Amon E Kelble

1860s

Born in Xenia, Ohio, the American-born son of the immigrant stonemason Amon Kelble and Louisa Gastiger. The records give his birth year variously as 1865, 1867 and 1868.

1880s

A newsboy for the Xenia Gazette as a child. In 1885–86 he took a job with the Adams Express Company, which sent him to Springfield, Ohio, and Richmond, Indiana.

1890s

Married Sarah Rowan at St. Brigid's Church, Xenia, on 20 October 1891, with George Birch as best man. Their son Francis Rowan Kelble was born in 1892.

1900s–1930s

Remained in Xenia at 129 South West Street. Died there on 12 August 1935.

A Xenia Boyhood

Amon E. Kelble was born in Xenia, Ohio — the records disagree on whether it was 1865, 1867, or 1868 — the son of the immigrant stonemason Amon Kelble and Louisa Gastiger. As a boy he carried papers for the Xenia Gazette and, by February 1881, was making the honor roll for perfect attendance in the fourth or fifth grade at the North Building of the Xenia public schools, under his teacher Jessie Brown.

On the Road with Traveling Shows

Amon's working life began conventionally enough — a stint with the Adams Express Company sent him to Springfield, Ohio in 1885 and then to the company's depot in Richmond, Indiana in 1886 — but he was soon drawn toward the theater. In December 1885 he managed a small touring variety troupe that played Mitchell & Irvin's hall in Cedarville, charging fifteen to twenty-five cents admission for an evening of comedy sketches, song and dance, and an Irish-comedy turn. In September 1888 he left Xenia for his “first real job in theater,” as doorkeeper for the Nellie Free Company, which toured Ohio opera houses with the musical comedy “Silver Spur.” The tour did not last: by December the company had collapsed into bankruptcy and its star had fallen ill, and Amon returned home from Portsmouth, Ohio in time for Christmas. The following January he tried his hand at running his own outfit, the Star Specialty Company, whose debut at the new Spring Valley opera house drew praise from the local paper as “one of the strongest companies that has appeared in our opera house this season.”

Manager of the Xenia Opera House

From August 1891 to April 1899, in partnership first as Good & Kelble and later as McClellan & Kelble, Amon helped manage and book acts for the Xenia Opera House at the northeast corner of Detroit and Market Streets — one of the more colorful chapters in the family's history. Over those years the partnership brought in minstrel shows, vaudeville duos, comic operas, and melodrama, including Al G. Field's Minstrels, the Sam T. Jack Creole Company, a staging of Gilbert and Sullivan's “The Gondoliers” (cancelled at the last minute when several cast members fell ill), and a production of “New York Day By Day” whose advertised stage effects included a burning canal boat and a simulated blizzard on the Harlem Bridge. In 1895 he and a partner petitioned the Xenia city council for permission to bring a horse on stage; the council declined to take up the matter.

Printer, Editor, and Local Politician

Amon's steadiest trade turned out to be the print shop. He worked at various points as a printer and assistant foreman at the Xenia Gazette, and in February 1908 became proprietor and editor of the Twin City Vidette in Spring Valley, rescuing the paper from an announced shutdown. He also tried his hand at elected office, running unsuccessfully for Assessor of Xenia's Second Ward on the Democratic ticket in 1903, and was later chosen by his party as an election judge (1908) and Democratic clerk (1907 and again in 1914) for the same ward. In between he worked driving an oil wagon for Standard Oil, managed the Xenia Amusement Company for a period in the mid-1910s, spent a season laboring for a Baltimore construction company (1909–10), and by the 1920s had returned to the printing trade for good, working for the Xenia Gazette & Republican through 1931 and belonging to the Dayton Printers Union. He retired a few years before his death.

Family Life and Final Years

Amon married Sarah Rowan at St. Brigid's Church in Xenia on October 20, 1891, and the couple raised their family there, including sons Francis and John, whose growing households in Columbus and Philadelphia became the center of Amon and Sarah's social calendar in later years — frequent visits back and forth, family Christmases and Easters, and summers when the grandchildren came to stay in Xenia. Amon had a taste for the eccentric gesture: in 1910, while working away from home in Baltimore, he twice sent the Xenia police chief word that he would bring him a pet monkey, and made good on it in July, presenting the chief with a sixteen-month-old South African monkey on a visit home.

His later years brought a bitter estate dispute: in 1909 his brother Andrew sued him over their share of their late parents' property, a case that went to the Circuit Court before being decided in Andrew's favor. Amon suffered a slight stroke in October 1934 and spent his final months in declining health, confined to his home on South West Street, where he died on August 12, 1935.