Forefathers
 Johann
Hufnagel stood by his forge in 1835 and stared angrily out into the
summer afternoon. His business was in trouble. In trouble, not because
he was a poor blacksmith, but because of the Zollverein, which had
abolished the tariffs that had formerly protected his trade from
competition. Now, the neighboring farmers no longer came to him to make
their nails, hinges, or hay forks, but, instead, bought these things
ready made from peddlers. Johann's business was slowly dying. And then,
just the previous night, he had been at the village reading club, and
had heard the stories of a man newly returned from America. Stories of a
plentiful wilderness being peopled by German immigrants. John had been
at the meeting too, and, as they walked home in the darkness, his son
had spoken of emigrating to this wonderful sounding land called America.
Now, Johann stood in his quiet, familiar blacksmith shop and thought
what it would be like to move to America at his age, leaving a lifetime
of friends and work behind. No, he could never ask Katherina to leave
Schneppenbach. Still, he knew in his heart, and in his head, that John's
future was in America, and not here working as a laborer in overcrowded
Bavaria. Johann didn't know which fact ---- his having to stay or John's
having to go ---- made him angrier.
On a shining autumn afternoon in 1853, John Hufnagel paused for a moment
as he was harvesting his wheat. Looking down the hill towards his farm
house, he listened for the squall of his newborn son, Andrew. Then John
leaned on his scythe and fell to wondering what Andrew's life would be
like. John well remembered his own youth and his boarding a ship in
Rotterdam and getting off again in Baltimore. He remembered the years he
had spent at Lucinda Furnace making pig iron for shipment down river to
Pittsburgh. Most of all he remembered how he and his wife Catherine,
with much help from other German families, had carved this productive
and pleasantly situated farm out of the howling wilderness of Clarion
County, Pennsylvania. Then, John turned back to his work and began
humming. Andrew would be just fine. Anything was possible here in
America.
Early one morning in the year 1900, Andrew Hufnagel took down his gun
and walked to the Ginkle Farm. There he sat on a stump and awaited the
dawn. At first light he saw an antler buck in the distance. As the buck
ran across the field, he fired once, twice and a third time; and the
deer fell dead on the ground. Later, as Andrew used a rope to drag his
deer home through the snow, he stopped midway to catch his breath.
Leaning against an old oak tree, he was taken with the beauty of the
morning and fell to remembering other winter mornings. He remembered
churning butter in the spring house as a boy and how he had so hated the
cold. He remembered the welcome wintertime warmth of his blacksmith shop
in Marble. And then he smiled, recalling snowy mornings in lumber camps
where he had done the iron work, his wife, Lena, had done the cooking,
and their youngest son Henry had ran half wild through the camp getting
into all sorts of mischief. Andrew gave himself a shake, picked up the
rope, and again began dragging his deer homeward. He had already decided
to get its head mounted, and now he began inventing the tall tale that
he would tell of this morning ---- the morning he had shot his hat rack.
In June of 1945, Henry Hufnagel got a telephone call from Jeanne and Lee
in Buffalo announcing the birth of a son. On going up to the attic,
later, to look for baby things that might be of use to the new parents,
Henry noticed a framed advertisement from 1915 for the Citizens Trust
Company ---- "A Progressive Conservative Bank Whose Directors Direct Its
Affairs." He smiled at the old slogan and at his own name listed there
as Assistant Treasurer. That had been back when many believed him to be
a roughneck from the woods of Fryburg who would never make a good
banker. Now, at the age of 65, he was president of the bank in Clarion
and had long ago lived down his early reputation as a rowdy and a ladies
man. Reminiscing, Henry walked back downstairs to talk with Lizzy about
those early days, back when they were courting.
As Leon Hufnagel began removing the original windows from his house in
the Spring of 1994, he couldn't help but remember the day in 1948 when
they had first been installed. This was the first large house that he
had designed as an independent architect. When he built it, there had
been only two other houses on the street. Now the neighborhood was full
up, but still his home looked modern enough, with its greenhouse poking
out of the south side. Lee well remembered moving back to Clarion after
the war and the first night that he and Jeanne and the kids slept here
in the unpaved wilderness of Third Avenue. Now as Lee began working the
first window loose from its frame, he remembered other projects and how
he had used these to teach his sons to wield a hammer, cut straight with
a saw, and stick to a job until it was done. As the window came loose
into Lee's hands, there was his son, Hank, on the other side, joking
about how the windows were falling out of the old place, ready to help
his father with the current project, just like in the old days. |
 
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