George H. Kattman

George H. Kattman, Another Former Teacher Of New Knoxville, Remembers With Pride Establishing First N. K. High School in 1908

“There must be a lot of former school teachers in New Knoxville. About every one that we’ve been reading about seems to have been a school teacher at one time or another,” said a reader of The Evening Leader who informed us that she is clipping and filing every one of these Living Biographies. “Yes, there are,” we responded “and this week you will be reading about still another.” This week it is the congenial and well-known George H. Kattman, who established the New Knoxville High School back in 1908, who counts his former pupils by the hundreds and who today cuts the hair on the heads into which he formerly did or did not succeed in instilling knowledge. And many are the thoughts that go through Mr. Kattman’s mind as he cuts the hair of this one or that one who was formerly a pupil of his. Some of his school day problem children surprised everybody, settled down, learned a business or trade and profession and are wonderful family men and women. And sometimes those apparently most promising continued to be merely promising, and never did deliver. Sometimes the most brilliant and highly endowed in the class fell by the wayside in life’s struggle, while the conscientious plodder who knew what and where he was headed for, frequently surprised everybody, including himself, by the heights to which he climbed. And sometimes it was the socially unpopular member of the class who was stung into diligence by the very fact of his non-popularity, whereas the popular ones oft times married early and so were prevented from ever reaching the goal that they had set for themselves educationally.

Born in New Knoxville in 1873, Mr. Kattman has lived there all his life and likes his home town. His father had a blacksmith shop and his earliest recollections include his father’s grind stone which as a lad he had to turn by the weary hour. While farmer lads had to follow the corn plow, he had to turn the grind stone, and although Longfellow romanticized about the “Village smithy,” young George failed to see any romance or poetry connected with it. “One day my father was making a set of steel tires for Mr. Columbus Schnelle’s wagon wheels. After he had hammered and pounded the first tire into shape he heated it again and set it aside to cool, saying, “Now don’t touch that.” But I had to experiment and felt the hot tire with my bare foot. I got a severe burn, howled like the mischief, and my father lifted me up and put my burned foot into the water of the cooling tank. After that I paid more attention to father’s warnings! Mr. Schnelle felt so sorry for me he gave a little ax which helped wonderfully to sooth the burn and dry my tears,” Mr. Kattman related.

He attended school in the one room frame school house which is today the John Bielefeld residence, with his uncle, the Late E. L. Kattman as the teacher. “But instead of being his pet, he believed in making me toe the mark more rigorously than the rest. One day we had a spelling bee and someone upset a bottle of ink on one of the older pupil’s composition books. I didn’t do it but I was accused of it. The owner of the composition book threatened to “tell teacher” at recess. I was so frightened, I hid back of the wood pile. Someone told my uncle where I was. Uncle Louie reached over the wood pile with his cow-hide and I came out in a hurry. More frightened than ever, I ran home. I told my mother I was sick. Mother had me go to bed, felt sorry for me, even noticed that I was shaking. But she didn’t feel sorry for me long. Uncle Louie came to the house after school and told mother what had happened. So I got a licking anyhow. I was in the first grade then but I have never forgotten it. Later the school was moved. In those days we had no report cards and no graduation. They would have 5 weeks of German in the fall and 5 more weeks of it in the spring, and in between that we had 6 months of English school. But we weren’t forced to go and some wouldn’t. But we had a lot of fun through it all and sometimes we got into mischief.”

At the age of 15 or 16 he started attending St. Marys High School. When asked what kind of courses he wanted to take he said “I want to be able to teach school.” He was then given advanced versions of the public school subjects then being taught in the elementary grades. During these 3 years at St. Marys High School he began attending in the fall when the weather turned blustery and quit attending when the weather became balmy in the spring. After the third year of this he passed the teacher’s examination and that was the end of his formal schooling. His first teaching position was a 7 week term at the Lutterbeck school 2 miles north of New Knoxville, after which he taught there 3 consecutive years. Thereafter he taught 2 years at the Holtkamp School South of New Knoxville and 1-1/2 years at the Poppe School, after which he was invited to teach the intermediate department of the New Knoxville Village School which at that time consisted of the 4, 5, and 6 grades, and thereafter the Grammar Department which consisted of grades 7 and 8. He considers the year 1908 the banner year of his life since it was the year in which he was privileged to establish the New Knoxville High School. It was a 3rd grade school to begin with, which meant that it offered only a 2 year course. The first graduation took place in 1910 with the following graduates: Mrs. Caroline (Meckstroth) Holtkamp, Mrs. Bertha (Cook) Wellman, Mrs Marianna (Wellman) Mayer, Mrs. Bertha (Duhme) Prueter, Noah Katterheinrich, William A. Stork, Rev. J. O. H. Meyer, Elmer Kruse, Gustave Schroer and Benjamin Feldwisch. So pleased were the New Knoxville residents with the fact that they now had a high school in their midst that a third year was immediately added, making it a second grade school. It continued thus until it was made into a first class, four year high school, in 1920. Mr. Kattman taught in New Knoxville until 1911, after which he taught 1 year at Montezuma and 2 years at Buckland, returning as principal of the New Knoxville school in 1914. He ended his public school teaching career in 1916.</.p>

In 1890, at the age of 17, he bought a barber shop which was located in the residence of a Mrs. Meckstroth, which house is today owned by Arthur Wellman. The purchase price was $20 and he didn’t have 20 cents to his name. But his reputation for trustworthiness and diligence was such that his note for $20 was accepted even though he was a minor, and he promptly began paying it off out of his tonsorial income. The cancelled note is among his treasured souvenirs. While attending high school as well as while teaching, he operated his barber shop on Saturdays, on Wednesday nights and during the summer vacation periods. After he began teaching in the New Knoxville High School he sold his barber shop. When he retired from teaching in 1916 he built his present shop on Bremen street where he has continued his business ever since. His shop is a meeting place for the village sages and wits who there settle the problems of this unsettled world. Andrew Kay was happy to hug his efficient heating stove on the blustery day on which he stopped there and waited till Mr. Kattman’s last customer had had his wants attended to.

Community matters took up much of his leisure during his teaching years. He was census enumerator in 1901, village clerk for 4 years, clerk of the board of public affairs 4 years, a deacon in his church, Sunday School superintendent, Sunday School teacher for approximately 50 years and the first teacher of what today is the large Adult Bible Class of the Reformed church there. Of his long Sunday School teaching career he said, “There was a time when I was disgusted, feeling that I wasn’t accomplishing anything. Then one Christmas eve while the Children’s Festival was being held, I was so touched and moved by the children and spirit of Christmas that I went back into teaching again and have continued ever since.”

Among the important achievements of his life is the compilation of the history of New Knoxville. Although he had quietly worked on this as much as 25 years earlier, the work was brought to a most successful completion in time for the centennial celebration in 1936. Seldom have we seen a more thorough and painstaking job of historical research than that which went into this volume. Having been a news correspondent for The Evening Leader for many years and also for the Dayton Journal, his Centennial History reads like a newspaper story. Included therein is the family history of the founder of New Knoxville, Mr. James K. Lytle, whose recorded ancestry dates back to 1730 when his grandfather was born in North Ireland, coming to this country in 1760. New Knoxville thus has the distinction of being founded by an Irishman. Included, likewise, are transcriptions of the original instrument of incorporation and of numerous transactions and legal documents, the first of them under the date of June 30, 1836. I presume that pictures of every business establishment and public building of which a picture is extant is embodied in this 105 page history, together with a history of them, as well as detailed accounts of the various epidemics that played havoc with the population from the Cholera Epidemic in 1849 to the Influenza epidemic in 1918, a record of accidental deaths in the community, unusual occurrences, as well as a detailed map giving the location, size and owner of every lot in the village. Mr. Kattman’s only regret is that more copies were not printed. “Every year 5 or 10 people come requesting to buy a copy.”

On May 16,1895, he married Elizabeth A. Sunderman to whom he was first introduced by the late Theodore Clausing. Their daughter, Mary (Mrs. L. D. Shoemaker) lives at Cleveland, Ohio; Milton at St. Marys; Alfred, at Wapakonetaa; Abner and Ernest at New Knoxville. He looks forward to celebrating his 76th birthday on Dec. 20.