John Q Callin was the second son of John and Amanda Callin. His father was a local Civil War hero, and his older brother was Byron Herbert, the colorful character we read about in “Prof’s Progeny.”
When John graduated from Bowling Green High School in May 1900, his commencement program says he gave an Oration titled Unnoticed Heroes, suggesting that he felt he had a lot to live up to, but also felt confident he was doing his best. Being five years younger than Byron, John was often overshadowed by his brother’s accomplishments. He was also six years older than Emma, their sister, born in 1885, and 11 years older than the youngest of their three younger brothers, Prentice, Welles, and Ray, and after Byron left home for his adventures, John would have been the “older brother” they looked up to.
A First Marriage
John Q. married Bertha Cramer in 1906, and their daughter, Yvonne, was born in May of 1907. They had two sons: John Norman, in 1912, and Robert (my grandpa Bob), in 1920. They stayed in Fostoria that whole time, presumably supported by John’s teaching. As far as our family knew, that was the whole story.
But five years before John married Bertha, he married Clara (Williams) Miller – a teacher from Dayton. With a common name like “John” one might be tempted to dismiss this as someone else’s record, but “John Q.” with parents J.H. Callin and Amanda Walker is a bit more precise:
Clara Myrtle Williams was born in 1872 and married William George Miller in 1890; they had two daughters, Mabel and Ima, and all appeared in New Haven, Huron County, Ohio, in 1900. Between that census, taken on 19 June 1900, and this marriage record dated in the summer months of 1901, it’s possible that John and Clara met during the 1900-1901 school term. I don’t have divorce records, so I don’t know whether Clara and George were already divorced, and I don’t know how long she and John were married.
What we do know is that by 1906, John was married to Bertha, and by 1910, Clara and Ima were living with Clara’s mother, Harriet. So we are left with several questions that will probably never be answered.
The First World War
After Congress passed the declaration that entered the U.S. into World War I in April 1917, 2.8 million men were drafted into the Army. John and Prentice seem to have enlisted (or at least registered for the draft), though it isn’t clear whether they were in the U.S. Army or an Ohio unit. John was registered for the draft in September 1918, living in Lorain, Ohio, where he sold insurance for Prudential; Prentice registered in 1917 as a farmer in Portage Township. They were a bit older than the average recruit – Prentice was 30, and John was 38. It doesn’t appear that they got far from home before hostilities ended in November 1918, which was surely welcome news to the rest of the family.
Moving Away, and Back…and Away
In 1920, John was still selling insurance with Prudential, but his older brother, Herbert (aka “Prof”), convinced him to take a job in upstate New York as a teacher. When John Q. and Bertha moved to Schenevus, New York (not far from Middlefield) around 1921, Bobby was about six months old. Yvonne was just entering high school at the time, and stayed in Ohio, where she lived with her grandparents, George and Alice Cramer; Norman probably went to New York with his parents.
John taught there for a few years before moving back to Ohio. The family seemed to be well-regarded by their community, but I suspect they were unhappy being separated from their family. John Q. and Bertha had moved back to Fostoria from New York by 1930, but they soon decided to move down to Florida, once again following Prof’s lead. John tried his hand at building resort cottages around the growing town of Orlando, and they lived out their days in Winter Park.
A Family Portrait
At some point, probably around the time John and Bertha returned to Ohio, they sat for this photo with Bertha’s family. My grandpa Bob is seated in the front, and Norman is on the right, wearing his necktie. John and Bertha appear to be standing on the left; George Cramer is wearing a bow tie and is seated left of Alice. Bertha’s half-sister, Mamie, and her husband, Harlan Richard, are behind Alice, but I don’t know whether Mamie is the lady in the dark dress with the white designs, or the younger lady wearing the dark scarf. The older boy kneeling with the dog on the left appears to be Harry Donald Hale (born 1904), so I would assume his parents, John Harrison Hale and Dora Brookman, are in this photo, too.
The Truth About Florida Man
I have a friend from Florida who often complains that when we see ridiculous news stories about “Florida Man,” the people behind the headlines are from other places. There may be something to this theory. My own Callin family, including John and Bertha, slowly began migrating to Florida. Older brother Prof. took his wife and newborn daughter there from their home near Reading, Pennsylvania; younger brother Ray took his wife and son, Glenn, there. Their descendants are there to this day – mostly staying out of the headlines, of course.
After John and Bertha moved to the Orlando area, Yvonne and her daughter, Virginia, soon joined them. Young Bob dropped out of high school and joined the Army there in 1939, ending up in Arizona. Norman married Ruth Harpster in Florida, but after the war, he decided that Baltimore County, Maryland, was the place for him.
The letters we have from John and Bertha to Bob and Nancy show us a glimpse of their life in Florida, building cottages in Winter Park, some twenty years before Walt Disney made the area a tourist destination. They complained of the usual health problems, doted on their little dogs, and stayed involved with their church, their daughter, and, as much as the distance would allow, their grandchildren.
John was 76 years old when he died on 6 April 1956.
Mightier Acorns 
Say hello, cousin!