The Saas Family

The following was written by William Saas about his grandfather, Louis Saas:

Louis Saas was born in Germany, in the State of Hesse, about 1843. He was from a wealthy family who owned a large estate and the family being landowners had the right to vote.

When he was 14 years old he ran away to America since he did not believe in being drafted into the army. He had relatives in Cincinnati Ohio. One of the families was named Gunglock and were also well to do. (I am not sure this is the correct spelling of their name.) I have forgotten the name of the other relatives there. They made office safes and pool tables. My father, Louis Saas, the eldest son of my grandfather, visited them in 1931 while on vacation, and at that time they owned an eight story building and made plastics.

One of grandpa's uncles of this group belong to the Ohio National Guards and when the Civil War broke, he was called for the service for ninety days. At that time it was lawful to hire a substitute for your service, so his uncle paid grandfather a sum of $100.00 to serve for him. When that enlistment ran out, he signed for another year and then again for the duration of the war. He was promoted to Corporal in the artillery and as a result had three honorable discharges.

After the war grandpa came to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where he met and married Louisa Link. After dad and Uncle Will were born he accepted 160 acres of land near Little Rock, Arkansas, a mule, and a plow from the United States Government with a contract to grow beans.

However, the second year they gave up the farm and moved back to Pittsburgh by steamboat leaving more than fifty acres of nice beans in the field because grandma and Uncle Will would sit in the sun and shake from malaria. Back in Pittsburgh grandpa became a teamster. He was a very handsome man, light hair, blue eyes, regular features, about five feet ten inches tall, stock build and was reputed to be about the strongest man in Pittsburgh. When they loaded steelbeams on his wagon, eight men would carry it out and he would take the place of the men on the back and would place it on the wagon. He said he didn't want to lose any fingers so he would do it himself.

Another thing he liked to do was to go into a saloon where he was not known and bet the keeper drinks for the house that he could set a barrel of whiskey on the counter. Since it only weighed about five hundred pounds this was easy for him to lift.

He had perfect teeth and had them all but one when he died. A mule kicked him in the jaw and loosened several. The doctor saved all except one which was badly broken. His teeth were always white and he never had a toothbrush in his mouth. On arising in the morning he washed his mouth with hot salt water and would do it again before retiring at night. The roar of the cannons in the service, left him hard of hearing and as he aged it became worse. When he was about sixty, driving his team across a railroad crossing, he did not hear a train approaching and it hit him. His horses were killed, the wagon destroyed and his life was in danger for a long time. He recovered but never regained his health completely. It was suggested that he apply for a government pension which angered him. He said the government owed him nothing and he burned two of the discharges, but grandma hid the one with the longest service. Grandpa died in the fall of 1905.