Descendant recalls growing up in Zoar

Bob Vielhauer may be approaching 97 years old, but his memory could be that of someone far younger. A descendant of the members of the original Zoar settlers, Vielhauerhas vivid memoriesof growing up in Zoar, and he sorts through them quickly, like a professional shuffling a deck of cards.

Vielhauer is an a WWII army veteran who, on his own, changed his job to border patrol agent and got away with it. As a teenager, he and a friend basically created a lake in Zoar (more on that later). He has been a carpenter, a tree planter, a tavern owner and a school bus driver. He is also a loving father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

Born to Robert Vielhauer and Helen Sturm Vielhauer in the #26 House in Zoar, Bob Vielhauer is a descendent through both the Sturm and Kappel families.

His paternal great grandfather was Conrad Vielhauer, who came to Zoar but was not one of the separatists. In Zoar, Conrad Vielhauer took a liking to a girl named Maria Stein, who had come to Zoar from Switzerland. She was unmarried, so she lived in the girls’ dormitory. However, she ended up with child while living there.

Conrad Vielhauer took a shine to the girl and asked for her hand in marriage. They took up residence in a two-bedroom log cabin on 60 acres near what is now Middle Run Road, and when the baby was born they named him John Vielhauer, Bob Vielhauer’s grandfather.

Bob Vielhauer’s father was the youngest of the five children. Upon his death in 1941, his wife Helen went to work at Dover Appliance Company, formerly the Sad Iron Company. “The company was practically all women because WWII was happening,” said Bob Vielhauer. “They only paid around 60 cents an hour, and we couldn’t make it on that. So we moved in with my grandfather Jake in the #26 house, which he owned.”

As a child, Bob Vielhauer attended the two-room Zoar School for grades one through four and part of fifth. After moving to a farm near Deis Hill in Dover, he attended grades six through eight at the Oak Grove School and the ninth grade in Dover.

While Bob Vielhauer and his mother were occupying one half of the #26 House, the future mayor of Zoar, Scott Gordon, was growing up in the other half.

Nancy Gordon Wyatt, Scott Gordon’s younger sister, never lived in the #26 House with her parents and brothers, but she visited the Vielhauer’s often. She shared fond memories of Helen Vielhauer, who was her grandmother’s sister, making Wyatt and Bob Vielhauer first cousins, once removed.

“Aunt Helen was always in the kitchen and was a wonderful cook and baker,” said Wyatt. “She was famous for her Zoar pretzels and taught my mom how to bake the pretzel recipe that was handed down in our family since the beginning of the Zoar Society.”

About that lake

All the way at the east end of Fifth Street lies a dry basin, the vestige of what used to be Lime Kiln Lake. The basin was created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers around the time the Zoar Levee was built in the late 1930s. According to Bob Vielhauer, a large stream used to runthrough the area that would occasionally flood.

A control tower in the basin contained stairs leading to a wheel-like control protected by a lock. “It was just a bicycle lock, so my friend and I cut the lock, turned the wheel, and water flowed into the basin and made a lake,” said Bob Vielhauer.

Suddenly, kids in Zoar had a swimming hole. According to Bob Vielhauer, the fun lasted until the Army Corps figured out what was going on and replaced the lock—with another bicycle lock. Again, the friends flooded the basin with water, which remained there until the early 1990s when the Army Corps permanently drained it.

As a youth in Zoar, Bob Vielhauer worked for a gentleman named Walter Streb who owned the cow barn that was still standing in Zoar. “He raised corn and sold popcorn to all the movie theaters in the area,” said Bob Vielhauer. “My job was to pick the rocks and other stuff out when the corn came out of the picker. He paid me 50 cents an hour, and the people of Zoar about had a heart attack. They said ‘you’re upsetting our whole economy paying him that much!’”

Bob Vielhauer also remembers sled riding right down the middle of main street before it became a state route. “We’d start at the top of the hill by the church and see who could go the farthest,”he said. “I believe the record was someone making it to Town Hall, but there was a lot of cheating and lots of arguments.”

Adult life

In 1955, Bob Vielhauer relocated to Florida, started a construction company and met the woman he would marry, Polly. “Both of my daughters were born at a hospital in Naples that I built,” he said proudly.

Fast forward 14 years, and the Vielhauer family was back Zoar and the #26 House. Bob Vielhauer started a new business in the reforestation industry, planting trees on AEP and other utility and paper companies in Ohio. “I kept track over twenty-some years, and I planted over 7 million trees,” said Bob Vielhauer.

Never one to sit still for long, a practice he still maintains,Bob Vielhauer’s next venture was buying the TV Tavern in Mineral City in 1965. He immediately put his wife and kids to work there for the next 7 years, when he sold the business and built a new home outside of Zoar.

Today, Bob Vielhauer is a proud grandfather of seven children born to his two daughters, Leslie McQuaid and the late Nancy Miller. The grandchildren have given him five great grandchildren. He lives in Bolivar and at 96, is still a member of the Bolivar Sportsman’s Club where he attends Sunday breakfast each week.