Mechanic: The Life and Hard Times of Carlton H. Hursey

Carlton Hursey was born and raised on a farm in rural Tuscarawas County, Ohio. After military service during World War I he married a pretty lass from two hollows over. The couple settled in nearby Coshocton, started a family and soon became active and respected in the community. In his spare time Carl was a happy fiddler and band leader, but he was devastated when his beloved young wife died. His health soon failed and he was forced to break up his family of five bright, boisterous children. He lived most of the rest of his life in veterans’ hospitals. Years after his death and the eventual passing of his three older children, the two youngest, who had been raised in an orphanage, discovered among their siblings’ papers a small gray box that contained a cache of their father’s diaries, journals and letters, some dating from when he was courting their mother. In an effort to discover their father, using the material from this cache, the two youngest sons have written this remarkable family-oriented biography.