HENRY GOLLER
"NEY RESIDENT SEES MANY CHANGES IN 94 YEARS
by Maryetta Bowyer
HENRY GOLLER, who will be 94 years old July 13, was born in the house where he now lies, one and a half miles west of Ney, on state route 249. At that time, most of the surrounding country was a wilderness. Ney was called 'Georgetown,' route 249 was the 'Chickasaw Road,' and the Lyman-Langdon Tavern was the only building other than log houses between 'Georgetown' and Brunersburg.
Mr. Goller prefers saving his eyes for reading rather than watching television. He keeps up with the news and reads most of the farm magazines. During the daytime, he sits by a large picture window in his remodeled farm house, where he can look across a slight ravine to broad fields where his son, Clarence, has planted evergreens.
Travelers in that vicinity may meet him driving his 1930 Ford around the neighboring countryside or to Ney. Each morning about 6:30, he starts the car's motor to give it exercise. Hints of the family are that the car isn't the only thing that is exercised. The garage nearly joins the house, so the ancient motor, like a vibrating airplane, disturbs the peace of the morning sleeper.
A store of extra tires in the garage assure the driver that the auto will never go 'flat' and that daily exercises can continue. The Ford's high seats, Mr. Goller declare, are far more comfortable than the low ones in the modern models, so he prefers riding in his own car.
IN 1830, Henry's grandfather, Michael Goller, came from Germany to Medina, Ohio, with his wife, Katherine, and children, George, Katherine, Mary and three month old Jacob, Henry's father. It had taken them three months to sail across the Atlantic. They had been offered land where Cleveland is located at $5 an acre, but preferred to settle 25 miles south.
Jacob Goller married Wilhelmina Bauer on July 29, 1852, and arranged for the purchase of land in the Georgetown area through A. P. Edgerton of Hicksville. When Jacob and his wife came to Defiance county in 1852, they travelled by passenger train from Cleveland to Toledo, then came from there to Defiance by canal boat. A friend, Jacob Campbell, met them with his wagon at the canal port near the location of the old Diehl Brewery. He was driving a yoke of oxen.
On their way to Georgetown, Wilhelmina rode on the wagon on top of the boxes and trunks and Jacob sat in front with the driver. 'At a place later called Kibler's Dump,' said Mr. Goller, ' where there was a sudden drop in the trail, the wagon plunged down suddenly, and Wilhelmina, thrown from the seat, rolled down to the bottom of the hill.'
The family first located with friends north of Georgetown until Jacob could cut timbers to make himself a log house. It also was necessary for him to go to Piqua to pay for his claim of land. After the logs were cut and the land cleared, the neighbors came in to help build the house. By the fall of 1852, it was ready for occupancy. Twelve years later, in 1864, it was abandoned for the new and larger frame house where Henry Goller now lives, Here he was born in 1866.
A framed family record with names, surrounded by birds and flowers, was painted in German print by a transient artist. Here is listed the children of Jacob Goller - Karl T. Goller, 1853-1855, Jacob T. Goller,1854-1855, Amelia Goller, born in 1857, Christina F. Goller, born March, 1860, and Heinrich A. Goller, the present Henry Goller.
Mr. Goller said that when his folks moved into their new home, a nearby open area covered with ashes indicated that the Indians had once encamped there. In those early days, the old Chickasaw Trail joined the Bellefontaine Road, when then led to Farmer 'Center.'
The chief industry in that village was an ashery for making lye. This they then used for soap and the making of hominy. Henry can recall that his mother would carry a tub full of ashes on her head to Farmer, five miles away, where she sold or exchanged the ashes for groceries. Ashery products were used other than locally. Pearl ash was shipped to many parts of the country...
During the mid-1800s, Defiance had a $75,000 a year pearl ash business, located on a site south of the present high school building. The quotations of its prices were known to have controlled markets in the United States.
Mr. Goller insists that he was properly disciplined. He can recall that when he was five years old, his mother whipped him for running off to the neighbors without her permission. By the time he was 12, he could be trusted to drive a team of horses.
(Not the Chickawaw school)
He attended the Chickasaw School with 104 other boys and girls. Two of his teachers were Lucy Pierson and Walter Battershell.
'I used to be a little devil' said Mr. Goller, ' and the teachers often punished me by making me sit between two girls. One day I kissed one of the girls. That was the end of my punishment'
According to Mr Goller, attending school in those days was no easy matter. They had to walk three-fourths of a mile to school in all kinds of weather. 'We used to dig each other out of the snow banks when we were going or coming from school in the winter time. In the summer, we had to follow the fence rows in order to keep out of the mud. We had four months of school divided into two terms of summer and winter. When the weather was too hot in the summer, the teacher used to say, Let's go out and have class in the shade. Of course, we were all anxious to go.'
'When we were older' he recalled, 'we went on sled rides to spelling schools and to debates. These were the social activities of the neighborhood. Father used to let us drive his wagon to these affairs because he thought that they furthered our education.'
'We generally walked to church at Bethel,' Mr. Goller continued. 'Sometimes it was so cold that we nearly froze to death, for the church was one mile east of the present Ney Nigh School building.'
Henry Goller had had a broad religious training. He was born a Lutheran, attended the Church of God, and is now a member of the Ney Methodist Church.
One of Mr. Goller's early business experiences was that of selling eggs. When he was 15 or 16 years old, he would carry two three gallon buckets filled with eggs to Georgetown and sell them for four cents a dozen This was not as cheap as one might think, for he could buy brown sugar at two cents a pound, soft white sugar at three cents, and coffee at six cents per pound.
'Sometimes,' he said, ' I had to make another trip to get beans and other food that I had bought with the eggs.'
After finishing school, Henry worked with Wesley Campbell, taking the top soil off the Mason Gravel Pit so that it could be opened for hauling gravel to fill in the approaches to the New York and Central Railroad then known as the 'Mackinac.'
Later, he hauled bricks from the Ney brick yard to build the K of P. Hall. He also was responsible for supplying the bricks for the corner built by Ed Dowd, grandfather of Mark Dowd, retired Defiance mail carrier.
Henry recalled that one time when he and Charles Dreher walked to Defiance to pay their taxes, they bought some coffee and six one gallon jars with the leftover money They put their merchandise into a large sack and started to walk home. Each took turns carrying the clumsy burden.
'It was 11 o'clock at night and we were within one third of mile of home when Charlie, who was taking his turn at carrying the sack, fell and broke all the crocks and spilled the coffee.'
Right then and there, according to the story, Charlie added a couple hundred words to the English language.
In 1667 (error), Henry Goller married Jettie Barrick. 'I got acquainted with her,' he said, 'when she worked for some neighbors. I was told to invite her to a neighborhood party. She didn't exactly accept, but when I got to the party, there she was. Of course, I had to take her home that night, since I had invited her. We went together four and one half years before we were married.'
Jettie Goller died 14 years ago, leaving one son, Clarence, who with his wife, the former Emma Fieldner, lives at his father's home. He moved there after his mother's death from his farm about a half mile west of the home place, where his son, Dalton, now lives. Clarence's daughter, Betty Rose Zelent, resides in St. Louis Mo. There are eight grandchildren.
Clarence Goller, who taught school for several years, has also been active in Farm Bureau, was postmaster of Ney, and was, for some time, with the Ohio State Extension Department at a s a Farmer's Institute speaker.
Although Mr. Clarence Goller is but a second cousin of Dr. Willis V. Goller and the late Attorney, Mirl Goller, the families have maintained a close relationship, for Mrs. Mirl Goller is the former Rose Fieldner and Mrs. Clarence Goller's sister.
Henry Goller has lived to see many changes other than then that of 'Georgetown' to Ney, and he hopes to see more. Like his 1930 Ford, he has kept himself ready for what lies ahead.
Born on the Chickasaw Road, attending the Chickasaw School, and later a member of the Chickasaw threshing ring, Mr. Goller lives in the environs of early Indian camping grounds. His home, even today, is in an interesting panorama of ravines and rolling slopes. It is an ideal setting for the continued action of living and for quiet retirement. Here, for 94 years, Henry Goller has observed the passing world."
The Defiance Crescent-News, March 24, 1960
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