Bruce Riley Shue, age 95, Born Sept 17, 1916 told the following stories during a visit by CRH on Sunday, October 2, 2011.
He does not remember any stories from Florence that would indicate Norman L. Brown’s lack of consent for Florence to marry Riley Shue. This is relevant, because Norman vehemently opposed the marriage of his other 2 daughters to their chosen spouses. Both Ruth and Gladys had to “elope” with their mother Candis’ blessing, to get married. Perhaps Norman did not object to Riley because he was such an improvement over Florence’s first beau, Lit Moeller. Lit was really smitten with Florence and pursued her relentlessly. Florence ‘hated’ him. Lit even gave her an engagement ring of sorts. It was a beautiful gold ring with her birthstone, Ruby, (she was born July 14) flanked above and below (instead of side to side) with real pearls. Carolyn Ruth remembers this story and the ring, because when Carolyn was 12, her birthday also being July (29), she got the ring for a birthday present and eventually was told the story of the ring. Florence hated the ring and gave it to her sister Ruth, who in turn gave it to Carolyn in 1942. Carolyn wore the ring constantly until it finally needed to have the stone and pearls replaced. In another 20 years, in the early 1990’s, Carolyn retired the ring to keep it from again being damaged.
Florence’s first child was Thelma Eileen, born Sept. 18, 1914. She only lived a short time. It is ironic that Bruce’s birthday is only one day different (Sept 17) 2 years later, 1916. Riley went to the Army for WWI and unfortunately was one of the thousands that contracted the flu during the 1918 epidemic, and did not survive. Florence was left a single mother with a 2 year old son.
Florence lived in a house in Arlington, right on Route 40, the “National Road”, just next door east of Arlington Cemetery. Of course, the ‘highway’ was a gravel road. Bruce remembers the dust, and that oil was laid down on the road to keep down the dust.
Carolyn Ruth Hunt’s parents, Ennis Benjamin and Ruth Brown Hunt, lived with Florence for a while. They probably did that soon after they were married (February 19, 1921). Bruce just remembers that they were “between living situations”. Bruce would have been 4 ½. One of Bruce’s first childhood memories was of riding with Uncle Enik in his Ford car. The gravel road had many potholes, and Bruce remembers the car hit one of those big potholes, throwing him forward toward the dashboard. Enik instantly and instinctively reached out his right arm in front of Bruce to braceand push him safely back into his seat.
Florence was married a second time in 1926 to Dolfus Hunt (no relation at all to Ennis). Sometime between the time Ruth and Ennis lived with Florence and Bruce on Route 40 and when Florence married Dolfe, Florence bought the home and land ‘around the corner’ on the east side of Arlington Road about 3 lots south of Route 40. She also did some extensive remodeling on the house. Bruce speculates that she got the money to do this from Riley’s insurance. Florence lived in that house for the rest of her life until she died of Colon Cancer in 19___. Dolfe lived there for a while after her death, then finally moved to a retirement community.
Bruce married Miriam Eby soon after high school, in the 1930’s and became a farmer. When World War II began in 1942 Bruce felt a deep sense of service for his country and tried to enlist in the Army. He was given a special deferment status because he was a farmer. He wanted to serve his country so deeply that he never got over the sadness of that deferment. Serving his country by farming and providing food was not enough to fulfill his patriotic need. He got very emotional telling this story almost 70 years later.
Eventually he got out of farming, had a white-collar job, bought his house at 901 Maple Street, Brookville, Ohio where he lived with Miriam and raised his three sons, and died in 2012.
Bruce had three sons: the oldest was “little” Norman (named after his grandfather); the youngest was Roger, who became a corrections officer in Lima, Ohio; and the apple of Bruce’s eye, his middle son Philip, who became Lt. Col. in the Air Force.
Philip was killed in San Antonio, Texas in 2005. His supposed murder was featured in a CBS 48 Hours program. Below is the link to the transcript of that story.