Basil Hause

   BASIL FRANKLIN HAUSE (1895 - 1985) was born on November 4, 1895, in a small house (actually a converted sheep barn) in Riley Center, Saint Clair County, Michigan (G.C. 42 Deg. 57 Min. North Latitude; 82 D. 50 M. West Longitude). The exact location of the place is hard to determine, but we know it was just down the street from the home of his grandfather, Laban Hause, with the modern address of 13185 Belle River Road. The house that Basil was born in no longer exists, and Laban's estate across the street burned down in 1986, leaving only the windmill and barn. Fortunately in the 1970's Basil journeyed to the site of his grandfather's home, and offered some reminiscences of his life in Memphis, which helped greatly in compiling this family history.
   In fact, Basil spent a great deal of money and time tracing our family's lineage, retracing the line of descent through his father FRANK AUGUSTUS HAUSE (1867 - 1951), to LABAN HAUSE (1831 - 1906), AUGUSTUS HAUSE (1804 - 1875), JOHN HAUSE (1773 - 1844), to WILLIAM HAUSE (1750 - 1818). This information provided the starting point for much of what you read in this Hause family history.
   When Basil was three, his father moved the family to Memphis, Michigan, in the Bywater House (now the Blasic Pickle Factory). Frank ran a store with C. B. Oakes at 1539 Riley Center Road, in Riley Center. An opera house was being built near Bywater, and Basil and a friend were playing underneath the flooring. The workers kept laying floorboards, unaware, until Basil was nearly entombed underneath the building. Fortunately for an entire family line, one of the workers noticed the kids before the last board was inserted, and chased them off the property.

Basil (front row, far right) poses with the Memphis school's baseball team.

   In 1905, the family moved to 81521 Belle River Road, called the "Taylor House," in Memphis, and Frank opened a store in a now-defunct wooden building with his brother-in-law, George Cottington. Eventually the shop was moved into a larger brick building, at 80850 Main Street in Memphis. The Hause family lived upstairs, in the back of the building. Basil worked cleaning the front rooms, which were then the offices of a Dr. McVicker. He also split wooden crates to make firewood for the stove, and if he had any time left, he also worked at his grandfather Albert Raymond's blacksmith shop. As he grew older, he took jobs around the country, working at ranches in Florence, Kansas, and Laramie, Wyoming. He then attended a teachers' college while his mother and grandmother ran a boarding house near the school.

Basil poses with his mother, Fladella, while visiting her boarding house in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

   In 1914 Basil cruised Lake Michigan with the Naval Guard as a college project, but contracted Typhoid fever. He was nursed back to health by his sister-in-law, Ethel Hause. Basil had been offered a contract to teach in Cheyanne, Wyoming, but the typhoid killed the deal. So instead, he hung around the area and agreed to go ice skating with a friend named Sam Starr. Sam had a date lined up with a girl named "Snookie," who also brought along a friend for Basil. I don't know how the romance of Sam and Snookie worked out, but the pairing of Basil and his date would be fortuitous for the Hause family.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Basil with his family during his youth; Basil returns to his grandfather's brick farmhouse (at left) in the 1970's. Basil returns to his father's "Raven house" in the 1970's.

Gilmartin

   Basil was paired with HAZEL MAY GILMARTIN (1894 - 1997), who was born on July 18, 1894 in the town of East Jordan in northwestern Michigan. The Gilmartin surname is Irish in origin, a reduced Anglicized form of the Gaelic name Mac Giolla Mhartain, a patronymic from the personal name Giolla Mhartain ‘servant of (Saint) Martin’. The family was first found in county Galway where they had been granted lands by Strongbow after the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1172, and became one of the "Tribes of Galway."
   The family Coat of Arms is a blue shield with a silver cross calvary charged on the dexter side by a sun, and on the sinister side by a crescent. The Family Motto,"Auxilium meum a domino," means "My help is from the Lord."
   Hazel's father, MICHAEL JOHN GILMARTIN (b. 9 Aug 1869) operated a small cigar-rolling factory out of his home. One of her first memories was watching a military parade of soldiers returning from the Spanish American war. Hazel was holding her father's hat when one of the veterans offered five cents for it. It sounded like a good deal to Hazel, who was four at the time, and so she took the deal. When her father learned what happened, he ran down the street, looking for his favorite hat, but the soldier was gone.
   Hat sales aside, times were tough, so the Gilmartin family moved to Bay shore, where the family of her mother, ADA SOPHIA ERICKS (1869-1957), lived. They had moved to America 13 years earlier, from Finland. Hazel's father made barrels for a time, then worked in a lime kiln, where he became a foreman. He built a 2-story house with a large porch.
   There was no school at the time, so Hazel's mom taught her to read with "Stepping Stones to Literature." Eventually a one-room schoolhouse opened in Bay Shore, and the teachers boarded with the Gilmartins. When she graduated to high school, she had to take the train seven miles to Charlevoix, where she stayed during the week. She worked there to pay for her room and board. She aspired to be a librarian, and worked in her spare time at the local library, mending books. She even incorporated classes from the county Normal college with her high school work, finally graduating from both schools at the same time! She then attended Mount Pleasant Teacher's College, and after that, Ypsilanti Teacher's College.

Basil Hause and Hazel Gilmartin

   It was here that when Hazel couldn't afford to go home for Christmas, she went ice skating with "Snookie," who hadn't mentioned that they'd be meeting any boys. But upon arriving at the rink, Hazel met Basil. She found him to be "strikingly handsome." But at first, their romance was problematic: She was busy with college and her work as a teacher, while he was in the army signal corps (balloon and air) in World War I. But they traded letters, and took trips to see each other, which finally culminated with Basil proposing on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. They were married on July 31, 1920, in a parlor full of wild flowers gathered by Hazel's sister and cousins.

"Friends here have received announcements of the marriage of Basil F. Hause and Miss Hazel May Gilmartin. The ceremony took place at the home of the bride's parents Mr. and Mrs. John Gilmartin at Bay Shore July 30th. They will be at home after September 10th at 605 North Margaret street, Mishawaka, Indiana, where Basil has held a position the past two years at the Dodge Pulley Works."
—Port Huron Times-Herald, 1920

Personal Information Census Image Name:   Basil Hause Age in 1930:   34 Occupation:   Teacher Birthplace:   Michigan Home in 1930:   Highland Park, Wayne, Michigan Owns radio:   No View image View blank 1930 census form  (PDF 136K) SOURCE INFORMATION: 1930 Federal Population Census. T626, 2,667 rolls. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration.

   Basil's work took the family to Mishawaka, Indiana, where Hazel taught until giving birth to their first child, ADA JEAN HAUSE. Tragically, Ada Jean caught pneumonia at the age of two, and died. Basil and Hazel then had a son, GERALD FRANKLIN HAUSE, on August 29, 1926.
   Work again moved the family, this time to Detroit, Michigan, where they lived near Basil's brother, Carlisle. Basil taught at Highland Park High School and Junior College, becoming a well-respected teacher, active in church and community affairs. Hazel was also very active in the church, eventually becoming president in the church's Martha Circle. But her duties at home, raising a child, prevented her from continuing her teaching career. And those duties doubled when daughter BARBARA JOAN was born on July 10, 1928.
   Here are the children of Basil and Hazel:

CHILDREN OF BASIL HAUSE AND HAZEL MAY GILMARTIN

ADA JEAN HAUSE was born on August 31, 1923, a healthy child for her first year. But she came down with a flu virus before her second Christmas. The family doctor gave instructions to Hazel and Basil over the phone because it was too icy to travel, but Ada Jean failed to rally and died from pneumonia on December 29, 1924. She was buried on New Year's Day.

GERALD FRANKLIN HAUSE was born in 1926 and grew up in Michigan. He became a designer at Chevrolet, where he helped create the classic 1955 "Chevy." He married SHIRLEY MAE JACOBSON on July 25, 1950. They have three children: Roy (b. 1954), Linda Kaye (b. 1955) and Barbara Carol (1959-2006). He is the true hero of this work, having painstakingly collected and chronicled the Hause family in Michigan for many years.

BARBARA JOAN HAUSE was born in 1928. She and THOMAS CALVIN VANDERGRIFT had the following children: THOMAS CASPER VANDERGRIFT (b. 1950), DAVID EDWIN VANDERGRIFT (b. 1952), and MARTHA JOAN VANDERGRIFT (b. 1953). Barbara then married ROLLIN KING REYNOLDS in 1986. She died in 2001. See her 1946 high school yearbook photo here.

   After the children grew up and left for college, Hazel finally got to return to teaching, offering her services in Detroit's inner city.
   Basil and Hazel lived a long happy life together, until Basil finally fell ill with leukemia at the age of 89, and Hazel took care of him at home. After Basil passed away, Hazel underwent hip replacement surgery and continued an active life, living well past a hundred years.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Gerald and Shirley Hause; Gerald and Shirley with Carleton Marchant Hause, Jr.; Jerry and Jeff Hause with bricks from the house of Laban Hause in the summer of 2005, which is sadly all that remains of the estate.

Jacobson

   Their son, GERALD FRANKLIN HAUSE, has carried on in his father's tradition, chronicling the Hause family lineage. Before that, he was a designer at Chevrolet, where he was one of the minds behind the classic 1955 "Chevy."
   On Saturday, July 29, 1950, he married SHIRLEY MAE JACOBSON, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Oxel B. Jacobson, at Bushnell Church in Southfield, Grand River, Detroit, Michigan. Shirley earned a Bachelor's Degree in music performance and voice. She was a long-time soloist and choir member at First United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Michigan. She also sang and performed with the General Motors Choir at the GM world headquarters on Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan. Shirley passed away on 19 Jul 2015, but Jerry stills live in the area of Detroit, and keeps the Hause, Gilmartin and Jacobson family stories and traditions alive with their painstakingly and lovingly detailed genealogical work. His house is filled with relics, artifacts, curios and oddities, and their stories of ancestry are filled with life and humor. Jerry and Shirley had the following children:

CHILDREN OF GERALD HAUSE AND SHIRLEY JACOBSON

ROY FRANKLIN HAUSE was born in 1954. He married ALIDA LEIGH DeGROAT in 1977 and had JACOB FRANKLIN (b. 1982), AMBER KATHLEEN (b. 1982), KATHERINE LEIGH (b. 1985) and SALLY JOHANNA (b. 1991).

LINDA KAYE HAUSE was born in 1955. She married JOHN JOSEPH LEPRI in 1981 and had MARA ELIZABETH (b. 1985) and EMMA CATHRYN (b. 1989).

BARBARA CAROL HAUSE was born in 1959. She married DAVID WAYNE GALLIHUGH in 1979 and had DANIEL DAVID (b. 1981, married CRISSY HALES in 2000) and CARRIE ANN GALLIHUGH (b. 1982). Barbara passed away on 27 Nov 2006.

Jeff Hause and Jerry Hause, working on this genealogy on Jerry's dining room table at his home in Michigan in 2005. Jeff's father, Carleton Marchant Hause, Jr., stands in the background. Martha Wenk-Hause, Jerry Hause, Jeff Hause and Atticus Hause at Jerry's home in June of 2018.