I’m excited.
My bride of 28 years, Cynthia, is excited.
We were informed last Memorial Day weekend that the Stork is scheduled to make us grandparents!
My daughter Kacey and her husband Jason are expecting their first child on or about January 26, 2022.
It’s interesting how the mind responds to such news. Not only the anticipation of a baby (boy) bundle of joy but pause to reflect on the years I spent with my own grandparents.
Let me share their story with you. Staring today, with my Dad’s dad, Henry Horn.
Grandpa Horn was born in Darlin, Russia, on January 29, 1904. He immigrated to the United States in 1912 at the age of eight and lived in Wisconsin before establishing roots in Lincoln. His formal education ended after completing the eighth grade. His grandfather told him he had received enough schooling, and it was time to support his family. Henry was one of Lincoln’s many Germans from Russia who migrated to western Nebraska each spring to work in the sugar beet fields. He usually stayed until the trees were bare of leaves.
Family records do not reveal who Henry’s father was. His mother, whose last name was Horn, got pregnant with Henry while living in Russia, but she never married. So, the Horn name originates from Henry’s mother and her father. That is as far back as my father’s parents ever cared to share about the history of the Horn family tree.
Grandpa was hired by the University of Nebraska in 1919, and at the age of 15 began a 50-year career working in the school’s power plant. World War I had ended a year earlier, and the 1919 Cornhusker football team, coached by Henry Schulte, won 3, lost 3, and tied 2 during Grandpa’s first year as a University employee. During my grandfather’s first four years as an UNL employee, the Cornhuskers played its football games at Nebraska Field, located south of the current football stadium. Grandpa retired on February 1, 1969, three days after celebrating his 65th birthday. One of his duties was operating a crane that unloaded coal used to heat the campus buildings. Grandpa could have been mistaken as a human mole; he knew how to reach every building on campus from beneath the ground. For years he navigated the tunnels under the campus, which housed miles of pipe used to transport steam heat to hundreds of classrooms. Grandpa saw first-hand construction of Memorial Stadium in 1923, the NU Coliseum in 1925-26, and the State Capitol building, which was completed in 1932. During the summer months of the 1920s, when work was slow at the University power plant, he labored with construction crews on the capitol building.
My grandfather and my grandmother resided in the Lincoln “North Bottoms.” It was, and still is, a section of the Capitol City that stretches from Interstate 180 on the west to the Nebraska State Fairgrounds on the east, and the Burlington Northern railroad tracks on the north edge of the University Campus northward to Salt Creek. The large neighborhood mostly housed German immigrants from Russia. The Nebraska State Historical Society erected a historical marker near 10th and Charleston Streets, commemorating the people who settled near the banks of Salt Creek.
My grandparents made 1052 ‘Y’ Street their home for 46 years. Located two blocks due north of Memorial Stadium, only railroad tracks and Avery Avenue separated my grandparents’ home from the UNL Campus. Henry would have had a clear view of the football field from his front porch, had Schulte Fieldhouse had never been built. Construction of Schulte Fieldhouse began in 1941 but was interrupted by World War II. In a special October 21, 1973, Lincoln Journal-Star edition commemorating the 50th anniversary of Memorial Stadium, the paper reported, “When bombs fell on England, work is suspended on the fieldhouse — named for retired football and track coach Henry F. “Pa” Schulte — at the north end of the stadium. Steel for the fieldhouse is diverted to make ships, tanks, guns, and shells to be used by the young men who are in military uniforms instead of football uniforms.” Schulte Fieldhouse was completed in 1946. It was razed in 2006.
Grandpa bought his house at 1052 Y Street in 1943 for $3,000 from his brother, Jake. To finance his home purchase, Henry borrowed $1,000, and his mortgage was paid off in a year. Henry even quit dipping snuff until the loan was paid. He and Grandma lived at that address until poor health forced them to move into a nursing home just north of the state fairgrounds near 14th and Adams Street in 1989.
Henry’s house faced south toward Memorial Stadium, and I remember watching the construction of the north stadium expansion projects from his front porch in 1965 and 1966. As a young child, I loved to sit in his porch swing and watch the trains roll by, and I took pride in alerting my grandparents as to whether the train was of passenger or freight variety. Grandpa’s porch also provided an unobstructed view of the State Capitol building until the University completed construction of Oldfather Hall in 1968. There were no houses on the south side of the 1000 block of Y Street, only a vacant lot. Henry’s home sat near the intersection of 11th and Y. However, 11th Street only stretched from Y Street south one-half block to the railroad tracks. A wood cutting mill was situated on the east side of 11th Street, and the sound of electric saws cutting wood frequently drifted through the neighborhood. Since the railroad tracks were less than a block to the south, it wasn’t unusual to hear dozens of trains roll by during all hours of the day and night, causing the front windows of Grandpa’s house to vibrate.
Henry appreciated my love of Nebraska football. He saved for me several newspaper articles written about the Cornhuskers and escorted me to Memorial Stadium when I was too young to venture there alone. I especially enjoyed listening to him verbalize his memories of Nebraska football in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s — and how the University was so desperate for football players during the war years that influential football boosters would threaten to get a potential athlete’s father fired from his job if the son didn’t agree to play for Dear Old Nebraska U.
Like many people who survived The Great Depression, Henry, who died in March 1991 at the age of 87, was very frugal. Grandpa did not take elaborate trips or purchase expensive items. He usually only took his blue 1956 Ford Mainline out of his one-car, unattached garage to the grocery store or to visit family.
Henry walked to work every day and made the ten-block walk to the city building once a month to pay his light and water bill. Grandpa also hoofed it to church, located a few blocks to the west of his house. Henry kept his money out of banks until very late in life, which cost him dearly. Around 1985, a man entered Grandpa’s basement through an unlocked back door while another man distracted Grandpa at the front door. The bandits made off with several thousand dollars cash and some rare gold coins, which the police never recovered. While it didn’t seem to bother my grandfather, it crushed my father. Dad often said that his father didn’t save money, but that Grandpa collected it. On that fateful day, Grandpa lost his collection.
Grandpa Henry Horn had a great sense of humor. Grandpa loved to laugh at his own jokes and repeat stories he found amusing. I can only remember him getting mad at me once. I was pestering him about letting me play with a shot put he had given my older brother, and Grandpa scolded me for being such a nuisance. Any other time my father’s parents needed to discipline me, it fell in the lap of Grandma Horn.
Next week, I will tell you about this very colorful lady.