History

Anthony F. Holtmeier (“Dad”) was born February 14, 1896 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the youngest of six boys and four girls. Their home was at 2715 Alice Street in the Clifton neighborhood, surrounded by the University of Cincinnati. All the children attended St. George church and school. Dad probably finished grade school about 1910 or 1911 at age 14.

At that time, not many children went to high school as we know it today. Some attended trade schools or business schools, but most went to work as apprentices for tradesmen. Some who worked might attend classes at night schools, and I think Dad did this at East Night High, now known as Hughes High School located on Clifton Avenue, within walking distance of his home. Dad was fairly good at figures and writing. He had very nice penmanship and a good grasp of business and investing. He was a good speaker and handled himself well in front of people.

He and his brothers were all good basketball and baseball players and competed throughout the city. Dad was best at baseball and played as high as Semi Pro on Sundays, sometimes at Crosley Field, which was the home field of the Cincinnati Reds in the Professional National League.

Dad started as a Plumber Apprentice in 1912 for George Schmeig Plumbing Company in Norwood, where he learned Plumbing, Heating, Gas Fitting, Pipefitting, Refrigeration, and maybe other things. He once told me that, as the newest employee, one of his duties was to get beer for everybody at lunch time. He would have a stick with notches cut into it and these would keep the several cans from sliding off. Sometimes there would be as many as ten cans on the stick.

In 1917, he joined the U.S. Army to fight in World War 1, the “war to end all wars.” He stayed in the Army until the war ended in 1918. While in the Army he did some boxing for his Regiment, and served in France for some time. He returned to Cincinnati after his tour and went back to the Plumbing business with Schmeig Company. At this time he was about 23 years old.

According to a Cincinnati census from 1924, Dad was listed as a plumber, so somewhere in that time period he passed a test to become a journeyman plumber. I remember that he was a union member belonging to Local 59 around this time. I also remember him talking about traveling to Kentucky and Tennessee to install ice machines, but I don't remember who he worked for then. When he worked out of the Union Hall, plumbers were not allowed to drive their own cars to the job, as this was considered unfair to those who did not own a car, so they all took public transportation such as horse drawn streetcars to the job.

Dad married Remilda C. Dulle in 1923 and moved to 5719 Adelphi Street in Madisonville, living on the second floor of a two-family house owned by Anthony and Gertrude Bokenkotter, who became lifelong friends. Madisonville was way out in the country at that time and all their families probably thought they were a little crazy.

Their first child, Betty, was born in this apartment and it became too small so they bought a house on Homer Avenue near Bramble Avenue (which was razed in 1965 to build a school) and their second child, Don, was born in this house in 1926. The village of Mariemont was being built from 1923 on, and I am sure Dad worked on those buildings during the construction, probably out of the Union Hall. He also worked for John Baes Plumbing and John Muller Plumbing Company. In 1928 or early 1929 he sold the house on Homer Avenue and moved into one of those apartments in Mariemont, while he was building a house at 5525 Islington Avenue in a newly developed neighborhood, subdivided from a farm owned by William Howell. He did a lot of the work on this house himself and hired a George Hensgen as the major constructor, hiring other sub contractors for things like roof, tile, electric etc.

Building a house in 1929 was a rather precarious adventure for anyone because the whole world was in a recession which would become "The Great Depression" of the 1930s. Their third child, June Ann, was born in this new house on June 30, 1930.

Soon all industry and business stopped and many people became unemployed including Dad, but it seemed he was always able to find something to do. He worked as a salesman for Sands Water Heater Company and Williamson Heater Company, a detective at a hotel in Cincinnati, and also did some "moonlighting" in the plumbing field. I'm sure Mom and Dad thought they might lose their new house to the bank, but the government installed controls to prevent this from happening as long as you could pay some interest to the lenders.

In 1931, the Government started programs to get people back to work. These included CCC and WPA projects which dealt mostly with road, bridge, and park construction, and the Green Belt projects which concentrated on new house and building construction. Dad went to work with most other unemployed plumbers in this area at Green Hills in northern Cincinnati, where he stayed from 1931 to 1936 when it was completed. By this time, with everyone working and buying, the economy was again in good shape. I'm not sure who Dad went to work for after Green Hills but I think he did some installing for Sears and Roebuck and some other retailers.

In 1934, Tom Holtmeier was born, which made it two and two. Jerry would come along in 1944 to complete the family. Since moving to Madisonville in 1923, the family always belonged to St. Margaret of Cortona Church, where all the kids went to school. Dad continued to play baseball with several teams, notably with St. Margaret teams which were most times the best in the church leagues. Both Mom and Dad were devout members of the Holy Name Society for men and The Ladies Altar Society. The annual Festival on the church grounds was an event we all looked forward to each year. Dad also coached Knothole Baseball and had some very good teams in the Hamilton County area. He was also a Scout Leader for the Church Troop #133.

After Green Hills was finished, many of the people who worked there went into business. Dad did too. In August 1938 he opened his business from his home on Islington Avenue, with himself as the only employee. Mother would answer the phone with the office being in the dining room. I don't know how he got customers, but probably from his contacts in the church or sports. Anyhow, he was on his way. Dad was a very good plumber, honest and fair, and this is what made him so successful. Soon business was so good he needed someone to help him, so he hired Frank Woods as an apprentice, which worked out well. Frank had not finished high school yet, so Dad insisted he do this along with going to apprenticeship classes. Frank learned well and progressed rapidly, helping Dad grow his new business.

At first Dad used his family car, a 1937 Chevrolet sedan, as his work vehicle. Soon he bought a used 1936 Chevrolet Canopy Express, which was called a “vegetable truck.” Dad was sure proud of this addition. I'm sorry our family never took many pictures because it would be great to have some of this car. As with anything that is going to be successful, the house shop became too crowded, so he rented a store at 6304 Madison Road, which had an office in front and back room storage, along with a basement, but no garages or other storage space. The toilet was down the hall, which was shared with other tenants.

Business was picking up rapidly now, as several other plumbers in Madisonville were closing up their shops. Dad bought some of Bert Hodgson and John Baess' stock along with another truck. But the best thing he got was Bill Kent from Hodgson Company. Dad always wanted to establish a strong repair business and Bill was a superb person in that field. Along with Bill came his fully equipped truck, so all he had to do was just work out of a different location now. He even had an extra garage where he lived to keep it in. What a stroke of luck. Dad was still doing some new work and he had several plumbers along with several helper laborers to do this. There were Johnny Clemons, Harry Timmerman, Naaman Settles, Frank Woods, George Beckler, Herman Wilmers, and others I can't recall. Some of the builders Dad did work for were Dugan and Meyers and Gene Maxfield, who kept Dad pretty busy. Mother, along with Betty, kept the books and records at Islington Avenue, besides answering the phone. Things were humming right along.

In 1942 the present building at 6310 Madison Road became avail­able. Because of Mother’s business ability and foresight in real estate, they bought it for $3,500. Immediately they built three garages, along with a blacktop driveway. They used the front room as the main office, with the center and rear room devoted to storage. By now Dad had three trucks, all housed in the new garages, four plumbers, and three helper laborers. Cliff Huber, Bill Kent, John Prince, and Frank Woods were the main people with Naaman Settles, and Herman Wilmers and an apprentice. Dad was not doing much manual work now, as he was so busy with supervision and estimating. With the office now being in the new shop, Mother would come in two or three days a week to do the bookkeeping and clerical work. Soon Dad hired a CPA, Henry Port, to do the necessary tax and record keeping. Mr. Port continued to do this for a long time until George Dulle (Mother’s brother) took over in 1955.

The shop was located close to Indian Hill, Mariemont, and Kenwood. These were prime areas for growing his repair business, which Dad capitalized on. A good friend of Dad’s, Cliff Huber, had started his own business in Pleasant Ridge, but decided to close it and and come work for Dad in 1945 until he retired in 1970. At the time of this writing he is still living with his son in Florida and is 93 years old. Cliff might have been the best plumber I have known, and I was lucky to have him teach me.

He could do it all—repair, new work, carpentry, plastering, electric work, and many other things. He was an expert at taking care of tools, always keeping then sharp and clean, and he passed that onto us.

I really envied his lunches, they were something to behold. Always soup, special sandwiches, deserts, coffees, homemade cookies and cakes and fruit concoctions. He was a great cook, and that was one of his hobbies. If it were cold he would build two fires at the job, one in front and one in back. It was sometimes so nice I never wanted to go back to work.

Cliff was an extreme perfectionist and was difficult to work with. I learned early on not to ever say anything in the morning until I tested the waters. Sometimes we never talked all day long. It was very difficult to satisfy him, but he made sure I always did everything right.