Trader-Gazette writer Julie Hohman and her dad, Roger Rollo, step out onto a 1 ½ inch-thick clear glass ledge atop the Willis Tower (former Sears Tower) during a trip to Chicago in October. The ledge stands 1,353 feet above the city and extends four feet outside the building’s 103rd floor. “My legs were rubbery but I was slowly able to gingerly back out onto the ledge,” said Julie who is afraid of heights and wasn’t even planning to go up in the tower let alone out on the ledge. “This is higher than we flew in the Tin Goose,” remarked a jubilant Roger. (Julie’s article about her and Roger’s ride on the Tin Goose on Roger’s 80th birthday appeared in the Fall Issue of the T-G.) Roger’s advice atop the Willis Tower, the second highest building in the United States: Don’t look down.

(CLICK ON PHOTO TO SEE LARGER VERSION)

Englebeck

Packing Company

Enjoyed Success,

Colorful History

By Julie Hohman

 Before it was a flea market, the four-acre site at 535 S.E. Catawba Road in Port Clinton housed an RV sales business, a used car lot, a fish market and perhaps most interesting, a slaughterhouse.

The many rooms in the 10,000-square-foot building, soon to be occupied by wood workers, jewelry makers and antique dealers, once comprised the operations of the Englebeck Packing Company. Those same rooms were walk-in coolers and freezers, a loading dock room, knife sharpening room, a room for salting hides, a gut room, cutting floor and killing floor, among others.

The company was owned by Bob Englebeck, who partnered with his brother-in-law, Lee Bracken. Before that, the operation had been owned by Bob’s father, Harry Englebeck. Bob Englebeck had worked for his father when he was a boy, went to work with him after he got out of school, and eventually took over the business.

The plant operated about 80 years, said Englebeck’s wife, JoAnn, who said that’s as near as she can pinpoint it because they did not keep records back then.

“I can remember him talking about how he delivered meat for his dad when he was in high school,” Mrs. Englebeck said. “Before they started the slaughterhouse they had a meat market in Lakeside.”

Mrs. Englebeck, who retired as an RN from Magruder Hospital after 30 years, said she did not have a part in the meat business but learned an interesting story recently about how Harry Englebeck became interested in starting a slaughterhouse. The idea came after hearing tales about slaughtering and cooking from his father, Henry, who was a cook in the Civil War.

“Harry’s father, Henry, was a Sgt. Maj. in the Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War. He was a cook and slaughtered chickens and beef and cooked it for the guys,” Mrs. Englebeck said.

A clean plant ... A good product ... And one tough, hard job. Those are among the memories of two former Englebeck Packing Co. employees, Roger “Tiny” Hofacker and Roger Rollo, both hired at the plant in 1968.

Hofacker was 20 years old when he walked into Englebeck and got hired.

A typical day for Hofacker included taking out guts, brains and tongues from animals that had been killed and hung up on rails that moved through the various plant operations by the flick of a switch; cleaning guts (because some customers ordered them for sausage making); hauling beef to the cutting room to fill custom orders; boning out sides of beef to make hamburger; loading trucks with meat for deliveries to stores; then, at the end of the day, washing saws, tables, floors and equipment so they were clean and ready to do it all over again the next day.

He did not regularly cut meat and he was thankful for that. He said he was constantly aware of the danger of working with knives on a wet floor. In fact what he remembers most about those days?

“Being afraid of falling on the killing floor because it was wet and having a knife in your hand and falling on your knife.” He said he also worried about being chased by cows on the wet floor and falling on the ice when he was carrying a quarter of beef on his shoulder while making deliveries.

Hofacker of Port Clinton said none of his major fears of getting injured came to pass but he did make several trips to the emergency room for stitches during the three years he worked there.

Rollo of Lakeside remembers doing everything at the plant, from butchering to processing, working on the killing floor, the cutting floor, loading trucks and making deliveries of packaged meats or quarters of beef to meat markets, stores, restaurants and hotels throughout the region. He cut meat for farmers and people who brought their own cattle in, and to fill customers’ demand for freezer beef.

“It was hard work, heavy work and dangerous work,” Rollo recalls. “Like Tiny said, you had a lot of things you had to watch out for.” Rollo said there was high turnover and it wasn’t unusual for employees not to come back to work after lunch on their first day.

After 10 years at Englebeck Rollo got a job as a state meat inspector.

He said it felt “really weird” at first going back to inspect his former bosses’ plant but “I don’t ever recall them having any problems. They were pretty safety conscious. They stressed safety,” he said.

The plant butchered 30 to 40 cattle, veal and sheep per week. The animals were hung up on a rail, bled, skinned, gutted, split in half, washed, then transported by rail into coolers. The animals had been bought at auction by Bob Englebeck. Employees worked a 5 ½-day work week.

Retired general contractor Orville Payne of Port Clinton recalls building the new, bigger concrete block plant that stands today for his friend, Bob Englebeck, 50 or so years ago. He said he literally built it around the first building that Harry Englebeck had built while workers inside the original structure were conducting their operations.

“We just worked around the old building and put the new one up so they didn’t have to stop their business,” said Payne, who will celebrate his 90th birthday this month. He said the old building was then removed a piece at a time until the new structure was all that remained.

Rollo recalled a couple of funny stories from that time ... the day Bob Englebeck accidentally got locked in the freezer that an employee had been complaining about because of a broken handle. Englebeck hammered on the freezer walls until someone rescued him, then fixed the handle.

.....The time an inspector was watching employees try unsuccessfully to get a very wild animal in the pen.

“The thing was crazy. It would charge right at you, try to come right through the fence to get you,” Rollo said. “Bob was telling them ‘you gotta let that animal know you’re not scared of him.’” The inspector replied, “It’s pretty hard to let them know you’re not scared of them when they’re standing on top of you trampling you.”

While they dealt with plenty of wild animals nobody ever actually got trampled, Rollo said.

As the large grocery chain stores grew, the smaller stores went out of business and slaughterhouse business declined. Bob Englebeck retired and closed the plant in 1997 at the age of 80.

Owners Englebeck and Bracken and most of the co-workers Rollo and Hofacker remember have died including Bob Rigoni, Lester McLaughlin, Hugo Heinzl, Peter Butchko and Pete Kowal. Hofacker, who retired in 2004 after 28 years as a custodian for the Port Clinton School District, and Rollo, who retired as a state meat inspector in 1995 after 17 years, remain friends today.

A Perfect Birthday Gift:

80 mph at Takeoff,

80 Cruise and 80 Landing

for 80-Year-Old

Ride of a Lifetime

Through History on

the Ford Tri-Motor

By Julie Hohman

(several photos at end of story)

Living under the runway flight path of the Erie-Ottawa International Airport/Liberty Aviation Museum complex, I am reminded what a busy transportation center this former regional airport has become.

I often hear from airplane enthusiasts about the wonderful facility and its programs. I also hear – quite well – the roar of a variety of aircraft from DC-3s and Apache helicopters to World War II bombers and corporate jets. All three of my children took advantage of the opportunity to fly planes in the Young Eagles Flight program; my oldest son even got a ride home in a Vietnam era helicopter from his boy scout event at the airport!

I enjoy the continuous air show over my house and all the airplane hubbub in my area – but on the ground! I had not flown from the airport at all nor too many times in my life. And as I get older I get wimpier.

So when the opportunity arose to obtain two seats aboard the refurbished 1929 “Tin Goose” airplane, motoring in to Port Clinton from Oshkosh, Wis. in July for a week of tours, I at first thought, is this for me? After all, I am afraid of heights, roller coasters and unfamiliar things.

But then I reconsidered: My dad is turning 80 in July, what a great birthday gift! I know he’s never ridden in it and I’m pretty sure he would enjoy it. As a former Pelee Islander he had flown often in small passenger planes and even saw the Tin Goose land on Pelee.

Yes, he would like to go, said Dad, also known as Roger Rollo, of Lakeside. What the heck, I decided to go, too, ignoring those silly fears.

There had been a forecast for stormy weather that afternoon but it stayed away for our flight. Lucky, because pilot Dave Ross said he won’t fly in threatening weather as safety is of the utmost importance; besides, the Tri-Motor is a “flying museum piece” and he’d drive it into the hangar at the first sign of hail, wind or other inclement weather.

The first thing Tin Goose tour participants do is attend a pre-flight briefing – how the seatbelts work, where the emergency exits are and how to find your flotation device. “We’re going to be going over some water – Lake Erie, marshes, rivers, whatever – so just in case we have a water event, you need to be able to reach down between your legs and grab underneath your seat. This is where that flotation cushion is on this airplane,” said briefing instructor Bill Shannon. Yikes, now I’m starting to panic a little.

In response to a question about speed, Shannon replied, “It takes off at 80 miles an hour. It flies at 80 miles an hour. It lands at 80 miles an hour.” The Tin Goose holds over 300 gallons of gas and 90 gallons of oil and burns a gallon of fuel a minute! There is 450 horsepower in each engine.

After the briefing, with our souvenir tickets in hand, Dad and I clambered aboard the vintage aircraft, along with seven other passengers. I decided the middle would be best. Shannon took the seat as co-pilot, alongside Ross.

We sat one behind the other on each side of the aisle so everyone had a window seat and an aisle seat! The wicker seats are in the museum, not in the plane anymore. The seat belts, we had been told earlier, are just like those from a 1957 Chevy, and everyone figured it out and buckled up. Engines on – and boy are they loud! Outside my window the noise roared. Ross described it as the sound of “13½ Harleys.” That’s 9 cylinders times 3 engines divided by 2 (Harleys have 2 cylinders). As we taxied onto the runway, then sat for what seemed like a long time while the plane readied for takeoff, I knew I could not change my mind now!

I checked for the flotation device Shannon mentioned. Next I located all three emergency exits and tried to remember how he said they opened.

“I rode a lot of planes but never one like this. That’s unbelievable,” said Dad as we began to roll down the runway. He flew to and from Pelee many times in the 13 years he lived there including Dec. 11, 1962 for the emergency premature birth of my brother in a blizzard. He’d seen the Tin Goose fly to Pelee in the ’50s carrying barrels of diesel fuel for the generator when the power cable to the mainland had broken.

As I felt the plane gain speed and rather abruptly ascend with a jolt into the pleasant afternoon skies, my heart leapt into my throat and I automatically grabbed for something to hold on to. My left hand gripped a metal rung under my seat and I hung on for dear life. We are now at 1,000 feet cruising over the Marblehead Peninsula, Cedar Point and the Lake Erie islands.

I glanced over at Dad sitting across the aisle. He seemed to be having the time of his life. Good. (He later said he most definitely was.) By now I’m wondering three things: Should something built in 1929 still be in the air? Wasn’t it replaced for a reason? Is it time to land yet?

“That’s Route 2 down there,” remarked Dad, distracting me for a second. That’s about all I heard him say during the entire flight. The loud roar of the three engines makes it virtually impossible to have a conversation.

In a few minutes my left hand loosened its grip and our tour ride changed from vibrating and rough, as these planes tend to be, to pretty smooth. I am now at ease and brave enough to look out the window at tiny boat docks, houses and trees. I am in the “air show” flying over my house.

In my mind I enter a time warp back to the Golden Age of Aviation. Seven of these planes made up Island Airlines, the lifeline to the islands. For a second, I imagine our pilot as aviation pioneer Milt Hersberger. Hersberger flew people to and from the islands, as well as delivered food, mail and supplies, like Christmas trees and television sets, for 19 years without a single accident. He was called “great, just like a New York cabby,” and never knew when he would be summoned to fly someone to the mainland with a medical emergency. “He’d often land in high winds, pushing throttles, pulling and pushing the wheel, and still never missed a word relating a story,” recounted one passenger who is quoted in the museum archives.

Back in the day, passengers would have been dressed up to fly. Men wore suits and hats and women wore dresses and silk stockings. After all, air travel was considered a luxury.

In just 20 minutes or so, we are descending and back on the ground, and with a couple of jerks and a squeal, our time machine trip came to an end. It had been a blast! I’m glad I went! Pilot Ross was complimented on a job well done.

“That plane is five years older than me and it’s in better shape,” quipped Dad. “It just felt like you were floating, it went so slow. It looked so funny to look out the window and see that motor on the wing and that tire.” Tires are not retractable as they are on planes today. Dad was also impressed with the machine’s power and short takeoff. “It had a lot of power. It only went 40 feet and the tail came up, and then 400 feet and it’s in the air,” Dad recalled from our lesson. “It must be very powerful to do that.”

Ross, 62, is a retired corporate pilot from Wakeman with 45 years of experience including a year of flying the Tin Goose. His love of flying, being entrusted to pilot a “flying museum” and the people’s reactions are why he does what he does. “Everybody gets off usually smiling,” he said. “The first day when they gave me my tryout, I got done with three landings. I was just standing around and somebody came up and thanked me. I thought, hey this is pretty cool. It’s just fun being around airplanes and people who like to go for rides; and I don’t have to buy the gas!” He likened piloting the Tri-Motor to driving “an old truck without power steering.”

The all-metal “Tin Goose” was the world’s first multi-engine, mass produced commercial airliner. Henry Ford built 199 of them between 1926 and 1933. There are eight currently still flying across the United States. Some others are displayed in museums. My former journalism professor, Dr. Emil Dansker, is quite proud of the fact that he piloted the Tri-Motor that hangs from the ceiling in the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

A group of volunteers headed by chief mechanic Doug Moore is painstakingly rebuilding one of the Island Airlines tri-motors that flew here during the 1940s and 50s. The Ford Tri-Motor Heritage Foundation acquired the rights and model number of a Tri-Motor that used to fly out of Port Clinton but crashed in Montana. The museum also purchased a flyable Tri-Motor from the state of Oregon in July. It is hoped that plane, renamed the “City of Port Clinton,” will offer rides to the public in September on its debut run, if work being done on it is completed, according to museum employee Tom Hilton.

Hilton said the Tri-Motor July flights, sponsored by EAA Tin Goose Chapter 1247, were a huge success due to perfect weather the first week of July and the fact that required maintenance did not fall during flight week. “It was the best year we’ve had,” he said. The Tin Goose made about 20 flights per day that week. “People kept coming for rides. We just kept loading and unloading.”

For more information on the airport/museum, located at 3515 E. State Road, Port Clinton, call 419-732-0234. Or visit these websites:

www.tingoose.org

www.libertyaviationmuseum.org

www.trimotorheritagefoundation.org

www.flytheford.com.

Photos below include:

Roger and Julie after the ride

pilot Dave Ross talking to Julie

Roger and Julie get off Tri-motor after their ride

Tri-motor parked behind museum

(click on photo to see a larger version)