Memories of Henry S. Hallman by his grandchildren.
Memories of Henry S. Hallman by his grandchildren.
To the eyes of a seven year old, Grandpa Hallman was a forbidding figure. All the grandchildren were more or less in awe of him. He had a no-nonsense attitude about him and if you were told to do something, you did it, pronto! He was kind but brusque, quick in his movements and a bit impatient if things were not done to his satisfaction.
At family dinners, especially when relatives came from out-of-town, the dining room table would be pulled out and three or four leaves put in to accommodate twelve people. Napkin rings of silver with large linen napkins were placed at each setting. I shudder to think of the washing and ironing Grandma had in those days.
Grandpa always sat at the head of the table and after "grace" was said, he would take his napkin out of the holder and tuck it in his collar making sure it covered most of his chest and stomach. He ate with gusto and finished long before any of us. Then at the end of the meal he opened his Bible and we had Family Worship. Most of the grandchildren wished he did that as fast as he ate, but no such luck. Finally, we knelt by our chairs for prayer, many of us getting a whack from our parents for pinching or pulling another child under the table.
While the table was cleared and dishes being done, Grandpa would go up to his Study to work on his sermons. No child was permitted to enter the Study while he was working unless Grandma sent us up with a message. He would then give us permission to enter and depending upon what mood he was in, a candy would be given the messenger.
I wouldn't go so far as to say Grandpa was a fire and brimstone preacher, but we didn't sleep through his sermons. To make a point, he would bang his fist down on the pulpit making an unsuspecting dozer jump and stay awake for the rest of the sermon.
My sister, Theo, who was 13 or 14, and I would go to their home once a week to help Grandma with a few chores. Theo received twenty-five cents and I was given five cents. In those days five cents bought a good sized bag of candy which kept me occupied most of the weekend. I can't remember what Theo spent her fortune on, but with the allowance mother gave us we went to the show every Saturday, which was the highlight of the week.
The day we did the chores, Grandma had us stay for supper and Theo and I would always fight about which one of us would ring the "Gong" to let Grandpa in his Study know that supper was ready. We were never allowed to ring it any other time. The gong was given to them by a missionary and they kept it in the dining room china cabinet.
Grandpa gave us each a dollar if we read a chapter of the Bible every day. I can't remember if I completed that chore-and chore it was, because I couldn't pronounce half of the words and didn't understand what I read.
For many years Grandpa wore a beard, giving him a distinguished appearance.
I am not certain at what age he shaved off the beard but think he was in his late fifties or early sixties. The hearsay was that one day, while putting coals in the furnace, a spark flew out the furnace door, singeing his beard. This incident caused the disappearance of his beard.
A favorite food of Grandpa's was Schmierkase, which is known now as cottage cheese., but it was much drier in texture. Grandma made it from scratch and it is still made the same way by the Old Mennonite Colony in Waterloo County (Ontario, Canada). Grandpa would eat this as a dessert with maple syrup.
When Grandpa had his stroke and died in 1932, his casket was placed in the bay window of their living room until the day of the funeral, when he was taken to Kitchener (Ontario) as the service was held at Bethany Mennonite Church. Uncle Howard, Grandpa's youngest son, who was thirty-one, came up to Toronto to help with funeral arrangements. He stayed until after the funeral. We had out-of-town relatives who stayed overnight so Uncle Howard had to sleep on a small cot in an alcove under the stairs next to the living room. We grandchildren thought he was brave to sleep so close to the room where Grandpa lay in his casket.
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What I remember most is where they (Henry S. and Maria Hallman) lived. When we lived on Samuel Street in Kitchener about 1924, Grandpa and Grandma moved from Brantford, where he was preaching, first to Cameron Street but soon to Dundas Street in Toronto. They had a big house so we sold our house and moved in with them in Toronto. Uncle Abner and Aunt Oda came east (from Saskatchewan) with Milton and Wilbur (Hallman) and lived in an apartment near us.
Later, after Uncle Abner's family moved back out west, when Grandpa and Grandma were living on Euclid Street they rented rooms out to Bible Students. We had a store, which mother started as a stationery store. We lived upstairs. Mother was to enlarge our store but before we opened, Grandpa Hallman got going on a food snack called "Puffles", and made them in the store window. People watched him making them. They were way before their time as I saw some on television not long ago, under another name. People came in to buy them and Wilda and I sold bags of them door-to-door.
Grandpa was operating Gospel Text Calendar print shop the same time. Grandpa also preached at the Christie Street Tabernacle.
After the 1929 crash, business gradually got worse, in 1932 my father's business went bankrupt. We moved to Swansea. I was working that summer for Grandpa Hallman in his office on Bay Street stuffing envelopes for Gospel Text Calendars. One day Grandpa came back from lunch, and said he had fallen on the street, but told me not to mention it to anyone. It might have been a small stroke, as in August, he had a stroke and then died a week or so after.
Milton remembers Grandpa Hallman.
Grandpa was a born salesman, and he tried to make a salesman out of me, which turned out to be a total failure, since I was definitely not salesman material.Grandpa made rubber bands out of inner tubes discarded from tire manufacturers. He had a network of salted peanut outlets for peanuts which he roasted (or rather cooked in boiling oil), and packaged. He also manufactured a "Jiffy Soap Powder", and distributed it to retailers throughout Ontario. Another enterprise was "Stop Boil-Over" gadgets. He had his grandchildren sell doughnuts door-to-door. (That's where I failed him, I couldn't knock on doors to sell doughnuts!) However, I could, and did, deliver peanuts to all the outlets in Toronto, and kept the little stands filled-I think on Saturdays. This is how I learned to know and get around Toronto.
Grandpa was a great preacher. He took on a church in New York at one time, which was in trouble, and in a few years put them back on their feet.
We rented the upstairs rooms of Grandpa's house on Euclid Avenue for part of our time before returning West where Dad could find work teaching.
