Norma Zistel’s Diploma

Miss Norma Zistel graduated from Sandusky High School on June 19, 1902.  At that time the superintendent of Sandusky City Schools was H.B. Williams, and the High School principal was H.N. Morton. William Graefe was the president of the School Board, with Charles Kubach serving as secretary.

Norma Zistel was the daughter of Oscar Zistel, and the granddaughter of Louis Zistel, an early German immigrant to Sandusky. In the summer of 1938, Norma won $2,500 in a contest sponsored by Oldsmobile. (About $45,000 in today's money.) Her essay “Why I Like Oldsmobile’s Safety Transmission” won first place in the contest. Throughout most of her adult life, Norma worked at the American Crayon Company, where she served as the advertising manager. In her leisure hours, Norma was active with the Art Study Club. In the picture below, Norma Zistel is the person on the right. She and other members of the Art Study Club were dressed in historic costumes.

Norma Zistel died in July of 1966. She was buried in Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery.

Jessica Follett Foster

Jessica Follett Foster was born in 1869 in Sandusky, Ohio to Frank E. Foster and his wife, the former Eliza Ward Follett. Jessica’s father and her maternal grandfather, Oran Follett, were the publishers of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. While living in DeKalb, Illinois, Jessica taught at the Northern Illinois State Teachers College for seventeen years. She was a member of the Martha Pitkin Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, tracing her ancestry back to Revolutionary soldier Frederick Follett. Jessica’s lineage is found in volume 35 of the Daughters of the American Revolution Lineage Book.

From about 1923 to 1934, Miss Foster resided on Wayne Street in Sandusky, and during that time worked as an agent for the New York Life Insurance Company. This advertisement appeared in the January 19, 1924 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal.

In Sandusky, Jessica was a member of the Art Study Club, pictured below at an event in which all the members dressed in historic costume.

In the Centennial issue of the Sandusky Register, on December 22, 1922, she shared excerpts from her grandfather Oran Follett’s meeting with President Abraham Lincoln in October of 1862 (available on microfilm at the Sandusky Archives Research Center).  

In the 1930s, Jessica Follett Foster moved to Los Angeles. She resided there until her death on April 30, 1960. Miss Foster was buried in the family lot at Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. 

In the collections of the Follett House Museum is a chair which once belonged to her grandparents, Oran and Eliza Follett, and was a favorite of her mother when she was a child.

A Recent Addition to the Library's Collections: Records of the Art Study Club

The Art Study Club has operated in Sandusky for over one hundred years, serving as a source for women to share their interest and knowledge of art with other members, and with the community at large. It was founded in 1901 by ten women who wanted an organization that supported “the study and discussion of art and the promotion of good fellowship among its members.” In the past century, members have shared their love of art through lectures, group discussions, tours, and public exhibitions in various community locations, including the Masonic Temple and the Follett House. The club is still active today.

Recently, the Art Study Club donated its historical records to the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center, where they are available for public research. Included in these records are meeting minutes, club yearbooks, photographs, and ephemera describing events of the club. These records provide a view of social activities of women in Sandusky, and offer us a glimpse of the evolution of American culture in the twentieth century. We are grateful to the Art Study Club and its president Rhonda Watt for their generous contribution to the archives of our community.

If your community organization has historical materials to be preserved, please consider the Sandusky Library.

Mr. and Mrs. John H. Hudson

An entry from Ohio Biographical Sketches, 1876 (available online through Ancestry Library Edition) states that John H. Hudson was born on July 5, 1824 in Auburn, New York to Emmanuel and Margaret (Boyd) Hudson. He was associated with the Buffalo and Erie Railroad, and the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad, before accepting positions with the United States Treasury Department during the Civil War.

John H. Hudson married Louisa Clark in 1844 in New York state. Their son Henry F. Hudson was born on February 29, 1852. Louisa died quite young, leaving John a widower with a young son. In October of 1852, John Hudson married Elizabeth A. Orton, the daughter of Rev. Samuel and Clarissa Gregory Orton. In 1869, John and Elizabeth Hudson were living in Sandusky, Ohio, where John was a grain dealer.

In 1873 John H. Hudson was elected to the State Senate of Ohio. He was re-elected in 1875, defeating a local newspaper man, I. F. Mack. Charles E. Frohman wrote in his book about I. F. Mack, Sandusky's Editor, that Mack did not take losing the election to Mr. Hudson very gracefully. He wrote his reflections about the election in a newspaper column on October 27, 1875 stating that the Republicans who voted for John H. Hudson “would have voted for the devil, Jeff Davis, or a Jesuit priest, just as cheerfully.”

Elizabeth A. Orton was born on June 16, 1827. In a genealogical book about the Orton family, An Account of the Descendants of Thomas Orton of Windsor, Connecticut, 1641, the writer describes Elizabeth: “She is a lady of unusual intellectual activity and force and does not allow the burden of years to weigh down her vivacity or depress her ambition.” After the death of Mr. Hudson in 1893, Elizabeth Hudson was left in difficult economic circumstances. (Mr. Hudson had suffered financial losses in the 1890’s.) To support herself, she painted watercolor paintings, gave art lessons, and rented out rooms. It is believed that Mrs. Hudson was a mentor to artists Emma Matern, Charles F. Shuck, Elizabeth Nourse, and Charles Courtney Curran.

Following Mrs. Hudson’s death on November 27, 1911, the Art Study Club of Sandusky adopted a resolution which was printed in the December 2, 1911 Sandusky Register. It read in part, “Resolved, That as a loving tribute to her memory we, the members of the club of which she was a most honored and worthy one, always contributing to its upbuilding by her interest, enthusiasm and thorough knowledge of the subject of art was ever a source of inspiration to the members. We express our deep regret over her removal from our midst where she was found worthy of our highest esteem.”

Mr. and Mrs. John H. Hudson are buried in Block 56 of Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. In the photograph below, Mrs. Hudson can be seen gazing at a portrait of Mr. Hudson at their home on 318 Huron Avenue in Sandusky.

The brother of Elizabeth Orton Hudson was Edward Orton, Sr., who was the first president of the Ohio State University, and served as the state geologist of Ohio for many years.

Clubs and Organizations in Erie County

For better or worse, social clubs and community organizations are not as popular as they once were. With the advent of movies, television, the Internet, the automobile, and many other developments in technology and culture, clubs and organizations play a smaller role in the community than they did, say, in 1897, when the Daughters of the American Revolution, Martha Pitkin Chapter, was founded in Sandusky. (An excerpt from the D.A.R. secretary's book is shown above.) In the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century, the role of clubs and organizations in the community was dominant. For an analysis of this development in society, you might want to read Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone (in our library collection at 306.0973 PU) -- but don't take my world for it, since I haven't read the book yet.

It does seem clear, however, that studying the history of local clubs and organizations will help you understand the culture and society from which they come (or at least that portion of society represented by the members of that particular club). The Sandusky Library Archives Research Center holds records and documents from several local clubs and service organizations, including: the Daughters of the American Revolution, Martha Pitkin Chapter; the Erie County Federation of Women's Clubs, and the Sandusky Federation of Women's Clubs; the Art Study Club; the Men's Literary Club; the Sunyendeand Club; the Nineteenth Century Club; the Sandusky Concert Association; and others. Thanks to the help of our summer archives intern, we have new and updated finding aids describing many of these documents and collections, for those interested in researching this aspect of our history.

For those of you involved in a local organization or who owns the records of local clubs from the past, we encourage you to consider depositing those records with the Archives Research Center, to preserve these documents for future generations. We will be glad to explain how we will store and record your donation in the library as a record of our community. For more information, call (419-625-3834) or email the Archives Librarian.

The photo above is of a costume party given by the Art Study Club (probably circa 1920), where guests came dressed as famous literary characters. (From the Library's historic photo collection -- CLUB-047.)