Bleimes Family History
Chapter 15. Bertha - (Birdie)
Everybody spoke of my Aunt Bertha as Birdie, probably to use a name that was different from her mother. A good idea, as there were no others by that handle. Born in Pulaski County, Arkansas in 1883, she came to Columbus at age nine, along with her brother, mother and new father, Jacob. Her new sister, Eva arrived in '93, and a new brother Floyd in 1900.
The next move was into her third and last family - that of her husband's which she and he formed when just eleven days shy of her 19th birthday. The ceremony took place at her parents' home at 349 Donaldson Street in Columbus. This street sticks in my memory because it has totally disappeared - obliterated by freeway construction.
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The groom, Frank Morbitzer, was a Catholic Austrian immigrant whose parents had brought him here about twenty years prior, and at this time he worked for the Climax Buggy Co.
Like his father-in-law, Frank got into the saloon business and was operating it when he registered for the WW I draft. He was not called to duty - few married men were. Somewhat later he went to work for the Lazarus Co. as an upholsterer and retired after becoming the upholstery department head.
Birdie and Frank always lived in the German south end of Columbus. They had four children there. [Frank Morbitzer's Family Chart]
1903: Frank Herbert.
Called Herbert. The earliest story I have about him is that, during Prohibition, he and his dad made home brew in dad's basement at 515 S. 4th Street. When it was about ready, his Uncle Rudy Morbitzer would sneak in and steal some of it. Father and son had to build a locked stall around the barrels. 'Herbie' worked for the Gas Co., then, in the late 1930's, got his own dry cleaners business in the Southern Hotel Building, which he ran until retiring. One summer I worked for him, driving the delivery truck and hanging ads on doorknobs. He would sometimes take me with him over on Town Street to the (Fraternal Order of) Eagle's for lunch. The daily special cost 20¢ - tap beer was a nickel.
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He married divorcée Frances Hughes Logan in 1936. She had a beauty shop just a couple of blocks east of the cleaners. They kept her name (Frances Hughes) on the shop until retiring. About 1921, Frances had had a daughter, Margaret Logan (Casbarro) (McNulty) who inherited a jewelry store in Lancaster, Ohio. The store had been established by her first husband, Nicholas 'Tic' Casbarro, who was rumored to have had family links to the underworld and that he 'went legit'. (Unconfirmed). Herb and Frances had no children. Herbie served as a soldier in WW II but did not see combat. A couple
of years after the war he bought one of the then-popular canopied
boats that had surplus aircraft drop-tanks for pontoons. It made
a dandy stable platform for fishing and/or small parties, and he
ran it for several years on Buckeye Lake. They had a cottage there
that had belonged to his father. In the garage was a refrigerator
that was modified to hold a keg of beer with a spigot on the outside.
Good thinking. |
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1909: Erma. Erma arrived in 1909. Her boyfriend, Bob Evans, traveled and got them down to Harlingen, Texas for their marriage in 1935. Back in Columbus, she did office work and during WW II she was secretary to one of the Curtiss-Wright executives. They divorced in 1943. About twenty years later Erma went west and hooked up with a. J. C. Bennett. I believe they had a mutual interest in Schnauzer dogs. They lived in the Los Angeles area in the 1960's. Erma was the first person to tell me about the Robinson homestead and family cemetery in Arkansas, and of her desire to see it. She never made it. Her last days were spent in the "City of Hope" cancer facility in Duarte, where she died, childless, in 1970. |
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1911: Bob. Named Robert Allen Morbitzer at his birth - but of course was always called Bob. My earliest memory of him is hearing him tell of frequently replacing his three-celled flashlights. He said he broke them on the heads of dogs that attacked him on his rounds as a meter reader for the gas company. In later years he was always a salesman. As with all of my Columbus cousins, Bob liked to come to our home, which had a comparatively rural flavor then. He got along well with Arko, our Doberman-Pinscher, and taught the animal to kill stray cats that had taken up residence in our chicken barn. However, Arko did not differentiate between strays and others. One day he spotted our neighbor’s kitten and picked it off of the tree it was climbing in an attempt to escape. This put a decided strain on neighborly relations. |
Bob lusted for another one of our neighbors, Peg Cannon,
a very attractive and moneyed young lady. As an old saying goes, ‘She
wouldn’t give him the time of day.’ and once sicced her bulldog
on him. The only problem there was that the dog bit me. I still have the
scars.
He married in 1938 and had two children and a brief Army stint before
the war ended. After the armistice, he divorced, married divorcée
Lela Pritchard Schooley, and had one more child. Leaving the first two
children and their mother, he and his new family went to Texas for a few
years, then to California. Number two wife divorced him around this time
and remarried. Bob died of cancer in Long Beach in 1977.
1913: 'Babe'.
They named her Eva Katherine, but Frank and Birdie called her their Baby, which became just Babe to most. Some of her more socially conscious friends would say Eve. Regardless of handles, she was my favorite cousin and we always got along very well. In 1933 she married Jerry Collins, a pianist for the Harold Greenamyer Band. They had a mutual interest in popular music and she became the band’s vocalist. The band traveled widely, and after a few years, they divorced in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The only time I ever heard Babe sing was when she and I did a duet (as
in karaoke) in a Broad Street bar in 1946 when I was just fresh out of
the Army.
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In 1940 Babe married James Loos of Pataskala, Ohio. He operated a parking lot on East Main Street, right across Pearl Alley from Herbie's cleaning shop. One summer I worked for him, parking cars. Jim was drafted into the Army, and he and Babe would keep house in the camp's areas, one of which was Biloxi, Mississippi. An exception to this being during his overseas assignment in the Army of Occupation, where he had duty in the military police. While in Germany he absconded with various 'souvenirs', such as firearms and paintings, which he sent home. After the war they bought my mother’s lot on James Road just south of Mound Street and built a Cape Cod house on it. Jim sold furniture and Babe worked in the AAA office next to the Southern Dry Cleaners. They had no children, but adopted one daughter besides having one or two temporary wards. |
Babe also had a curiosity about her Robinson heritage. She, Sadie and I drove to Little Rock in September of 1981 and scouted around until we found the family cemetery. We took pictures of the stones and monuments with Babe in a couple of them. She was very pleased with the results of this search. We also went on to Ozark and visited the Nickell's on that trip. Jim died of heart problems in 1978. Babe had two bouts with cancer - she lost the second one in 1985.