This file part of www.watertownhistory.org website
Otto
Heyn
Former Newspaper Dealer,
Enjoying Solid Comfort in
Retirement
Watertown Daily Times,
[article includes
picture]
Solid pipe-and-slippers comfort, that’s what
Otto Heyn is enjoying these days. Otto, who will stride into his 80th year of
life on June 24, was better known as Watertown’s hustling downtown newspaper
distributor until illness felled him last winter. He spent 12 days in the hospital getting
cured of a lot of ails that had plagued him for several past winters, then
hustled over to the home of his niece, Mrs. Ella Gorder, on Dewey avenue, and
is having a good time catching up on some of the comforts of living.
Otto’s life has been as interesting as it is
long. When he was a youngster in the
province of Saxony, Germany, he learned the book-binder’s trade. Apprenticeship was a long and arduous period
in those days and Otto spent 14 years learning the art at Grafenthal. While Otto was winning his title as a
full-fledged bookbinder his brother, Emil, sailed for America and settled in
Watertown where he opened a bakery.
America was then the land of opportunity and as soon as Otto had
completed his apprenticeship, he also embarked for the new world. That was in 1892, and he was just 27 years
old.
It took him a week to cross the Atlantic,
but a flagon of “rugged” German schnapps kept him healthy on the crossing. Two and a half days by train brought him from
New York to Watertown. Soon thereafter
he opened his first bookbindery in the city at
Life in those days was marked by true gemuetlichkeit and business was good for the young
merchant. The so-called “dime stores”
were still to come, and Otto’s business in school supplies, greeting cards and
stationery boomed. He did much
bookbinding for the city’s churches and for Northwestern College. Newspaper distribution was a sideline.
Most of the town’s buildings were wooden
single-story structures, Otto recalls, with an occasional two-story one
interspersed along the main stem.
Hitching rails lined the streets, since the oat-burning horse had still
to be frightened by the first horseless carriage. Watertown was a good business town then even
as it is now, Otto says. German-speaking
people were numerous and Otto had no difficulty in getting along on his limited
English vocabulary. Otto soon needed
room for business expansion so he moved to a place near the present Piper
Leather goods store on Main street, and later slipped farther downtown to 410
(sic, should be 411) N (sic, should be E) Main.
His final move was to
The wily little “Dutchman” recalls that the
Daily Times was one of his best sellers right from the start. People used to line up at his stand waiting
for the paper to come off the presses, and he had a large group of newsboys
distributing throughout the city. His
earlier businesses had such volume that he had to hire four clerks, but in more
recent years he attended to the work alone.
Never one to travel much, though he did make
a few vacation trips to northern Wisconsin, Otto’s circle of activities grew
smaller as the years went by and he found himself spending more and more of his
spare time with intimate friends in his Main street business house. They’d have a game of sheepshead,
or just smoke a few pipefulls and talk things
over. With his wife, a son and his
brother deceased, he found little interest in other social activity.
This life close to his friends and his daily
stint of newspaper distribution along
