Biographies: Charles H. Boher, 1958, Winn Parish, La Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** From: March 13, 1958 Winn Parish Enterprise (Article reprinted with permission from Mr. Estes Bozeman) Winn Parish As I Have Known It by H. B. Bozeman Article 75 C. H. (Old Dad) Boher One Of Winnfield's Most Colorful Characters Following the building of the railroads into Winnfield from 1901 to 1907 came swarms of "hobos", "tramps", and "bums". Some of these characters were passing through at all seasons of the year but in the fall and spring there was a real traffic jam here. They, like the wild geese and ducks came south with the first chilly breezes of autumn and started drifting back north when the spring sunshine began warming things up. One April morning in 1912 a Rock Island freight train heading north went in the "hole" here to let another train pass. An open gondola car with several hobos riding inside stopped right opposite the Winnfield city water plant just before daylight. Between Winnfield and Packton the freight train had passed through a rainstorm and all the "Bos" got drenched. The wood and pineknot fires in the waterworks boilers caused several "bos" to unload in the hope of getting dried out and warmed up. That night, C. L. "Charlie" Jones, the waterworks superintendent, was firing the boilers himself. His night fireman had quit a day or so before and he had not gotten a replacement. He let all the "bos" come inside and get warm and asked if any of the knew how to fire a boiler and wanted the job. None of them then seemed interested. Among this group of "bos" was one C. H. "Dad" Boher. Here is the story Dad Boher told me many times. He said by the time it got good daylight he was well dried out, thanked Charlie Jones for his kindness and headed for uptown Winnfield, hoping to make a quick "touch" from someone for the price of a breakfast. Dad said that the first likely looking prospect he ran into was Bob Buce, then a prosperous Winnfield insurance man. Dad said instead of Bob Buce being an easy touch, he proved to have been the worst man he could have tackled, not only refusing to give him a cent, but gave him a "working over" for being a "bum." Dad said this riled him up, and he tried to tell Bob Buce there was a lot of difference between a "hobo" and a "bum", but bob would not listen. Dad said he went across Main Street to Max Thieme's tinshop and Max Thieme gave him a breakfast. Dad said that after eating Max Thieme's breakfast he came back out on Main Street, intending to head for the Rock Island depot and catch the next freight train going north, when he again saw Bob Buce standing in front of the old city hall. He said suddenly the idea hit him: "I am now 62 years old. Why not stay here and show that "bird" who is the "bum?" I can't keep on hoboing forever. Dad then headed back down to the waterworks and told Charley Jones if that boiler firing job was still open, he would be glad to take it. Charley Jones gave him the job. Dad held the job for several months and then with the help of Max Thieme opened a shoe repair shop here. A few years before Dad Boher died, he told me why he got so mad at Bob Buce when he called him a "bum." He said a "bum" was the lowest down scum of the earth. That a "bum" was a no good, worthless, thieving, lying, "crum" and would starve before he would hit a lick of any kind of work either for himself or someone else. He said that a "bum" was just a "bum" whether he stayed in his home town or wandered out in the open road. In fact he said the "crummiest bums" he had ever seen were those who never had the "guts" to leave their home town and cities. About "hobos", he said they mostly were honest "working stiffs" with "itchy feet" and did not like being tied down to one job for a long time, and were willing to swap a little work for a handout or take on a regular working job from time to time. Dad said until he settled down here in Winnfield he had "hoboed" for many years, but never had been a "bum." I told him that most people around here thought that "hoboes", "tramps", and "bums" were all the same. He said a "'tramp' ain't a 'hobo'" and not exactly a bum. That tramps were mostly on the "queer side" and wandered around by themselves and got by by just plain begging. He said in the days before the Welfare was set up during the 1930 depression, "hoboes" gathered together in "hobo jungles" around all cities and towns. He said in the "hobo jungles" neither "tramps" nor "bums" were welcome or wanted. Dad Boher's shoe repair shop venture proved a success from the beginning. As the years passed his business grew and prospered. He lived alone and was thrifty and frugal, and just after World War I, built the brick business building just across the street from the Winnfield Hotel now occupied by Jim Long's Barber Shop. He installed modern shoe repair machinery and went into the retail shoe business. As Dad Boher's business grew and prospered, so did the grudge that he nursed against Bob Buce. During all those years after Dad Boher landed in Winnfield up to the 1930 depression, both Bob Buce and Dad Boher prospered. Also, Bob Buce became mayor of Winnfield and a leader in church affairs. Dad did not try to become even a church member or become active in civic and political affairs. All Dad wanted to do was get hold of enough money and property where he would be considered a wealthier man than Bob Buce. He became obsessed with the idea. He may have reached his goal as he once claimed that he had his property and business paid for and $30,000 in cash. Dad Boher lived to be 100 years and 18 days old. Thirty eight years here in Winnfield and 62 years somewhere else. From information I have he was born in Shippensberg, Pennsylvania, March 22, 1850. His parents were descendants of early pioneer Dutch settlers in Pennsylvania and members of a strict Dutch religious sect. Dad Boher once told me Shippensberg was only 12 miles from where the Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 2, 1864. He said he had an uncle killed in the battle and that the next day he and his father went to the Gettysburg battlefield and recovered his uncle's body, which they brought back to Shippensberg and buried on July 4, 1864. Dad Boher then was 14 years old. Judge R. W. Oglesby recently told me Dad Boher once told him in detail about seeing a Confederate cavalry raid on his town just in advance of Lee's main army as it made its historic invasion of Pennsylvania. Judge Oglesby said when Dad told him the story, he had some doubts as to its accuracy, but later found what Dad said was confirmed by history books. Dad Boher said at the age of 17, rebellious at the stern religious discipline of his parents, he left home and never saw them again. He said his main occupation for many years was a bartender in saloons in the mining towns of the wild and wooly west. He said that he had tended bar for Tex Rickard in both Nevada and Alaska. All the years I knew Dad Boher here in Winnfield he had an anti-religious complex. He was critical of almost all local churches and their leaders. In his late nineties, his health failed and he became nearly blind and seemed to become more bitter in his attitude towards both his fellow man and God. Despite his physical infirmities, he continued to live alone in the rear of his brick building until about a month before his death. At that time, Ernest Melton was operating a shoe repair shop in the front of the building. Dad then was practically helpless. Ernest Melton and his wife did what they could for the near helpless old man and interested his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Luther H. Melton, in the plight of Old Dad. A few weeks before Dad's death Mr. and Mrs. Luther Melton took him out to their home where they could care for him. Mrs. Luther Melton said she did this because she felt it her Christian duty to do what she could to relieve the physical suffering of a fellow human being, even one who had lived a Godless life. Also, she said she had hopes that she, her family and Christian neighbor friends might be able to cause Old Dad to repent of his sins, seek God's forgiveness and save his soul. She said when they brought Old Dad to their home he was just as hard hearted and wicked as he had ever been. Also, that his mind was clear and active as ever. For a day or so she said he seemed annoyed when she and others prayed in his room for him, and tried to talk to him about God and forgiveness of sins through the Lord Jesus Christ. Mrs. Melton said about the third day, Old Dad suddenly asked, "Do you think that God would forgive a sinner like me?" She said that she told him it was never too late to repent and seek God's forgiveness. She said Old Dad in a short time told her he believed what she said about God, and wanted her to get a minister to come see him as quick as possible. The minister soon came, Mrs. Melton said Old Dad poured out his soul to the preacher, and from then on he was a changed man. Until his death about two weeks later, she said Old Dad constantly wanted someone to be praying for him or reading the Bible to him, particularly the 14th Chapter of the Gospel of St. John. Old Dad's repentance, to me, was nothing less than a spiritual miracle. I thought such a thing impossible. However, this is jut another proof that nothing is impossible with God, which is so aptly stated by Matthew 19:36 "With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible."