Mom and Dad

Paul K. Routzahn was born in Indianapolis, the son of Ralph I. and Alethia Routzahn. He attended school in Indianapolis and graduated from Shortridge High School in 1934. He attended Butler University, Indianapolis Business College and Louisiana State University. He married Kathryn (Kay) Danner of Madison, Indiana. A veteran of World War II, he served in the U.S. Army in the European Theater, earning the Purple Heart and obtaining the rank of tech/sergeant before his honorable discharge in 1946.

For 38 years he was employed as an agent for Amoco Oil, formerly Standard Oil Company of Indiana, until his retirement in 1976. He owned and operated the Standard Addressing Service for 43 years, worked for Indiana Kiwanis International as secretary-treasurer and editor of the Hoosier Kiwanian for seven years. He was a member of First Presbyterian Church, where he served as an elder and trustee for several terms and as clerk of the session of the church for one term. He was also a member of the Central States Petroleum Union Local 1, where he had formerly served as a steward and secretary of the bargaining committee.

He was active in the community for almost 60 years, including a 12-year member of Fayette County Area Plan Commission; 11-year member of Fayette County Board of Zoning Appeals; Fayette County Civil Defense director for four years and board secretary for one year; vice president and committee chairman of Fayette County Council on Aging and Aged for eight years; Fayette County Public Library Board member since 1980; Area IX Council on Aging and Aged Advisory Board member for six years; Historic Connersville Inc. Board member for nine years, including terms as president and vice president; member of Connersville Chamber of Commerce, serving as vice president for tourism and chairman of Whitewater Tourism committee; Fayette County Election Board member for 12 years, serving as president six years; Fayette County United Fund director from 1988-1990 and Harrison Township Advisory Board secretary.

He served three organizations for almost 60 years. They included the American Red Cross, where he served as board member of Fayette/Rush counties chapter from 1952-92; executive board member from 1952-92, chapter vice chairman one year, chapter chairman for 21 years; fund chairman and disaster chairman for many years; Indiana State Conference delegate for nine years; treasurer for seven years; state conference director for 19 years; National Fund vice chairman and Indiana Fund chairman for three years; National Credentials Committee for one year; national nominating committee for three years; Board of Governors for three years; MOH Territory 7 Field Service chairman for three years; advisory board and financial development chairperson for five years; and 1986 National Convention committee member. In the Boys Scouts of America, he served as chairman of the Tenonkak District; chairman of the camping and fund committee; Whitewater Valley Council vice president, Troop 32 committee member and Cub Pack 32 treasurer and committee member. In Kiwanis International, he was a former member of the Anderson Club, later transferring to the Connersville Club. He served as club president, secretary-elect, board member for 12 years; lieutenant governor of the Rose Division; division committees member, Indiana district secretary/treasurer and editor of the Hoosier Kiwanian for seven years, helped sponsor three new clubs and three youth Key Clubs; and maintained perfect attendance for 58 years.

He was Fayette County Republican chairman for three years; 10th District Republican treasurer for four years; Fayette County Republican Election Board member for 12 years; delegate to the Republican State Convention for 18 years and diplomat for U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar.

In recognition of his service and leadership, he was presented the following: by the Boy Scouts of America, the District Scouter, Bronze Scouter, Eagle Scout and Silver Beaver, Order of the Arrow (Ordeal) and 50 Year Member awards; by the Kiwanis International, Life Member, Service, Legion of Honor, 58 Year Perfect Attendance, 1994 Kiwanian of the Year, New Club Building and Hixson Fellowship Awards; Connersville/Fayette County Citizen of the Year Award in 1994; Junior Chamber of Commerce Certificate of Appreciation; American Legion’s Citation of Appreciation; Oil Industry Information Committee Bronze Award; numerous 4-H and Future Farmers of America awards; Sagamore of the Wabash in 1961 and a Kentucky Colonel in 1979; and counsel to the attorney general, state of Indiana in 1984.

Anna Kathryn Danner was born to Roy S. and Anna M. Danner in Madison, Indiana on in 1916. She was the third child born to this family. The oldest was Glenroie, Kenneth, Kathryn, and Martha. Kenneth died in infancy. Roy was a well thought of auto mechanic and was the proprietor of Danner Garage, Sales and Service. He sold Willys Overland and Whippet were the first cars that he sold. Afterwards, he sold Packard, and Pontiac as well. He was so well known in the community that he was to be the Republican candidate for Stater Representative from Jefferson County, but he was involved in an auto accident and killed in 1937.

Anna M. Danner, her mother, assumed the business and took over the garage business. She sold new and used automobiles for many years. Kathryn helped her mother by running the office. Glenroie, known as Glen attended Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana. He ran the movie cameras in Madison, Indiana and Carrolton, Kentucky for several years. He and another Madisonian established WORX, the Radio Station in Madison. They sold the station when he went to work in Middletown, Ohio for the Steel Company. He married Fern Stewart, a teacher in Madison. They stayed in Middletown until the start of Jefferson Proving Ground in Jefferson County, Indiana, working for the Army. The government moved them to Cape Canaveral, Florida, California, Mississippi, back to Canaveral, and back to Jefferson Proving Ground. He headed up the testing department. The Army was dissatisfied with the cameras that they used for pictures with their equipment, so they asked him to make the equipment that they needed. He did and they were very pleased.

Kathryn and Martha, her younger sister, attended Hanover College taking a 2 year Teacher’s Training Course. Martha taught First Grade in Madison while Kathryn attended one semester at Indiana University in Bloomington. She was employed to teach Third Grade at Alexandria, Indiana for 2 years. She married Paul K. Routzahn in September 1940. Her younger sister, Martha, married Dr. Robert Zink, lived in Vevay, Indiana for 1 year and they returned to Madison where her husband joined other doctors to form the Madison Clinic. After he retired, Bon and Martha moved to Sedona, Arizona for half of each year.

Kathryn’s husband Paul, was an employee of Standard Oil Ct. of Indiana. He was placed on temporary duty at the Madison Bulk Plant when the Agent became ill. He lived in Kathryn’s mother’s house and that was how Paul met Kathryn. When he returned to the Indianapolis Office, the following year, he became a traveling auditor. He relieved clerks in all of the salaried bulk plants while those employees were on vacation.

In Memory of Paul K. Routzahn

Some men leave a record of their lives in deeds. Paul Routzahn left one in both — his deeds, and then, letter after letter, the record of them.

When the Army sent him overseas in the Second World War, he wrote home to Kay every chance he got. Not telegrams — real letters. About the men in his unit, the places he saw, the mud, the mail from home, the hope of coming back. Kay kept every one of them, and more than seventy years later they are still in the family, bound up below as Letters of Remembrance.

He came home in 1946 with a Purple Heart and an honorable discharge, married the girl he had written to, and spent thirty-eight years as an agent for Standard Oil — the kind of man a small town is built on. Fifty-eight years of perfect attendance at Kiwanis. A Boy Scout Silver Beaver. A Kentucky Colonel. A Sagamore of the Wabash. Connersville's Citizen of the Year, 1994.

And through it all, he never put on airs about any of it. Read a page of these letters and you will hear him — the Greatest Generation never knew it was great. They wrote home, did the job, raised the kids, and mowed the lawn.

These scans and cards are his handwriting, decades on: Christmas cards built from family photos, letters home to the woman who would keep them all. Thank you, Grandpa — for the letters, and for the family you kept in them.