Columbia Gorge News
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Wednesday, May 12, 2021
B15
The City Council: A fictional narrative of Rural Life in the American West
Episode 161: Gustav Gut
Jim Tindall
■ He By had
a lot to do with
the mundane cutting of hair,
where he heard many a tall
tale and laughed heartily.
He and his fellows fought
through the battles of Rich
Mountain, Chickamauga,
and Resaca, among others.
He buried friends; he buried
the loathsome. He was im-
partial to his passengers as a
ferryman to the afterlife.
Gustav set up shop in
downtown Warhaven on the
southeast corner of Catbird
and Jay in a three-story
frame building he helped
construct finished with
white clapboard siding.
Originally, he had an office
up front which included
the chair for dentistry and
barbering, and a rolltop desk
for conducting the business
of billing and receipts. He
could be stern; he could be
impish, his remedy for dark
gnawing remembrances of
combat.
Gustav joined the
Methodists and became
betrothed in 1877 to Esther
Krilling, the daughter of a
West Hills farmer. In the
following year ,the Guts
organized Oddfellows
and Rebekah lodges, and
helped to develop the IOOF
Cemetery with lanes and
appearances. When Gustav
Gut arrived by sternwheeler
in Warhaven in 1875, his
skills included dentistry,
barbering, and undertaking.
He very soon proved he was
indispensable under the
business name of Gustav’s
Shop of Preparations. After
five years in this jack-of-
all-trades position, soul
searching showed Gustav he
felt most alive working for
the dead, ministering to the
needs of those left behind.
His parents had fled the
famines and revolutions of
Europe in 1848, emigrating
to America and settling in
Cincinnati. He had been
8 years old. The ships and
trains and riverboats had en-
thralled the boy. From then
on when he daydreamed,
departures were full of
chivalrous, daredevil travel.
When the Civil War erupted,
Gustav mustered in at Camp
Dennison into the 9th Ohio
Infantry, the regiment made
up mostly of Germans. It was
in this service to country that
he learned the embalming
arts. War was a bitter pill,
but he swallowed hard and
countered the horrors with
irrigation, and that lovely
boulevard into the burial
ground, which we now call,
respectfully, the Last Mile.
He and Esther raised two
sons and a daughter, Esau,
Betheul, and Sarah. They
resided on the third floor of
their business.
When in 1880 he decided
to divest of teeth and hair,
he researched for able, com-
petence to fill his shoes. He
had learned barbering from
observation and trial on his
siblings; he had grasped oral
medicine from reading a
book — actually two books,
Taft’s A Practical Treatise
on Operative Dentistry and
Harris’s The Principal and
Practice of Dental Surgery.
Now there were dental
schools. He wrote to the
Dental School of Harvard
University, securing the
interest of one young gradu-
ate, Dr. Harold Thisby, who
agreed to set up practice in
Warhaven. He also placed
an advertisement in the San
Francisco Daily Dramatic
Chronicle, seeking a barber,
and was successful, engag-
ing Herbert Rammling, a
30-something fellow origi-
nally from west Texas.
To make these deals
Illustration by Peggy Ohlson
sweeter, Gustav purchased
two lots a block up on Dove,
and had two buildings
constructed to the men’s
specifications, then rent-
ed these facilities to them
reasonably.
He named his new,
focused business Todstadt’s
Mortuary. In addition to his
professional skill sets, Gut
was a talent on the pump
organ and the flute, playing
for many funerals.
When there was a fire or
other emergency that might
include physical mayhem,
he would willingly respond
with the volunteers, and if
his talents were needed, he
was there and performed
them always in his quiet
dignified manner.
Grisly or macabre deaths
were a reality, and remain
so, of course, but before the
automobile, these events
were a little less frequent.
Accidents on the farms or
ranches or in the woods
were common. Twice in his
career he had to sew two
halves back together. One
of these tragedies occurred
in the West Hills when too
much tension was applied
to a barbed wire; the other
when a wagon load of glass
loosened up descending a
slope in the Craggies, cleav-
ing the teamster. Gus was
a faithful man; his prayers
always contained regards for
his silent, passed clients.
Gut was elected to the
Warhaven City Council
in 1882 and served three
terms, presiding as mayor
in ‘85 and ‘89. He was a very
capable and entertaining
public speaker. His speech-
es invariably contained
poignant insights into life
in each of Warhaven’s five
voting districts: Downtown,
Uptown, the West Hills, the
Plateau, and the Craggies.
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