How strong was he?

Friar’s famous ancestor still larger than life

BY TONI CASHNELLI

When Fr. Don Holtgrewe was a lad, “People would ask me if I was related to The Strong Man.” And Don would proudly respond, “He was my great-uncle.”

The question comes up when Friar Don poses for a portrait in front of the city’s newest mural in Over-the-Rhine. “He was my great-uncle,” Don tells a family of four who stop to admire a gargantuan likeness of Henry Holtgrewe, a turn-of-the-century celebrity renowned for feats of strength. His legend lives on through the vision of the ArtWorks organization and the talent of graphic artist Jason Snell, who designed a 2,000-square-foot mural that runs the entire length of a building at 1215 Vine St. Its creation was recounted in the Cincinnati Enquirer in August (see www.cincinnati.com).

The real Henry Holtgrewe.“He was a colorful character, a very interesting man,” says Don, who never met Henry (he died in 1917) but knows all about him. “My grandpa who we lived with for a while [in South Fairmount] was his brother.” A saloon-keeper by trade, Henry was the strongest man in Cincinnati – maybe the world. He once “lifted a barrel of water with one finger with a man seated on it,” according to a 1903 story in the Cincinnati Enquirer. He hoisted a 3,000-pound barbell onto his shoulders with three men hanging onto it. In 1904 he invited the Cincinnati Reds and their opponents to stand on an elevated platform at the ballpark. Crawling underneath, he lifted the lot of them, all 4,000 pounds, off the ground.

Strength of character

But what Don wants people to know and remember is, “He was a great fellow, a good man,” or as the mural attests, a “Gentle Giant”.  “Although he was extremely strong” – able to eject several rowdies at once from his Vine Street saloon – “he never wanted to harm anybody,” Don says. “He once got into a wrestling match with a guy and broke his collarbone and said, ‘I’ll never do that again.’”

Born in 1862 in Hanover, Germany, Henry came to Cincinnati’s West End at the age of 22. Newspapers soon took note of the weight-lifting prowess he displayed at beer halls and theaters. An unimposing 5-foot-8-inches tall, Henry weighed 270 pounds and was built like a barrel.

“I love talking about him,” says Don, who came to check out the mural with his twin sister, Evelyn Kettner. Among their favorite stories is one in which Henry was challenged to pick up weights that were secretly tied to the floor of a stage. “Was ist das?” the Strong Man asked in consternation, then proceeded to wrench the weights from their moorings, pulling up part of the floor in the process.

Top, Don Holtgrewe at his great-uncle’s mural; above, a family taking in the sights stops to chat with Don and his sister, Evelyn.

• With the investigation into the life and virtues of Fr. Augustus Tolton closed as of Sept. 29, the cause for his canonization moves to the Vatican. Fr. Tolton, the first black priest in the United States, is among four African-Americans whose sainthood causes are being considered, according to Catholic News Service. His cause was opened by Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago in 2010. Born a slave in 1854, Augustus was encouraged to discern a vocation to the priesthood by Franciscan priests at St. Francis College (now Quincy University). He died in 1897 at the age of 43. Since 1990, Catholic Theological Union in Chicago has administered the Augustus Tolton Scholars Program, which prepares black Catholics for ministerial leadership in the Church.

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