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5. Charles Albert Leach (Married Hazel Kirk Thatcher (6), 27 April 1908 at Columbus, Ohio)

Born: 9 April 1881 of Watson Leach (9) & Sarah Catherine Kenney (10) in Delaware County, Ohio.

Click on images to go to (9) & (10).

 

Died: 15 August 1950; he is buried at Union Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio.

 

[His siblings included:

Arthur Othello Leach (Single) Born: 8 March 1876. Died: 20 August 1955, buried Memorial Park Cemetery, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Estella Leach Born: 14 September 1878. Died: 6 September 1886 - killed by kick of colt, buried Bloomfield Cemetery, Morrow County, Ohio.

Harold Dean Leach (Single) Born: 20 February 1884. Died: 24 May 1975, buried Bloomfield Cemetery, Morrow County, Ohio.

Homer Watson Leach (Married Blanche Ewers, 31 August 1911). Born: 10 January 1886 . Died: 12 March 1977, buried Rivercliff Union Cemetery, Mt. Gilead, Ohio;

Belva Lockwood Leach (Married Robert Hooker Spidel) Born: 30 June 1888 . Died: 24 February 1975; As told by Jane Webster to Susan Snyder (#2) on 2 November 2008, Belva was raised in Eaten, Ohio by an aunt, Louisa (Kenny) Newton and Uncle John Newton after her mother died. She was only about 4 months old when her mother died.

Ralph Marion Leach (Married Olive Steinmetz, widowed and remarried) Born: 24 June 1890 of Watson Leach (9) & Edith Wood. Died: 195_ ]

 

The photograph below was taken sometime between 1895 and 1899. Ralph was at least five years old in the picture and Harvey died in January 1899. Charles appears to be wearing the same jacket he was wearing in the school picture taken below. Note: There are three generations of Leach men in this photograph: Harvey (#17), Watson (#9), and Charles, Harold, Homer, and Ralph.

Education: Charles graduated from Marengo High School in 1900 and he received a certificate of graduation from the Ohio State University College of Law in 1906.

Below: Charles in the top row, far right, attended school in Marengo, Ohio.

Below: Charles attended Ohio State University.

 

 

Employment: public school teacher, worked at Von Gerechten Glass Company, author of legal digest for a legal publishing house, Third City Attorney, lawyer in private practice, Special Counsel in City Attorney’s office, First Assistant City Attorney, City Attorney, Common Pleas Judge.

 

Honors, achievements, memberships: President of the Hunter Literacy Society while a student at OSU; President of the Buckeye Republican Club 1918; President of the Torch Club (a speaker’s club) 1941; author of “The Constitution and the Covenant" (Reply to Critics) in the Ohio Law Reporter, September 1, 1919, Vol XVII, # 23, author of “Trial Atmosphere” in the Ohio Bar (Publication of the Ohio State Bar Association) August 8, 1949 Volume XXII, #20, p. 290; Knights of Pythias (member of the Grand tribunal in this order); Elks; Chamber of Commerce; the Ohio State University Association; Humbolt Lodge of Masons (33 degree); Scottish Rite and Shrine; Columbus and the Ohio State Bar Associations (Chairman of the Judicial Section of the Ohio Bar ); Vice president of the Common Pleas Judges Association of Ohio; Presiding Judge of the Common Pleas Court.

Hobbies: Reading, gardening and yard work.

 

 

Below: Charles had roses in his garden. The roses in this 2004 picture are in the garden of Susan Snyder (Charles’ granddaughter). Susan’s roses were started from cuttings from plants in the garden of Helen Leach (Susan’s mother). Helen started her roses by making cuttings of Charles’ roses.

Miscellaneous:

Charles was born on his father’s farm in Delaware County. When he was old enough, he attended a one room school house to get an education. Charles was seven years old when his mother died in 1888. One day, when he was 15 years old and seated on a mowing machine, cutting hay on his father’s farm, he pulled the horses to one side in the shade of a tree where he could be more comfortable and think. When he wheeled out into the field again, he had made up his mind. He would become a lawyer.

 

He continued with his education and graduated from Marengo High School.

Left: This poem appeared in the Morrow County Sentinel on 17 May 1900:

“Commencement Time
My High School Friends,
Hath noticed that the time approacheth
When thou shalt go to take the chances of the world?
Soon the season comes
When the flowers whose tiny frames
Thou hath dissected with microscopic scrutiny,
Shall serve as decorations
For the end-Commencement.

And are the time shall come
When thou for the last time
Shall listen to the bell that clangs for you,
Gaze once again ‘round
Those familiar walls,
Out on the play ground thro’ the halls,
And think of times gone by
When youth was young.

The hall is crowded
And the gayest of the gay are there;
Mid many decorations you must sit
Upon your chair and wait your turn.
The draperies and the colors of your class
Are twined about the Stars and Stripes
Thro’ the open casement from afar comes ?
Upon the wind the scent of wild flowers,
And a sea of faces look into your eyes.

With inspiration now your part you do,
Your effort is not lost upon the crowd;
The pompous class address is through,
‘Mid strains of music bursting forth so loud.
Diplomas now are handed ‘round
And all the long and studious years;
It seems to you, success has crowned;
Amidst applause and High School cheers
One proudest moment of your life been found;
And then congratulations come.

And now the banquet hall
With shimmering lights,
And gayest music and frivolities;
And mirth and toasts
And fairy beauties at Commencement ball,
And over glittering present.
Like tornado’s cloud, and all unnoticed,
The future hangs.

And as the seed is burst upon the thistle down,
And scattered wide upon the distant fields,
Far from the place of their nativity,
So also far scattered o’er the distant fields of mother earth,
In different avocations, different ways,
Pursuing rainbow ends and fame omnipotent,
And making friends and gaining wealth and power,
Thy class will go.

But in thy diverse wanderings o’er the earth,
Forget thou not the friends thou made in earlier days,
The deep foundation stones thou laid in place;
The happiness untold of care-free High School life,
And all the sacred memories thou hold
Of days gone by.

Charles Albert Leach
Peerless, O-May 1900."

After taking a teacher’s examination, he returned to the one-room school, that he had attended, to instruct classes. Some of his students included his former fellow students, including his brothers. He taught for two years and made $25 a month the first year and $33.33 a month the second year. His intent was to earn enough money be able to attend Ohio State University law school.

 

Left: Charles standing in back (center) of his class of students

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Left: Teaching ribbon.
Below: Report Card from Pleasant Hill School

In the fall of 1905, Charles was attending OSU and working his way through college when he was asked by a classmate to go calling on a North Side girl and her friend, a visitor from Circleville, Hazel Thatcher. While Hazel visited there, Charles took her out several times and when she returned to her home, she wrote to him and they began corresponding.

The following year Charles dropped out of school to teach again and earn more money. The year after that he entered the world of business. After his particular venture failed, he returned to Columbus, enrolled at Ohio State again and got a part time job at the Von Gerechten Glass Co., where he earned 10 cents an hour. He registered for afternoon classes, and at noon he’d scrub up, change from overalls to a suit and dash to the campus to make his first law class. Occasionally he’d take a day off and go to Circleville to see Hazel. Once in a while she’d come to the city and he’d escort her to a student dance.

He graduated from college in 1906, receiving a certificate in law. He did not receive a law degree since he had attended only law school and had never earned a Bachelor’s degree first. (This affected him for the rest of his life. He told his sons .. Robert and Russell.. to get degrees. Charles considered a degree to be very important, and he wished he had gotten one.)

Below: The 1906 graduating law class of Ohio State University. This photograph was donated by Susan Snyder to the OSU Law Library following the death of Russell Leach, the youngest son of Charles, and at the request of Russell.

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Below: Enlarged photo of Charles from the law school photograph.

Below: The Ohio State University Certificate presented to Charles in 1906.

Charles took the state bar examination in 1906, and went to Norwalk, where he was the author of a legal digest in his capacity as employee of a legal publishing house. He stayed in Norwalk until late in 1907, when he returned to Columbus and went into the private practice of law.

Above: This certificate, dated January Term, A.D. 1906, entitled Charles to practice law in the state of Ohio.

His father died when Charles was 26. Jane Webster remembers a family story ... when Charles and his brothers came home from attending their father's funeral in 1907, their step mother locked them out of the house. The boys hoisted the smallest brother into a window and he retrieved the family Bible. It is unknown where the boys went to live...but the Kenney family (their grandparents on their mother's side) lived nearby. Perhaps they went there.

Pictures of Charles goofing around.

Charles and Hazel were married April 27, 1908, in Columbus, at the home of an aunt, with whom Hazel had been making her home.

Below: Charles' and Hazel's marriage license.

 

 

 

January 1, 1910, Charles was appointed Third City Attorney, a position he held for two years before going back into the private practice of law. In 1912, Charles ran for Ohio Senate. He did not win that election.

 

 

 

Below: Article in the Log Cabin Intelligencer on 2 November 1912.

Below: Campaign Card and Editorial Cartoon 1912.

In 1914, he was appointed Special Counsel in the City Attorney’s office and later he became First Assistant City Attorney.

Below: In 1918, Charles received this honor for belonging to an organization of speakers in the US that served on the Committee on Public Information during the War of 1917-1918. The certificate is signed by several dignitaries, including Woodrow Wilson.

City Council appointed him City Attorney, to the unexpired term of Judge Henry Scarlett, in 1921. That fall, he was candidate for the position and was elected without opposition. He was re-elected, again without opposition, in 1925.

Below: City Attorney Charles A. Leach

Below: Charles with his family circa 1928. From left to right: Dorothy Ann Leach (oldest daughter), Hazel Kirk Thatcher (wife), Robert Edmund Leach (oldest son), Russell Leach (youngest son), and Jane Carol Leach (youngest daughter).

In the 1929 unopposed election for City Attorney, contributions to Charles’ election totaled $190.00, and total expenditures totaled $303.59. Expenditures included: postage ... $4.84 and petitions ... $7.50. Other costs included advertising in a variety of publications and other miscellaneous expenses.

Left: Editorial Cartoon: Columbus Dispatch 24 February 1929.

Left: City Attorney Card

 

 

 

During the nine years Charles was City Attorney, Columbus was rapidly growing. He was in charge of bond issues, contracts, and the acquisition of all the land from the site of the dam to Belle Point for the construction of the O’Shaughnessey Reservoir. He had a similar role with the construction of the new City Hall and the Columbus Airport. Acting for the city, he acquired the sites for many playgrounds and parks. As Attorney for the Board of Education, he performed similar services in connection with the construction of North, South, East, Central, and West High Schools. While acting as City Attorney or Assistant City Attorney, he was in charge of annexation proceedings which more than doubled the area of Columbus.

Left: Newspaper Feature: “Interesting Folk in Columbus”

 

 

 

Above: Top Row: Col. William Duffy, ??, Charles Leach (City Attorney), ?? , ??. Bottom Row: Floyd Green, Judge Gessaman, ??, Mayor Thomas, Minnie Rolley (Rawley?), ??.

As described in a news article, dated April 18, 1929, Charles participated in laying the cornerstone of the administration building of Port Columbus Airport. “At the ceremony, Councilmen Floyd F. Green, John E. Davis, Ralph Kempton, and City Attorney Leach expressed gratitude to the citizens of Columbus for their foresight in voting for the Municipal Airport bond issue last November. “

In 1929, Charles was re-elected, but he never served any part of the new term, because he was appointed Common Pleas judge before the term was to take effect.

Charles was successful as candidate for the judgeship in 1930. In 1936 and in the election that followed, he was re-elected without opposition, both times receiving large complimentary votes. He continued as Common Pleas judge for 21 years.

 

Below Left: Editorial Cartoon titled, “Mutual.” “You are entitled to the HONOR, and we are entitled to your HIGHER SERVICES." Right: Campaign Poster

Click on the record below to hear Charles talk about Ohio's Court System. The original recording of Judge Charles Leach was made on a 78 record by Russell Leach of a radio interview of his father some time prior to 15 August 1950. Susan Leach Snyder (#2) had the recording digitized 7 September 2005.

 

 

 

Below: A Holiday Message in the Ohio Jewish Chronicle: "Greetings for a Very Happy New Year with the Hope that 5706 Will See all Your Present Wishes Realized-Charles A. Leach-Judge of Common Pleas Court." Other photographs below are campaign cards & ads.

A great deal about the interests of Charles can be found in this announcement about an upcoming Torch Club meeting in April 1938. Charles Leach will be the upcoming speaker. The subject: “A column or two about Politics and Government.”

This article states: “Our next Torch meeting comes pretty close to being a birthday party for its speaker, Judge Charles A. Leach, whose birthday has just been passed. Why not call it that? I am sure all would delight in honoring this sincere, hard-working and altogether likeable public official whose record of usefulness is so fine. Judge Leach’s public life has been a series of elections and re-elections, eventually without opposition, because worth has been recognized.

Crane:“What would you rather do, or go fishin’” ? Leach: “Watch Ohio State beat Michigan at football.” There! You can see right away why Leach is a good judge. Favorite indoor sport- “A good cigar, a good book and an easy chair before the fireplace.” ***Favorite outdoor sport-”Auto trips”***Other hobby- “Downtown Football Coaches Association” ***Favorite author- “Victor Hugo”***Favorite magazine-”Saturday Evening Post (even if called lowbrow by some)” ***Favorite artist-”Frederick Remington” ***Favorite composer-”Verdi” ***Favorite food-”Oranges” *** Favorite hours of the day-”Sunrise and after dinner in the evening.” (Sunrise? Is the Jury ready to report?)***Ambition-”To be a Just Judge” ***Pet aversions-”Croomers and brain-trusters” ***Afraid of -”Demagogues” ***First job-”Teaching in one-room country school” (At $25 per month the State Journal says.) ***Best job (most fun)-”My present one-not sure about the fun” ***Hero in history-”Chief Justice John Marshall” ***Present-day hero- “A composite of the U.S. Senators who defeated the Court-packing bill” *** Favorite season and why-”Spring-for freshness” ***Spent last vacation-”Motoring through the South.”

Shall we do a little court packing of our own next Thursday? A bribe is offered- a good dinner and a good speech with plenty of meat in both.”

In 1939, Charles and youngest son, Russ, oldest daughter, Dorothy, and wife, Hazel, took a train to the New York World’s Fair. While there, they cut a record of their voices and sent it back home to his oldest son, Bob, and youngest daughter, Jane.

Click on the record below to hear that record. That record was digitized on 7 September 2005 for this website.

In the Daily Reporter, dated 6 February 1942, an article is titled “Judge Charles A. Leach Influential In Building a Better Columbus”. A quote from this article is as follows: “Judge Leach recalls with particular interest the birth of the idea which led to the construction of O’Shaughnessey Dam, which since its construction has been a life-saver to the city during various drought periods, particularly those of the 1930’s. Without this dam Columbus would have been without adequate water supply at that period. One day good, old, tall, lanky, Jerry O’Shaughnessey, then, and for many years, Superintendent of the Water Works, wandered into Leach’s office. He was smoking a stogie. He sat down, leaned back in his chair, cocked his feet up on the office desk, and after chatting a bit, said that at the rate Columbus was growing, he was afraid that the water supply afforded by Griggs Dam would not, if a long drought should occur, prove adequate for the needs of the growing city. At the end of a lengthy discussion, he wound up by requesting that a resolution be prepared to submit a bond issue to the voters of Columbus for the construction of a new dam and for an additional water supply. The resolution was prepared, submitted to the City Council, passed by that body and the bonds voted by the people, and the work went forward to completion. The job involved incidentally, moving to higher ground the laundry, power plant and several other buildings of the Girl’s Industrial School, in Delaware County; even the famous Sulphur Spring would be submerged, but the engineers devised a scheme whereby, even it was moved to higher ground. The job also involved the moving of part of a graveyard. In addition to all of this, the general legal work of the office was particularly heavy during those years.”

Far Left: Hazel, Charles, and daughter, Dorothy on February 18, 1945. (The day after son, Russell, married Helen Sharpe in Greensboro, NC). Left: Charles: The distinguished judge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below: Charles’ rocking chair.

 

 

Below Left: Hazel and Charles in later life. Middle: Hazel and Charles with their grandchildren, Steve Webster, Susan Leach, and baby Terry Leach 1950. His grandchildren called Charles “Grampie.” Right: Charles: circa 1950.

On July 15, 1950, Charles was trimming bushes in the park in the middle of his street (Bexley Park). He suffered a heart attack. He never recovered, and a gall bladder attack contributed to his death on August 15, 1950. His death certificate states that the disease/condition that lead directly to his death was coronary thrombosis; antecedent cause: arteriosclerosis; other significant conditions ch. cholecystitis.

When he died, Charles was remembered in the newspaper, Thursday, August 17, 1950 in an article titled, “Flag at Half Mast for Judge Leach." “In tribute to Common Pleas Judge Charles A. Leach, the flag at the Franklin County Court House will fly at half mast until after his funeral Friday afternoon. Judge Leach died Tuesday at his home, 2321 Bexley Park-av, at the age of 69. He had been on the Common Pleas bench for 21 years. Services will be held at 2 P.M. Friday in the Masonic Temple, 34 N. Fourth-st. Burial will be in Union Cemetery. Friends may call at the Schoedinger funeral home until 11 a.m. Friday, and at the Masonic Temple from 11:30 a.m. until time of services. Active pallbearers will be Paul A. Griffith, Paul R. Gingher, R.W. Taylor, Henry Howe, Burton West and Henry L. Scarlett. Honorary pallbearers will be his fellow jurists of the Common Pleas Court and judges of the Probate Court, Ohio Supreme Court, Second District Court of Appeals, Municipal Court of Columbus, Federal District Judge Mell Underwood and E. L. Winland. Common Pleas Court will be closed Friday afternoon.”

The following is quoted from an article in the Columbus Dispatch on 3 September 1950, following Charles’ death. The article was titled, “In Praise of Judge Leach” “They buried Judge Charles A. Leach--they’ll never bury the memories many of us have of a square-shooting, hardworking, devoted judge. The bench, the bar and the public have lost a real servant in Judge Leach’s passing. In my 23 years of association with him, I’ve never seen him shirk his duties, never swerve from his devotion to justice in its fullest sense.

For him, politics had no place on the bench, which is as it should be. The writer valued Judge Leach, not only as a judge, but as a treasured friend.--Columbus...Sam Fusco”

 

Photos were taken 8/15/01

 

 

 

Another article was titled, “Charles A. Leach” It reads, “Charles A. Leach adorned the bench on which he sat so honorably and with such distinction for 21 years. In conduct, in bearing, in temperament he reflected the depth and breadth of the best judicial qualities. The rugged and understanding spirit which activated him was revealed in the calmness of his face, the courage of his soul and in the coolness of his eyes. He induced in those with whom he came in contact, whether in the austerity of his courtroom or in casual, social conversation, a feeling at once of ease and respect. His sincerity was inherent in his carriage. His great moral and spiritual strength and his competent judgment were apparent on contact. Judge Leach’s personal history is not unlike the personal histories of many of our more successful and outstanding citizens. He was born an average American, on a farm in Delaware County. He prized the worth of education and he worked steadily and purposefully toward his goal. He knew early the meaning and the value of responsibility, and as he conscientiously and successfully filled the smaller assignments that first came his way, he grew in stature. Those around him instinctively trusted his capacity and his decision. His first great opportunities came, as they do to all men, in a series of difficult tasks. By constant application, by devotion to principle, by moving toward the end he was seeking he accomplished them one by one, and when he had served three terms as city attorney for Columbus he was recognized as one of the outstanding officials in this kind in the whole state. His opportunity to realize the fulfillment of his capabilities came with his appointment to the Franklin County Common Pleas bench in 1929 by Governor Cooper. There he labored in the interest of orderly and lawful government and there he made the outstanding record that distinguished him. Whether it be from the standpoint of personal living, whether from public service, whether from the standpoint of unexcelled success or from humility, Judge Charles A. Leach was a man of the very best quality. Franklin County--the world, indeed--is better for his having lived in it.”