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Surnames: Holthouse, Gast, McMahan, Reuland
Classification: Biography
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Message Board Post:
Biography of John Bernard Holthouse
From Standard History of Adams and Wells Counties, Indiana
Tyndall & Lesh – 1918
John Bernard Holthouse was a citizen who established a reputation second to none in point
of business success and integrity of character in Adams County. For many years he was a
well known and popular druggist, the oldest man in the profession in point of years and
experience. He was very popular with everyone who knew him and was regarded in the
highest esteem by all and greatly admired for his manly and high ideals. For years he had
been a leading figure about the city and on account of his safe and sound judgment his
advice was sought on all sides. It was characteristic of him that he followed the light
of his own counsels, and while never taking advantage of anyone succeeded in building up a
considerable fortune and at the time of his death was one of the largest holders of real
estate in the city. But with all his wealth he had always an open hand for the poor and
needy, and donated liberally and delighted in seeing others not so fortunate as himself
made happy.
John B. Holthouse was born February 27, 1855, on a farm two miles west of Decatur in Adams
County. He lacked a month of celebrating his sixty-first birthday. His death followed a
long and painful illness and occurred at his home on Third Street in Decatur, January 23,
1916. Mr. Holthouse belongs to pioneer stock in Adams County. His father Bernard
Holthouse arrived in Adams County in 1837, and was one of the three or four pioneer
Catholic settlers in the county, and one of the original members of St. Mary’s Church,
with which the Holthouse family have for many years been identified and to which John B.
Holthouse during his life was one of the most liberal contributors. Bernard Holthouse was
a native of Hanover, Germany, and came to Adams County about a year after his arrival in
this country. He died in Washington Township in 1871.
John B. Holthouse was educated in the district schools, and while his advantages in that
direction were somewhat limited he had that intellectual curiosity which makes a man a
student all his life and hardly a day of his life but he added something to his
acquisition of learning and gained the reputation of being a man of mature wisdom.
At the age of sixteen he went to Decatur and began clerking in the drug store of Doctor
Dorwin, one of Adams County’s best known early physicians. He set himself with enthusiasm
to the task of learning the drug business, and mastered it and made it a profession. When
Doctor Dorwin died Mr. Holthouse was in a position to succeed him in business, and he
conducted the old store for many years with different partners. Later he owned and had
other drug stores and at the time of his death there was still a Holthouse Drug Company,
thought he had had no active connection with it for several years. He was a man of many
and varied business interests, and everything he touched seemed to prosper. At
Bluffington he started and developed a cement business, which after a few years he sold
out at a large profit. He added several store buildings to Decatur, and put up one of the
largest and best livery barns in the county on North Second Street. He owned a fine home
on North T!
hird Street, and at different times acquired several farm properties both in Ohio and
Indiana. At the time of his death he owned a place of 240 acres a mile north of Monroe in
Adams County. In polities Mr. Holthouse was a democrat, and was active in his church, and
also in the Knights of Columbus and at the time of his death was deputy grand knight of
the order.
The position he occupied so long in Decatur and the esteem in which he was held is well
reflected in an editorial which appeared in the Daily Democrat at the time of his death.
“The death of John B. Holthouse removes from this community a man who has been conspicuous
in the banking and business life here for many years. (He was director and vice president
of the First National Bank of Decatur.) He was industrious, careful and successful. He
watched public officials, studied the workings of the local governmental machinery and had
the courage, ability and took the time to advise and assist when and where he could. He
accumulated much of this world’s good and while it may not have been generally known was
one of the most liberal and charitable men of the city, giving to every worthy cause and
always without blare of trumpet, his donation being usually sent in a blank envelope. He
met death with the same fearlessness that he met life, realizing for several!
weeks that he would have time only to arrange his affairs before the summons would come,
yet he did not complain and quietly and carefully prepared. There was much in his life to
be admired and his death is mourned by many besides his near relatives. It is a fitting
tribute that business in Decatur cease during the last services for this good citizen.”
In 1880 Mr. Holthouse married Miss Mary S. Gast of Louisville, Kentucky. She died in
Decatur December 21, 1896. She was the mother of eight children, five of whom are still
living: Louis, proprietor of the Holthouse Garage at Decatur, married and father of one
son and two daughters; Clarence of Fort Wayne, who is married and has three daughters;
May, wife of Robert McMahan of Chicago; Felix, who is a farmer east of Decatur and is
married; Catherine, who took the veil in 1915 and is now known as Sister Mary Grace of the
Order of St. Agnes, a teacher at Victoria, Kansas. On June 15, 1898, at Decatur Mr.
Holthouse married Miss Mary T. Reuland, who was born in Sauk County, Wisconsin,
forty-eight years ago. She had lived in Decatur for two years before her marriage.
Mrs. Holthouse is of German ancestry. Her father, John Reuland, was born in Luxemberg,
Germany, and when twelve years of age was brought to the United States by his parents who
located as pioneers in Sauk County, Wisconsin, where they spent the rest of their years
and where John grew to manhood and became a farmer. John Reuland married Barbara Liken,
who was born in the city of Chicago when that metropolis was chiefly a small rural village
surrounded Fort Dearborn. When she was very young her family removed to Southern
Wisconsin and her parents spent the rest of their active lives as farmers in Sauk County.
John Reuland and wife were Sauk County farmers and he died at the age of seventy and his
wife at forty-five. They were very active members of the Catholic Church.
Mrs. Holthouse besides rearing and looking after her large family has done much work in
St. Mary’s Church, is a member of the Red Cross Society and is active in St. Vincent de
Paul Society. She became the mother of eight children and the six still living are
Jessie, John, Margaret, Hugh, Helen and Robert, the last now four years of age. Jessie
was educated in the local parochial schools and St. Mary’s College at Notre Dame. John is
now a student in St. Joseph College at Rensselaer, Indiana. The other children except
Robert are students in the parochial schools.