Louis George Hirt

Compiled by Jim Oehler (jimoehler3 at gmail.com)

Louis George Hirt was born on February 23, 1904, in Hammel, Wisconsin to Mary Ann Brost, age 40, and Andrew Hirt, age 49. He was the of 12th of 14 children.

  

Louis as a baby with two of his sisters.

Louis' first communion certificate from 1916.

Hammel is a township west of Medford, which was first surveyed in the summer of 1847 by a crew working for the U.S. government. Another survey crew who marked all the section corners in 1857 had this to say about the area:

This Township contains several Tamarac and Cedar Swamp some of considerable extent and mostly unfit for cultivation. The Surface is generally rolling and 2nd rate soil except on the Black River bottoms it is 1st rate soil. Timber is very heavy all over the Township Chiefly Hemlock Birch Pine Maple Tamarac and Cedar.

Black River enters the Township near the South East corner, it is generally Deep and flows in a gentle Current in a Westerly direction to the South West corner of the Township, not well adapted for good motive power or mills.

Although the soils in the township were generally considered second rate, it is here where Andrew Hirt established a farm in the 1880s, which incidentally was less than 10 years after Taylor County was formed and the first building erected in what would become the city of Medford.  The exact location of the Hirt farm is not known, but hopefully it was in some of the river bottom lands where there were more fertile soils.  By the time Louis was born, his father had been farming there for around 20 years.

Little is know about Louis' childhood.  Based on information gathered by Rita Jakel, Louis' 4th child, during an interview a few years before his death, we know Louis was educated at District #4 school and Holy Rosary Catholic School in Medford.  His father Andrew passed away on March 12, 1916 from cerebral abscess due to infected mastoids.  This is a more complicated way of saying that he died of a bacterial infection of the brain, which based on some research I did, could have originated from a simple ear infection.  Something that is so easily treated today with antibiotics, was not treatable in the early 1900s.  Andrew was 61 years old at the time of his death.  Louis was just 12.  His other siblings would have ranged in age from 8-31.  This makes me wonder how many of the kids remained to help their mother run the farm and how Louis felt about losing his father at such a young age.

Louis' high school years were spent at a seminary in Techny, Illinois.  Techny was the place where the first Divine Word Missionaries, who were sent to the United States by St. Arnold Janssen, settled in 1896. In 1909 the Society opened St. Mary's Mission Seminary at Techny, likely the seminary that Louis attended. This was the first seminary established in the U.S. primarily to train men for foreign missions. For reasons unknown, Louis decided not to become a Catholic priest missionary.  Instead, he returned home and on October 11, 1927, he married Clara Gruny, who he met though his neighbors, at Holy Rosary Church in Medford.  Father Gregory Reuter officiated and Clara's brother Henry and sister Anna were witnesses.  Louis was 23 years old, while Clara was 20.  It's interesting to wonder how things would have been different had Louis decided to stick with the priesthood.

According to Rita Jakel's interview with Louis, he held several different jobs after he was married.  He drove logging trucks (I assume for the same logging camp that Clara was cook for) and trucks to build roads with Grahl Construction Co. in Grand Valley, Pennsylvania (around 1930-31). He also worked for Rief Motors in Medford and Rhyner's Garage which may have been in Stetsonville, perhaps as a truck salesman as that is what is cited as his occupation in Joan Hirt Ness' birth certificate.  He also worked for Ed Goedhart for some time but in what capacity is not known.  And finally, he worked as an auto mechanic for Otto Handel at Handel Motor Company first in Stetsonville and then in Medford, where it moved in 1948.  He stayed with the Handels until he retired.

 1948 Star News article about the opening of the new
Handel Motor Company facility in downtown Medford.

Sometime during the 1930s, they bought a house at 233 N. Fourth St, in Medford and lived there for approximately the next 50 years.  Louis and Clara had four children: Lester Hirt (1928 - present); Patty Hirt George (1929 - 2010); Dorothy "Joan" Hirt Ness (1932 - present); and Rita Hirt Jakel (1933 - present).  Louis and Clara celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1977 with a big to-do held at Rog and Earl's Bar in Medford.

1952 family photo.  Pictured in back are Rita, Joan, Lester, and Patty.  Seated are Clara and Louis.

1977 Star News article about the 50th wedding anniversary celebration of Louis and Clara.

 

Louis and Clara (middle) at their 50th wedding anniversary celebration with original marriage witnesses, Anna Gruny Fleischman and Henry Gruny.

We know about some of Louis' hobbies which included playing the violin for a time, playing baseball (he played for a local team), following his favorite baseball teams (first the Milwaukee Braves and then the Milwaukee Brewers), fishing, and camping.  I recently read the book, "Bushville Wins!: The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves..." and it was fun to think about Louis (my Grandpa Hirt) following the chronicles of this team, their great players including Hank Aaron and Warren Spahn, and their winning of the World Series over the hated New York Yankees who had the likes of Mickey Mantel and Yogi Bera on their squad, and the legendary Cassie Stengel as their manager.  I also wonder what he thought when the Braves left Milwaukee a few years later to take their new home in Atlanta.

 

 Louis with his baseball club.  Louis marked with an "x". Year unknown.

Louis lived a good long life.  He died of hypothermia and congestive heart failure on November 21, 1998 at the age of 94 at the Memorial Nursing Home in Medford.  He was preceded by Clara who passed in 1983 of cancer.  For more remembrances of both Louis and Clara, read this earlier blog post.

1990s family picture with Patty, Rita, Lester, Joan, and Louis seated. 

Louis in the late 1990s.

Do you have some information on Louis and Clara that you would like to share?  Leave a comment or email me at joehler at tds.net.