings, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the newspapers from 1898-1909 are FULL of the antics of Myrtle, Ellen Etta, and Melvin; there are lots of references – more staid – to Sam, Claudimar, and Otho. Of course, these people are in Mattoon, while Herbert is in Mt. Carmel. But the lack of a wedding announcement is puzzling, and there’s no mention of his parents or siblings other than Mel attending the marriage. I don’t think Herbert had a big footprint in Mattoon.
In Oct. 1908, Ida and Herbert marry, and in September 1909, Pauline is born, followed in Dec 1910 by Herbert C. Herbert and Ida had an apartment close to the railroad. As far as I can tell, for most of his working life, grandfather lived within walking distance of his job, residing in rooming houses and hotels. Nancy told me he had a Packard at one point that he gave to her mom; presumably this was a purchase made when he was living in Cincinnati, far from the office in Union Station. But in all other towns, he lived but a few blocks from his job.
It's important to remember that Henry Wolf, Ida’s brother, died in 1907 of TB; he was the first to succumb to the disease, and Ida was still living at home at the time of his death. I imagine she was harboring the disease when she married, and perhaps bearing children exacerbated the illness. By 1912, Ida and Elizabeth were in Colorado while Ida “took the cure;” she's there until early 1914. We know that her husband stayed behind, presumably because he had to pay some substantial bills; there are newspaper mentions of him traveling with Eva and his baby daughter to Colorado.
[I've mentioned this elsewhere but it bears repeating: Bill Wolf told me that the reason Pauline and her brother didn't inherit anything when Frank J. Wolf died is because he paid for Ida's time in Colorado. This isn't true; Grandfather had a small debt to his father-in-law that was paid when Frank died. I think the bulk of Ida's care was paid for by her husband who lived a lean life in order to care for her.]
So let me pause here. It's 1912 and the man has two kids, his in-law’s home is an incubator for TB, his own family is a hundred miles of crazy road away, he’s got a responsible job, and somehow he has to hold it all together while his wife tries to get well. Ida chose her husband well; she got herself a guy who knew what he had to do and did it. It isn’t clear how much help he got. His father-in-law kept track of Herbert’s debts but they weren’t much, and he paid off when Frank Wolf died in 1927.
After Ida died, I assume the children went to St. Mary’s school in Mt. Carmel until Herbert was transferred out of the area, first to Danville, IL, at which point, Pauline, at least, was sent to a boarding school in Decatur, IL. While she was there, her point of contact was the Bushu family, not the Wolfs, understandable since TB continued to haunt the house in Mt. Carmel. Early on, when grandfather is in Danville, his young son, living with Frank and Agatha in Mattoon, contracts Typhoid fever; the newspaper mentions Herbert comes home to see his child. At some later point, Herbert C. was sent to a military school. The cost for this sort of care must have been extraordinary, which goes a long way to explaining the austerity in which grandfather lived. And so we see Herbert moving to Danville (I think), then Champaign (1918), then Indianapolis, and finally Cincinnati where he first lives at the Fountain Square Hotel. (I know he’s in Indianapolis in 1922-1926; He’s the station supervisor, according to the city directory, but I don’t know when he arrived, or when he left. The Mattoon papers only mention him when he comes for a visit.)
Once ensconced in Cincinnati, he traveled on occasion with his daughter, had Sunday dinner with us, presumably visited the farm as often as possible. When he retired in 1945, he refused any sort of send-off, simply reminding his boss he’d like his unlimited travel pass, please. He was part owner of the cottage in Ryland, and Susan said that, while Mom and Dad were there during school summer break, grandfather went down early, stayed late.
He stayed with the railroad as it evolved into the New York Central. But he doesn’t seem to have given up his dream of farming. When his son, Herbert, abandoned a pharmacy career, he installed him on a farm. Grandfather paid close attention to the farm’s business. I have a notebook in which grandfather kept the farm account, tallying seed cost, sale proceeds, repairs, etc. to the penny. It must have been hell for his son. I don’t think Uncle Herb’s heart was in the enterprise; the farm was sold soon after grandfather died, and the family moved to Springfield, Ohio where Herb opened a bar.
He didn’t deserve the death he got. Several family members remember his last days when he was first in the hospital, then a psych ward, as pain made him crazy, and he hallucinated. Ultimately, he was taken by ambulance to his son’s farm; Cheryl remembers him screaming in pain in his last days. He died on the farm and was buried in Mt. Carmel next to Ida. Mom replaced Ida’s headstone with one matching her father’s, and Susan remembers the wake, involving Wolfs and Bushus, as unseemly; I think there was more giddiness than seemed appropriate.
He left an enormous estate for the time, the lion’s share of which mom got due to her brother’s chronic indebtedness. Or at least on paper she got it; given it was mom, I can imagine her being generous to her brother. But then again, her husband died two months after her father, and she may have been sleepwalking through the estate settlement. I’ve decided I don’t want to know what happened.
I still don’t know who this man was, but I’m sure he and boarding school and Catholic nuns made mother who she was. He modeled how to endure the loss of a beloved spouse. He exemplified the importance of doing the right thing. He personified stoicism and conveyed a message of not complaining, of shouldering one’s duty. And of course, she passed some, perhaps much, of that on to her children. Oh, the unintentional legacies we pass to our children.
*The farm stuff is confusing. In 1902 Agatha et al sold property to J. H. Taylor for $28,000; I’m assuming this is the farm. In August of 1905, J. H. Taylor sold “The Bushu farm” for $42,000. And then Dec 1908, F. J. Bushu bought the Rev. CB Taylor farm for $26,000. But FJ and Agatha stayed on in town. I have a photo from the Internet labeled Claude Bushu on the farm; my wild guess is that Claude got, or at least managed, the farm that FJ bought from Taylor. But I really don’t know.
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