Amon E Kelble

1860s–1870s

Born in Xenia, Ohio (records give 1865, 1867, and 1868), the son of the immigrant stonemason Amon Kelble and Louisa Gastiger, the eldest of six children.

1880s

A Gazette carrier boy, then an Adams Express Company clerk in Springfield and Richmond, Indiana. Managed a small variety troupe in 1885 and toured Ohio as doorkeeper for the Nellie Free Company in 1888.

1890s

Managed the Star Specialty Company in 1890. Married Sarah Rowan on 20 October 1891 and co-managed the Xenia Opera House from 1891 to 1899. Children Francis (1892), Mary Louise (1896), and John (1898) were born.

1900s–1910s

Worked as a printer, Standard Oil wagon driver, newspaper editor, construction worker in Baltimore, theater manager, and plumber, living on South West Street and active in Democratic ward politics.

1920s–1930s

A printer for the Xenia Gazette & Republican until 1931, with frequent visits from his sons' families. Widowed in 1927. Died at home 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 American-born son of the immigrant stonemason Amon Kelble and Louisa Gastiger. He was the eldest of six children: Henry, Andrew, Robert ("Nobe"), and Lena followed, and a baby brother, Harry, died of diphtheria in 1880. As a boy Amon carried papers for the Xenia Gazette, and in February 1881 he made the honor roll for perfect attendance in the North Building of the Xenia public schools, under his teacher Jessie Brown.

Express Clerk and Showman

In March 1885 Amon took a job with the Adams Express Company, which sent him to Springfield that September and to its depot in Richmond, Indiana, in August 1886. But the theater pulled at him. On December 26, 1885, he managed a small variety troupe that played Mitchell & Irvin's hall in Cedarville, charging fifteen to twenty-five cents for an evening of comedy sketches, song and dance, a dude impersonation, and an Irish comedian. In September 1888 he left Xenia as doorkeeper for the Nellie Free Company, which toured Ohio opera houses with the musical comedy "Silver Spur." By December the company had gone bankrupt, its star had fallen ill and been taken home by her family, and Amon came home from Portsmouth in time for Christmas.

In January 1890, while working at a slaughterhouse (where he cut his hand and got a nasty infection), he managed the Star Specialty Company, a Xenia troupe whose debut at the new opera house in Spring Valley the local paper called "one of the strongest companies that has appeared in our opera house this season." That April he and a friend were thrown from a buggy on South Detroit Street when their horse took fright at a tricycle, and that July he found a lost two-year-old near West Main Street and took him to the police station.

The Xenia Opera House

From August 1891 to April 1899 Amon helped manage and book the Xenia Opera House, at the northeast corner of Detroit and Market Streets, in partnership first as Good & Kelble and later as McClellan & Kelble. They brought in Al G. Field's Minstrels, Sam T. Jack's Creole Company, "Peck's Bad Boy," Bartley Campbell's "The White Slave" with a rainstorm of real water, the vaudeville comedians Murray & Mack, and "New York Day By Day," whose advertised effects included a burning canal boat and the Harlem Bridge in a blizzard. A production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Gondoliers" was cancelled on the day of the show when several of the cast fell ill. In 1892 the partners bought a large stock of new scenery, and one visiting company manager called them the most cordial he had ever worked with. In 1895 Amon and a partner asked the city council for permission to bring a horse on stage; the council would not take up the question.

Meanwhile, on October 20, 1891, he married Sarah Rowan at St. Brigid's Church, with George Birch as best man, and they set up house in a cottage on Spring Hill. Their son Francis was born in December 1892, Mary Louise in 1896, and John in 1898. Amon was sergeant-at-arms of the Knights of St. John and in 1902 helped run the lemonade stand at the St. Brigid's lawn fete.

A Man of Many Trades

After the opera house years Amon worked at whatever came to hand. He was back with Adams Express in 1900, in Xenia and then Columbus, and worked for the Republican until 1903, when he started driving an oil wagon for Standard Oil; in 1906 his horses bolted and threw him from the wagon, unhurt, though the oil was lost. He was a printer and assistant foreman at the Gazette, and in February 1908 he became proprietor and editor of the Twin City Vidette in Spring Valley, which had announced it was about to stop publishing. From the fall of 1909 into 1910 he worked for the Columbus Construction Company in Baltimore, and that March he sent Xenia's police chief a card promising him a baby monkey. He made good in July, presenting the chief with a sixteen-month-old South African monkey on a visit home.

In the 1910s he managed the Xenia Amusement Company, bringing "Within the Law" to the opera house in 1914 and organizing a local-talent vaudeville show for the Social Service League in 1915; drove for the Xenia Oil Company; test-drove Fords in Columbus for a Xenia dealer; and in 1917 worked for a Lima plumbing contractor, dropping a radiator on his finger on a job at Wilberforce. He ran for ward assessor on the Democratic ticket in 1903 and served his party as a ward election clerk in 1907 and 1914 and an election judge in 1908. In 1909 he was sued twice over his late mother's estate, once by the woman who had nursed her and once by his brother Andrew. That same year his brother Nobe died at the Dayton State Hospital.

The Printer's Last Years

By the 1920s Amon had settled back into printing, at the Eckerle Printing Company and then, from 1922 to 1931, at the Xenia Gazette & Republican, where he was an advertising compositor, and he belonged to the Dayton Printers Union. From about 1901 he and Sarah lived on South West Street, and their home was the hub of the family. Francis's family visited often from Columbus, John's came from Dayton, and there were Easter and Christmas gatherings for both households. Francis's boys spent summer vacations with their grandparents, and in 1920 Amon spent several weeks with Francis's family in Philadelphia.

Sarah died in November 1927, and by 1930 Amon's daughter Mary and her husband, Fred Norckauer, were living in the house with him. He retired a few years before his death. In October 1934 he had a slight stroke, and he spent his last months in failing health, confined to the house on South West Street, where he died on August 12, 1935. He was buried at St. Brigid's Cemetery in Xenia.