"our socially minded men"

15 March 1931 | Cincinnati Enquirer

A Visitor From Antioch

 . . Dr. William M. Leiserson, is to speak in this city on Saturday, March 21, at the annual meeting of the Consumers’ League of Cincinnati. Dr. Leiserson’s talk on “Management’s Responsibility for Unemployment” will be given following a luncheon . . .

This annual meeting marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Consumers’ League in Cincinnati as a branch of the national organization. Though the movement originated among women of the city, it has made a distinct appeal to our socially minded men, and 10 of the 18 directors of the league at the present time are men. Mr. Edwin G. Becker is the present President of the organization, and its Vice Presidents are Miss Anna L. Peterson and Mr. Alvin J. Lehman. Other members of the Board of Directors are Mr. Richard S. Austin, Miss Mary P. Corre, Mrs. Dorothy K. Minster, Dr. Jesse Halsey, Mrs. Jacob Bloch, Mr. Fred K. Hoehler*, Dr. William E. Chancellor, Dr. I. M. Rubinow, Dr. George A. Hedger, Mr. Edwin L. Hitchens, Mr. Jack Kroll, Mr. Phil E. Ziegler, Miss Rosalie Phillips, Miss Miriam Walker, and Miss Vera Woods.

________
*from: Social Welfare History Project. (2011). Fred K. Hoehler (1893-1969) — Executive director of the American Public Welfare Association, international social work. Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved [date accessed] from http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/organizations/apwa/hoehler-fred-k/

Fred K. Hoehler (1893-1969) —  Executive Director of the American Public Welfare Association, International Social Work

Introduction: Fred Kenneth Hoehler was a public welfare and social service administrator. He was director of public welfare in Cincinnati, OH, he became head of the American Public Welfare Association during changes following passage of the Social Security Act in 1935; his leadership enhanced the understanding between public welfare workers and social workers in private agencies. World War II led him to administrative positions with U.S. and United Nations programs for international relief and rehabilitation which initiated a life long involvement with social work internationally. In a variety of administrative positions he worked for nearly twenty years in Chicago city government with Mayor Daley and with Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson.

Early Years: Fred K.  Hoehler was born at Shenadoah, Pennsylvania on June 6, 1893.  He received his prep-school education in Philadelphia and entered the Pennsylvania State College as a candidate for Bachelor of Science in Forestry.  He graduated as a Forester and Logging Engineer in 1915.  During his school career he participated in athletics, particularly in football, wrestling, and Lacrosse.  As a forester, he served with the U.  S.  Forestrey Service in Superior National Forest, with the Commer Diggins Co., Cadillac, Michigan, and the Mobray-Robinson Co., Quicksand, Kentucky.
In 1915 he came to the University of Cincinnati for graduate work and to organize the University Y.M.C.A.  While there, he assisted in coaching football, was boxing and wrestling coach, and was Secretary of the Alumni Assoc. From 1917 to 1919 he was First Lieutenant for Field Artillery, U.S.A. One and one-half years later he returned to the University of Cincinnati and continued his work there.

Career in Public Welfare: In 1928 he was called by Col.  C.O.  Sherrill, City Manager of Cincinnati, to serve as Director of Public Welfare for the City and by the County Commissioners for Hamilton Country.  He served in this capacity until November, 1933.  In the spring of 1933 he organized the County Department of Public Welfare which has carried all unemployment relief cases in Hamilton County since then, according to the regulations of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.  He served as Hamilton County Civil Works Administrator until January 1, 1934.
In November, 1933 he was appointed Director of Safety for the City of Cincinnati by Mr.  C.  A.  Dykstra, City Manager, also retaining his connection with the City Welfare Division as Acting Commissioner.  He served in this capacity until November 30, 1935, at which time he accepted the position of Director of the American Public Welfare Association with headquarters in Chicago.  Hoehler later served as President of the American Public Welfare Association for three years.
On November 18, 1917, he married Dorothy Stevens, daughter of C.  A.  Stevens, Cincinnati.  They had two children – Fred, Jr.  and Caroline Ann.

Hoehler was a member of the Cincinnati Association, University Club, “C” Club, Masons, Congregational Church, American Association of Social Workers, Oola Khan Grotto, Cincinnati Gyro Club, Cincinnati Peace League, Foreign Policy Association.  He also served as President of the Local Chapter of the American Association of Social Workers. Hoehler served on the Advisory Committee for Mr.  Harry Hopkins, Federal Emergency Relief Administrator; on the Economic Security Committee; and the National Youth Administration Board for Ohio.

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Frances Adair Clark

Several years ago, among a box of my grandfather's things dating from his early adulthood, I found a wallet containing a passel of photos of a young woman identified as "Frances." The photos include pictures of her and her friends at home, at Princeton, and at an unidentified college. The writing on the back of the photos suggests the young woman and my young grandfather had a fun and congenial acquaintance.

Recently, in a water-logged and crumbling box of my great-grandfather's correspondence that I pulled out from under the eaves of my granddad's garage, I found a Christmas card from Presbyterian missionary friends of my great-grandfather's who were stationed in Korea in the 1930s. The card contains a photo of the couple, Mary and Monroe Clark, seated in their living room and on the wall of the room is a photo of the same young woman who is in the photos in my grandfather's wallet: Frances Adair Clark.

 

From the Cincinnati Enquirer, 30 August 1931:

Rev. and Mrs. William Monroe Clark, returned missionaries from Korea, who arrived in the States several weeks ago, accompanied by Misses Frances and Jane Clark, who are passing the summer with their grandmother, Mrs. Theodore Hamilton, and their aunt, Mrs. Charles Doermann, at their cottage at Virginia Beach, Va., are the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Settle (Carter Clark) for a few weeks before going to Princeton, N.J., where Rev. Clark will take a special course of study at Princeton University and Mrs. Clark will also take special training for the coming year. Miss Frances Clark will enter Converse College at Spartanburg, S.C., to continue her education. As yet it has not been definitely decided where Miss Jane, who is too young to enter college, will pursue her studies.

Times Union Brooklyn, 14 July 1935: Equinn Munkelwitz, of Collins Ave., is spending a week at Virginia Beach, Va., as the guest of Mrs. M.H. Doermann, of Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, and Miss Frances A. Clark of Seoul, Korea, Asia.

Cincinnati Enquirer, 24 June 1937: A lovely society function in Covington will be the marriage of Miss Frances Adair Clark, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. W.M. Clark of Korea, and Mr. William Munnell Equinn of New York at 8:30 o’clock Wednesday evening at the home of the bride’s aunt, Mrs. Charles Doermann, Fort Mitchell Heights, Fort Mitchell. Miss Clark, who was graduated last week from Mount Holyoke, is arriving in Fort Mitchell Saturday. Mr. Equinn, who has been attending the Medical School at Cornell University, also will arrive Saturday. They will be the guests of Mrs. Doermann and Miss Clark’s grandmother, Mrs. T. S. Hamilton until after the wedding. Miss Clark will have for her sister, Mrs Robert Settle, formerly Miss Carter Clark, of Hyde Park, Cincinnati, and for her bridesmaid her sister Miss Janie Clark, who has been attending Mount Holyoke this past year.

Cincinnati Enquirer, 01 July 1937: The wedding of Miss Frances Adair Clark and Mr. Equinn William Munnell was beautifully celebrated last night in the home of Mrs. Marguerite Doerrman, Fort Mitchell Heights, Fort Mitchell, aunt of the bride the couple plighted their troth before the alter arranged in front of the large windows in the south end of the living room, formed by a mass of huckleberry branches, smilax and ferns, against which stood tall baskets filled with white gladiolas with soft-glowing tapers at either side, that gave a churchly effect.

    

"she came and scrubbed and washed when Bill went"

Jan. 1931 | Jesse Halsey to Abigail Fithian Halsey

Telegram from Freck | 31 Aug 1931

An Easter Affirmation c1931

Parish Paragraphs, In Lieu of a Pastoral Epistle

March 22, 1931

The Seventh Presbyterian Church

In Cincinnati

Jesse Halsey, Minister

“I wish that you would put up with a little ‘folly’ from me. Do put up with it, for I feel a divine jealousy on your behalf.” –II Cor. 11: 1-2.

It is eighteen years ago Sunday that the present minister first preached in this church. Mr. Garvey and Mr. Besuden met him at the door. On the afternoon of the following Sunday (Easter Day) Judge Hollister and Mr. Ballantyne talked with him about the possibility of his becoming the minister . . .

This is from Ian Maclaren, my patron saint. (An elder is speaking to a young minister.) “There is just on thing that the brethren laid upon me to say, and you will not be considering it a liberty from the elders. You are never to be troubled in the pulpit, or to be thinking about anything but the Word of the Lord and the souls of the people, of which you are the shepherd. We will ask you to remember, when you stand in your place to speak to us in the name of the Lord, that as the smoke goeth up from the homes of the people in the morning, so their prayers will be ascending for their minister, and, as you look down upon us before you begin to speak, maybe you will say to yourself, “They are all loving me.’”

. . .

The acoustics in the church are bad. Two thousand dollars worth of acoustical material would cure it. But there is another way—a full house, and all hear perfectly! The hard surfaces are too many; but four to five hundred people will cure it. On Easter Day, with its crowd, you can hear a pin drop. If one day, why not other days?

The Canvass comes on March 22. The preacher will talk about money. Nothing sordid in that. The Romance of the Kingdom is tied up with its use. “Good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

This from Carl W. Petty: he is describing two ministers, acquaintances: “one gives a brilliant performance. His sermons are literary gems, his delivery is faultless. But when he is through that is the end of it. He has a metropolitan pulpit, but he preaches in the suburbs of the great realities. He juggles skillfully with secondary issues. There is no urgency in his preaching. And there is B--, his sermons show carful preparation, but preparation for an event rather than a performance. His sermons do not scintillate, but they stab into the heart of things. Preaching for him means wrestling with stern reality, asking no quarter nor giving any. When he is through you go out convinced something ought to be done about it, and that you are a partner in the responsibility of getting it done.”

from "The Quick and the Dead" | 1931

film still of Little Family in Boston | c1926

My boys, after Christmas, had driven back East in an old Chev that they had rebuilt. This is in a barn in the neighborhood, and, though it is midwinter by the calendar, the weather is springlike, and we bring out the car and start sixty miles to the north to make a call. Twenty-five years ago in a northern mission field, I married a doctor and a school teacher. Boston people, they stayed at the mission after we left, but lately came home. Their boys and ours were born there. He died five years ago [Spring 1926]. Two years later the youngest died and I went East to bury him. So, my boy and I drive up to the border of New Hampshire to have supper with the oldest boy of the doctor's household and his mother. (Only a week later this same fine lad of twenty is hit by an automobile and I come again from the West to bury him. There is a text that brings me help at times like that. It is a question asked upon the cross by our Lord, but never answered, "My god, why?").
 --Rev. Jesse Halsey 

The Report on "Birth Control"

From Christianity Today, May 1931

BOTH the Church and the World have
been stirred by the portion of the report
of the Commission on Marriage, Divorce
and Remarriage which deals with "Birth
Control." The Commission was appointed by
the 1929 Assembly. Its report to the 1930
Assembly was handled somewhat roughly by
that body, but the Committee was permitted
another year of life. The report to the
1931 Assembly has to do with Marriage,
Divorce, Remarriage, Birth Control and
proper sex education both of Ministers and
people. Section II, which deals with Birth
Control, has been widely commented upon.
It is as follows:

"Earnest Christian people are asking for
the Church's guidance on the subject of Birth
Control. This subject demands attention today
as never before. Economic conditions
and a worthy standard of living clearly make
it wrong to bring children into the world
without adequate provision for their nurture
and proper consideration for the health of
the mother.

"The Christian conception of sex clothes
the relationship between husband and wife
with spiritual significance, sanctifying marriage
as a divine institution. Moral control
is the basic essential to a worthy experience
of the marriage relation.

"In expressing its judgment on this subject,
the Church in no sense modifies its
condemnation of sex relations outside of
marriage.

"Two methods are possible in securing
birth control. The first is continence. The
second is the use of contraceptives. When
this method is adopted in seeking the worthy
objectives stated above, it should only be in
fidelity to the highest spiritual ideals of the
Christian home."

The second general recommendation of the
Commission is as follows: "The Commission
recommends that the General Assembly
adopt the report concerning birth control
contained within this Commission's report
above as expressing the attitude of our
Church upon this intimate and all important
subject."

The Presbytery of Philadelphia, at its
April meeting overwhelmingly adopted a
strong memorial to the forthcoming
Assembly concerning this report. The memorial
was moved by the Rev. George B.
Bell, D.D., of the Patterson Memorial
Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, as follows:
"The Presbytery of Philadelphia convened
in its regular monthly meeting May 4, 1931,
desires to express to the General Assembly
meeting in Pittsburgh, May 28 to June 3,
its profound disapproval of that portion of
the report to be submitted to the Assembly
by its Commission on Marriage, Divorce and
Remarriage in which the Commission
endorses birth control by contraceptive
methods.

"It is the opinion of this Presbytery that
the adoption of this declaration would bring
deserved criticism and odium upon our be-
loved church."

It will be remembered that a year ago,
when the Commission desired to alter the
Confession so that marriages with Roman-
ists should be allowed by the standards, a
protest was adopted by the Presbytery of
Philadelphia against making any change.
This protest originated with Dr. Bell, who
later carried his point on the floor of the
Assembly. The Presbytery of Philadelphia
has instructed its Commissioners to vote
against approval of the section of the
report dealing with Birth Control.