HOLM, Hans Theodore Harvard

   Et andet navn for Hans var HOLMES, Ted.

  Notater:

Kilde: Ole Damgaard, 2018.
Gift 2 gange, 2 børn i 2. ægteskab.

Source: geni.com (private user).

Hans Theodore Holm (TED)
(1895-1936)
by Jerry Holmes and Charlotte Lloyd

He came to this world on January 12, 1895, as the firstborn son of Jens and Jenny Holm in the farming town of Soledad, California, where mother and father hoped to make a success of truck farming. After several years of failure due to drought, the family joined other Danish families at Cape Scott on Vancouver Island in a homesteading venture. It was here that Ted, as he later called himself, honed his carpentry skills by participating in the construction of his school house at about the age of seven; which, no doubt, contributed to his life-long pastime of puseling!

When the colony at Cape Scott failed, due to lack of promised support by the Canadian government, the family moved to Seattle where "Papa" worked on the Seattle World's Fair buildings. Subsequently, they moved back to Canada, living at River's Inlet and Wadhams for a time and ultimately settling at Campbell River. It was here in 1910 that Jens began building his famous home, no doubt assisted by his then fifteen-year-old son Hans. The house was constructed while the family lived in Wadhams. Hans also learned the fishing trade here at his father's side, and soon fished with his own boat to help support himself.

In about 1913, Hans could be found working in Seattle for Frye Meat Packing Company as a salesman. It was probably about this time that he took the name of Harvard Theodore Holmes because it was easier to remember, easier to pronounce and sounded more business-like. Eventually the whole family would follow suit and take the name Holmes.

Ted served in the United States Army during World War I, attaining the rank of First Lieutenant; but fortunately the war ended just as he was ordered overseas, and he remained in the States, serving in the reserves for many years. An interesting aside is that the first three numbers of his army serial number were 8-3-0; the numbers being identical to the last three numbers of his son Jerry's serial number during the Korean war.

During the next few years, Ted fell in love with a woman he met at the Trianon Ballroom, and on December 26, 1919, he married Cora Merie Caroline Schmalle, who was usually called Codie. There were no children; and the marriage was, unfortunately, short-lived, as she died on July 5, 1924, of a cerebral hemorrhage.

During his marriage to Codie, Ted became friends with her younger sister, a pretty wisp named Esther Emilie Schmalle. Ted courted Esther, and they were married on September 5, 1925. This union produced two children, Jerry and Charlotte, whom many of you may know!

The necessity of providing for a family now, and calling on his experience with Frye Packing Company, he fell into the profession of salesman, working in this capacity for the Puget Sound Savings and Loan Association and later for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. He did quite well as a salesman, enough to allow them to buy a rather nice house on North 75th Street in Seattle and a waterfront lot on Lake Washington onto which he moved an old garage and converted it into a summer cabin.
But along came, you know what ... "The Depression." Faced with the decision of either buying food or insurance, people somehow chose the former, and commissions were few and far between. So, in about 1933, Ted, along with a partner, started a business of their own and named it : "The Original Deluxe Hamburger." The store was located at 6603 Roosevelt Way. In the beginning, the store did not produce enough money to provide for the family; partly because the partner was taking money out and not producing much himself. Ted soon bought out the partner. But still money was scarce, and he lost the house for lack of payment. He moved his family to a rented house on 7th Northeast, a spot now occupied by the I-5 Freeway.

Due to Ted's hard work and very long hours, the business prospered, even to the point of being able to hire young son Jerry to fold napkins for five cents a sitting! And just as he was beginning to be able to pay the bills; a new, larger and more elegant hamburger restaurant called the "Red Lion" opened across the street. The depression was still doing nicely, and Roosevelt Way couldn't support two hamburger joints successfully. Paying the bills again became a problem.

On the way home from a trip downtown to make a bank deposit, Ted was driving north on Aurora Avenue on a dark, rainy night in March of 1936, when he ran out of gas. The car, an old Hupmobile, had an auxiliary gas tank; but, in order to switch over to the extra tank, Ted had to get out of the car and turn a valve located at the rear of the car, thus covering the only taillight with his body. The fact that his body obscured the taillight, combined with the dark, and the heavy rain, made him difficult to be seen. A man in a car with no working windshield wipers drove up from behind. The inevitable happened. Ted was taken to the Ballard Hospital that night, and he died on March 17, 1936. (41 years old).

The accident left Esther without a husband, and Jerry and Charlotte without a father. Esther was faced with raising two young children on her own; and in fact, under the circumstances, she did so miraculously. We miss him very much to this day.

Religion: Lutheran
Ted: Soldat af reserven. Gift med Cora i 1919 (24 år), og efter hendes død, gift (i 1925) med hendes søster Esther. Heraf kom Jerry og Charlotte. Han var Salesman for Sparekasse og Forsikringsselskab. Gik privat i 1933 med hamburger-restaurant, men døde i 1936 i en trafikulykke.