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be dangerous painting ship-side or greasing the wheel chains, or it could be very pleasant standing watch on the bow, coming down the Detroit River on a starlit night. I learned the geography of the Great Lakes region and a few good life lessons about myself. I built a strong work ethic and earned enough money for college as an able-bodied seaman on the Great Lakes.

—Bert Drennen, Conneaut

A Family Tradition

The Makley family blacksmiths—over 180 years at the forge in Ohio. Now that’s a family tradition. My great-greatgrandfather, George W. Makley, had two brothers, Charles and Anthony, as well as his father, Johann Georg Moglich/Makley, who ran blacksmith shops in Dayton since the 1830s. Their sons carried on the business as well. There are ads for these shops in Dayton city directories and in the 1875 Montgomery County atlas. The shops were located on Jefferson St., St. Clair and Fourth St. They made farming equipment and did veterinary work on horses as well as shoeing and boarding horses. Johann Georg Moglich/Makley brought his eight children to America from Stadelhofen in Baden, Germany, around 1832. His wife, Maria, had died in Stadelhofen in 1830 and a daughter, Ludovica, died in 1832. Johann settled in the Franklin Street neighborhood of Dayton, a primarily German area. George came up to St. Marys with his sister, Barbara, and her husband, Edwardum Weiss, to build his blacksmith business to take advantage of the traffic that was coming to St. Marys on the Miami and Erie Canal. George ran a shop on Spring Street in the early 1840s and my great-grandfather, George A. Makley, moved the shop to South and Front streets, where they built carriages. Over the years, the Makleys would run two blacksmithing shops and a carriage shop, where they built and repaired carriages that were then shipped all over the country. (They would include a fifth of whiskey in carriages shipped to the dry states, which helped build their customer base.) My grandfather, William F. Makley,

Tough Jobs

carried the family’s blacksmithing tradition into the modern age with his shop, William Makley and Sons Welding, which served the St. Marys area into the 1980s.

—Robert A. Makley, Celina

ELECTRO-MET

The Electro-Met was a large factory that made metal alloys and calcium carbide in Ashtabula. Since my father worked there, I was hired as summer vacation help. I worked as the assistant tapper on a metal alloy furnace. Dressed in my woolen tapper’s coat, hard hat and face screen, I stood behind the tapper, Malcolm Trotter, holding a metal rod to open the furnace. Trotter used the rod like a conductor to gently push the carbon ball to open and let the 2700-degree F metal flow into the chills. I would take a sample to the lab. When the flow of molten metal stopped, Trotter placed a carbon ball on the end of the rod, and he gently fit it in the tap hole, ready for the next job. I will always remember the men who worked there.

—Edward Bolte, Cleveland

Streetcar Conductor

My grandfather, Stephen J. Grubb (b. 1889), was a streetcar conductor in Columbus. At about age 70, he walked down to where the streetcars used to be housed in Columbus. He had a heart attack and was found in the snow. The news caption was “Streetcar Man Takes a Final Sentimental Journey.” I believe his streetcar still exists and is at the Spaghetti Warehouse in Columbus. Stephen Grubb’s father, William Grubb (1842–1895), served in the U.S. Navy with Admiral David Farragut during the Civil War. One of Stephen’s brothers was named Farragut in his honor. Additionally, my dad, James M. Grubb, was an ironworker, and he hung the first BIG BEAR sign in Columbus. (Big Bear was a chain of grocery stores.) James also served in the 82nd airborne. So many of his comrades died in the Normandy action that he was moved to the 101st, where he then served in Bastogne and Operation Market Garden.

—Karin

Cash, Grove City

The Hammer Shop

My father, William R. Wyss, worked for over 30 years at T&W Forge. The forging plant was known as the “Hammer Shop,” as steam-driven forging hammers pounded hot steel into axles, camshafts, connecting rods, turbine blades and other parts that were components of aircraft, automobiles, heavy equipment, railroad engines and trucks. The work was hot, dangerous, dirty and both mentally and physically challenging, as skilled craftsmen shaped raw steel into finished parts. In addition, my father was active in the union, negotiating contracts on the bargaining team. That role complicated our family life considerably, as my mother, Adrienne Russell Wyss, was the first female executive in the Ohio forging industry and served on the T&W management team. Dinners growing up were often lessons in labor relations, as my parents debated, discussed and argued over contracts, grievances and industry trends.

—William R. Wyss Jr., Louisville, Ohio

WHAT’S YOUR STORY?

We want to know your stories, so in every issue of Echoes Magazine we ask you a question, then run selected answers in the following issue. Here’s the question for September & October:

When newspapers were only printed on paper, then handdelivered, it was a big deal to see your name in print. Did you or anyone in your family ever make the news in your local paper? What for? Do you have the article? Can you share it?

Email your story responses (50 to 150 words) by July 16 to echoes@ohiohistory.org or, if you follow us on Facebook, send us a Facebook message.