John Henry Hutsler

  General Notes:

This is a copy from the original letter, that was sent to my great grandfather, Joseph Walter Parks, who was the father of my grandmother Hettie Jane Parks, Rohning, Hutsler, Hanrahan. This letter was written by the cashier George Freund at the Citizen's Bank at Cole Camp, Mo. The letter is about my grandfather John Henry Hustler, when he had a tragic accident which took his life. The letter was dated Feb 11th, 1915. Great grandfather was living in Orange, California.
Mr. Walter Parks, Orange, Calif.
My dear Mr. Parks: I received your letter of the 6th. this morning and you seemed to be in such good spirits and to be enjoying life so much that I hate to be the one to cast a shadow over your happiness and hope that you have heard before now of the death of John Hutsler. When I received your letter this morning, I was just getting ready to his funeral. For fear you have not already heard of the cause of his death, I will give you all the particulars I know.
He and Herman Buchholz had bought a corn shredder this fall and had been shredding corn for the neighbors for about a month or more and Monday they were working at S. L. Stouts when John in some way got his right hand caught in the shredder and it just simply ground his arm off up to the shoulder and the only thing that kept it from grinding him all up I suppose was the machine was not large enough to take his body in. The doctors were called and amputated his arm at the shoulder, but he died Tuesday night about 12 o'clock after intense suffering and was buried today Thursday at the Williams graveyard
His death has caused the whole community to feel very sad for John was a man with lots of friends and in all my dealings with him, which were considerable, I have always found him to be honest and reliable in every particular, and while he had not made a lot of money, like many other men have, yet he had what was much better than lots of them have, and that was the confidence of every one he dealt with and he leaves as a heritage to his children, what is much better than money, a good name which they can reverence and imitate.
I feel and know that in the death of John Hutsler, I have lost one of my friends and one of them that I admired and am glad that it had been my pleasure and privilege to help him many times when he needed it and when he appreciated it very much, but he is gone and I shall be only too glad and willing to help his wife and children in every way possible. Mrs. Hutsler had his Woodmen Insurance turned over to me to look after and I will see to every thing and will help her in any way I can to straighten his business up. I think he had his business in pretty fair shape and don;T think he owes over $1000, if that much and he had $2000 insurance with which to pay up all he owes and leave a nice little sum for the wife, then he has quite a lot of stock around the place and all in good shape, and he has been working awfully hard and doing everything he could to make a dollar and had been gaining slowly right along all the time and leaves his family in much better shape than lots of fellows.
I credited the note today with interest up to Nov 2nd, 1914, had overlooked it until I got your letter, in fact I would want you to write me before doing it, of course, but am glad to attend to it for you when you do let me know.
I am certainly glad to know you are so well and to be enjoying yourself so much in California, I know it is a fine place to live but I have never been able yet to get the consent of my mind to give up my job here and to come out there on an uncertainty so I am still plugging away at the same of thing and worrying along and getting all out of life I can and at times I think it is very little, but then I go home at night and get up a scuffle the boys and have my little girl come around and get up on my lap and put her arms around my neck and we just kinda love each other a little and I begin to think, "Well this Old World isn't such a bad place after all" and I am glad I am alive to enjoy it.
I am enclosing your draft for $200.85 being the exact amount of money you have on deposit with us.
We have had a pretty hard winter here, lots of cold and snow but it is quite warm today, in fact for three days now, it has been like spring, but the wind has been blowing pretty hard so we are looking for a bad spell of weather soon and don't think we will be disappointed for you know Missouri always pays her debts when it comes to weather.
Money has been very scarce with us for about four years now and we have not had enough to begin to supply the demand and have only been taking care of our customers.
Well I must close, I shall be glad to hear from you at any time and anything that you may wish me to attend to for you here please don't hesitate to write me your wants.
Give my very kindest regards to Lum and Florence and assuring you of my deep sympathy with you and Mrs. Hutsler in this hour of deep trouble and with the very best of wishes and kindest personal regards I am,
Sincerely your friend, George Freund ¹⁹

John married Hettie Jane Parks, daughter of Joseph Walter PARKS Sr and Sarah Frances Morris. (Hettie Jane Parks was born on 11 Apr 1873, died on 4 Jun 1952 in Cole Camp, Benton, Missouri, USA and was buried in Cole Camp, Benton, Missouri, USA.)