Larger Than Life: The Life Story of Atty. Charley Mohl

By Charles Mohl

There aren’t very many men who have had three wives and can say, as I am able, that they have maintained communication with all and have twenty-five years of happy living with the third, born Patsy Ann Hatfield. My grandfather, who I was named after, Charles G. Mohl II, had three wives but basically outlived them all. He was a better man than I am, but I can say that the first two and I are in good communication and were also with Patty. They visited us both and loved Patty. She was a people person, and everyone knew her that way. She was bright, cautious, and conservative in her business ethic. I listened and am a better man for having had her as a partner. I have used the sports metaphor for my final message. In every contest, whether love, business, sports, or whatever, there is a winner and a loser. Life is not about whether you played in the game, it’s how you play thereafter. I am still playing thereafter at eighty-eight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984571649

Charles Mohl

My wife and I raised four boys, Started golf and piano at seven under dad’s training, high school State champion in golf. college our letters in golf and basketball (walk on) Graduated with honors Albion College 1952. Served two years Army During Korean War but assigned to the NATO command in Germany Until back to law school- graduated 1957 and admitted to Michigan bar 1957. Practice included Ins. Co trial and settlement work, built over 50 FHA approved houses, general commercial clients. Also general real estate and Probate work. Retired at 62 with some consulting for fellow attorney.

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COPYRIGHT © 2019 BY CHARLES MOHL.

           ISBN:                SOFTCOVER                        978-1-9845-7165-6

                                     EBOOK                               978-1-9845-7164-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 12/10/2018

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Birth and More

Chapter 2 The Family Name and More

Chapter 3 College Days

Chapter 4 The Wedding

Chapter 5 Military Service and More

Chapter 6 Back Home

Chapter 7 Charles G. Mohl II Attorney-at-Law

Chapter 8 The Metamora Products Corporation Story

Chapter 9 New Venture Romance Marriage

Chapter 10 Finale Late Retirement

Epilogue

Acknowlegments

Chapter One

BIRTH AND MORE

My father was employed by a new auto related enterprise as the reared its ugly head in 1929 but during slow times he hired men from their new workplace at $1.00 a day and all they could eat to assist building my birthplace. With steady effort they soon got the ancestral dwelling reasonably habitable by the time I made my entrance in 1930. He had saved up cash and laid out $485 for the whole package. I still have the receipts. It was said the owners of the lumber company were not only in awe, they were shocked. Those were hard times.

It was a crisp and spicy morning in January 1931 as I lay rosy cheeked, fully wrapped in suitable protective gear (with matching white fuzzy, furry cap) in a sled with a cradle-type box attached. I was eight months old, enjoying my customary afternoon nap. this occurrence was really my first recollection of early childhood, yet I heard the yarn told repeatedly so often my earliest recollection of life on that crisp cold afternoon on planet. A photo is actually available, although it is not contained in the title to this account. But an entry in my abyook might suggest a dispute. It indicates I was delivered at Mercy Hospital in Cadillac, Michigan, by Dr. De Vere Miller with Sister Mary Clara, RN, assisting. Now Dad Mohl insists (and he ought to know, having supervised the whole affair) the delivery took place in the front bedroom at our ancestral home still under construction by father. Eighty-eight years later, it is uncontroversial that I, with giggles and winks, made it through the delivery and joined the fortunate few not involved in lines hunting for food, assistance, or work.

The vintage ice box was filled with milk and ice by horse-drawn wagons. The ice was cut from the very lake where I was born. And so life went on. The background that is, the training, learning, experiencing (affectionately dubbed as home schooling) began at age seven with father at the helm introducing me to a golf club more importantly to the piano. Each eventually played key roles in my later years both athletically and my career at the Bar of Justice. My piano started with lessons with Dad (who had a band in the roaring twenties and was able to play most of the instruments and kept many) who also later put me into the tenor saxophone. Although I complained about having to practice while the neighborhood kids were out playing games….nevertheless I kept practicing…. worked my way up to duets in church with a trumpet player who later played in our family band, and later played in the high school marching band. Father wouldn’t let me play football, so I carried the big, heavy e-flat baritone sax, honking away in the band, while my buddies chased the cute cheerleaders. I also took private lessons from a very accomplished player and teacher who worked tirelessly on my technique, posture, and practicing. I finally worked up to playing Chopin’s Military Polonaise in my final senior recital. The Lutheran was planning present George Fredric Handel’s famed Messiah and had no member able the accompany the choir. The minister’s wife (who had also been my grade teacher and a friend of my piano teacher) both agreed I should accept the challenge, and I did. We had three performances over Easter weekend the crowds seemed to enjoy. And so it goes.

My sports, which included both basketball and golf, were with approval, and he was a faithful follower of my games. At twelve I pared the home golf course and got the promised as the carrot for my achievement. at sixteen I was a medalist in the state championship and led the team all years in our regional championship This was in 1946 or thereabouts, and the school was short for basketball coaches and games to play, with all the boys returning from the war. We managed to have three years of play, and as the tallest guy at the time pretty much had a lock as center. It wasn’t like our golf team, but we stayed in tournament position. for one required merit badge (bird study), I’d been a proud Eagle Scout. I did, however, manage a cub scout troop and graduated (notbecauseof butratherinspiteof) that being the carefully selected phrasing of my mentor, Lynn Corwin, elementary extraordinary from Cass School mirabile dictu. the camp director and I, a waterfront guard were later employed during the summers by the local Board of Education to manage the camp. The summer camp was initially formed by an independent association and taken over mostly for poor and disadvantaged kids by the. Before I became the certified guard I had worked my way up the ladder from camper to cabin leader to the waterfront. The waterfront guarding came natural to me, as I had lived by a lake father helped create. It was a fun-filled place with a handmade dock in sections (he was a graduate engineer) so he could take it out of the water during the winte freeze. The neighborhood kids could use the dock and diving board. One was an excellent swimmer race me across the lake. Dad bought a Wagemaker boat with an outboard motor so we could ski board. What a dad! The summer routines sort of followed us through to graduation as the school year was filled with studies, basketball games, and dates dancing to the Chuck Mohl Band. The school operated an old YMCA building with a small gym and rooms for ping-pong tables and club meetings. The Mohl band was a product of days playing with his roaring twenties noisemakers. Dad played the piano and did the arranging, the tenor sax, and my trumpet player although in a pinch the school band director filled in at trumpet. sister Peg drums and trumpet. We played not only for school dances, but also for the Masons’ monthly dance group on late nights (with school permission to be a little late the next morning).

The word got out, and the local radio station came to our dances and broadcasted an hour of opular music. And so it goes, and went. I had finished sixth in my class of. We would soon be facing final exams and those youthful school days would soon be ending. We all went parading down the isle to the haunting strains of Elgar’s gaudeamus igature on class night, at which time I played a saxophone solo accompanied by the class I’d invited to the senior prom. he accepted with her mother’s permission. Soon we would receive the news of our exams and put on out best outfits (with and guests cheering the tossing of mortar boards and gowns) while the of the Board of Education smiled, congratulated graduates, and handed out the diplomas. We partied a bit with family and friends and disbursed back home.

Next came the time for serious thinking about readying for college and career plans or getting right at it to find employment. Forsooth. Ain’t it the truth

Chapter Two

THE FAMILY NAME AND MORE

I’m backing up a bit and looking at a prominent entry in my baby book known as the. I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never had the interest my father displayed in the history of the family. Most kids early on explore other more interesting activities. However, did his best with the known and provable descendants and what he could glean from his family and friends. He spreads the following tale of the known origination of the family name. They believe it could be Maule. The name originated in France at the time of Jean Baptist Jules,1763–1844. This revolutionary general rose from the ranks, served brilliantly under Napoleon Bonaparte in the Italian campaign 1796, and later lured to become Charles XIV, king of Sweden and Norway 1818–44. A group with the last name Maule bold and migrated with Bernadette to Sweden. After some intermarriage and/or name change, the name became Mahl. My namesake, Charles Gideon Magnus Mohl was born in Smoland, Sweden, March 1-12, 1873. One should quickly note I did not adopt the entire middle name. Gideon was enough. The plot thickens a bit as Grandfather Charles left Sweden at the age of sixteen or thereabouts and stole away on a tramp steamer for America. The was then basically over, and he managed, one way or anotherto find his way to Cadillac, Michigan, where there was a bastion of Swedish immigrants working in the logging and lumber business he eventually became a foreman for the then prominent Cummer-Diggens Lumber Company. Should all this reporting seem a bit weighted on hearsay, I can only suggest the comment of my law school evidence professor when opining on evidence from a old newspaper clipping on an accident declared, It was hearsay, but magnificent hearsay. I guess mine is not only magnificent but glows