DUANE
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Duane's take
The official marker tells this one, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. So settle in. This is the story of Charles F.A.
Hummel, and it starts the way the hardest stories always do, with a child and a loss. Charles was four years old when both of his parents died. Four years old.
Whatever came next was going to be shaped by somebody else's hands. Fortunately, those hands belonged to his uncle and aunt, Charles A. and Caroline Hummel, who adopted him and brought him into their home. Now, the name Charles A.
Hummel might ring a bell, because that man ran a business called Charles Hummel and Son Guns and Ammunition, and young Charles F.A. went to work right alongside his adoptive father. So the son in that name, eventually, was him. He went on to serve as city treasurer and city auditor, and he stayed active in the German community throughout his life.
A man building something, piece by piece. Then, in 1877, he married Emilie Wagner. Born in 1855, she would be his partner for the rest of her life.
Together they had six children, a full and busy house by any measure. And speaking of houses, that is where this story really plants its flag. Charles and Emilie hired two prominent architects, James Wahrenberger and Albert Beckmann, to design something worth remembering.
What those architects delivered, completed in 1884, was a two-story limestone house. Italianate influences, an L-plan layout, a projecting pavilion, an ornate full-height front gallery, and stonework that still draws the eye today, quoins at the corners, arched masonry windows telling you right up front that someone here cared deeply about the details. The Hummel family held onto that house for decades, all the way until 1941.
Charles F.A. Hummel had been born in 1854 into loss, adopted into purpose, and somewhere along the way he built a life substantial enough to leave a mark in limestone. That house is still standing, and now you know whose story lives inside those walls.
What the marker says
After both of his parents died, four-year-old Charles F.A. Hummel (1854-1935) was adopted by his uncle and aunt, Charles A. and Caroline (Scher) Hummel. Charles F.A. worked with his adoptive father at Charles Hummel and Son Guns and Ammunition. He later served as city treasurer and city auditor and was active in the German community. In 1877, he married Emilie Wagner (1855-1927); the couple had six children. They hired prominent architects James Wahrenberger and Albert Beckmann to design a two-story limestone house, completed in 1884. The Italianate-influenced l-plan house features a projecting pavilion, ornate full-height front gallery, and notable stonework in the quoins and arched masonry windows. The Hummel family owned the house until 1941.