Hubler history W. R. Hubler, Jr., M. D

A Concise Hubler Compendium

The Hubler surname is not common and is of Germanic, Swiss or French origin. “Hubler,” “Huvler,” “Oublier,” “Oubeler,” ”Oubelaire,” “Hoobler,” “Hubeler,” “Hoovler,” and “Howbelare” are a few variants of the spelling of the surname. Soon, the lineage will be easier (and more accurate) to decipher. A genetic expert at Oxford University used (and patented) a technique known as genetic fingerprinting to examine the men's Y chromosome, which is handed down with very little change from father to son. He was able to identify many men who descended from the same ancestor and in one case was able to identify a descendant of a fossilized specimen from a pre-historic man. Microsatellites, repeated sequences of the four nucleotides ( A, C, T and G), seem to carry no important genetic instructions but can be used as "fingerprints" to identify genes. Other DNA mapping projects might illuminate the dark recesses of our past and revolutionize genealogy.

Before 1300, most European peasants went by just one name or had names they did not pass on to their children, but surnames became inherited as a way to transfer the tenancy of the landowner to his children.² The origin and meaning of the name “HUBLER” is not known. Coats of Arms have been used in Europe since the 13th century, and a coat of arms for HUBLER has been found, but its origin and meaning are unclear. The name “HUBLER” may refer to an “armorer” or arms maker. Germanic onomastic research suggests that the HUBLER surname means “one who fights with a sword.”³ Switzerland is the source of one HUBLER family and was the best-known European source of mercenary armies, so it is possible that the HUBLER surname may be rooted in war. Almost all Swiss families in medieval times had a coat-of-arms, and many of those coats-of-arms were originally awarded in adjoining or nearby countries, such as, Germany or Austria (Holy Roman Empire), France or Hungary. ⁴ Alternatively, the HUBLERs may have originally been Huguenots expelled from France in the late 1500s, and thus the name “Oublier” which means, “to forget.” The HUBLER surname in this line in America began in Twann, Switzerland. Twann is in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, but it is close to the French speaking area and just east of the French border. Thus, in the Dark Ages, the HUBLER surname was probably rooted in Germany, but the surname may have been exiled from France in the Huguenot expulsion; however, either way, the HUBLER family was Swiss from the late 1500’s. [Some contemporaneous HUBLERs in 18^th century Pennsylvania emigrated directly from Chemnitz, Germany. The town is northeast of Berlin and the original church (St. Jakobi) where these HUBLERs were baptized, married, and etc. still stands. These immigrants spelled their surname “Hoobler,” and the intersection of these two inheritance lines (if any) is unknown.]⁵

The Swiss have recorded the beginnings, marriages and deaths of the residents of Switzerland since the mid-1500's, and the christening of the first HUBLER in Twann, Switzerland was recorded in 1575. Hundreds of years and many generations later, the progenitor of the American HUBLER heirs left his ancestral home of Twann for a new life in the wilderness of Pennsylvania.

Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) decided to seek his fate in the distant land of America. He was a journeyman cobbler, a profession of menial skills and modest status, in the wine-growing village of Twann. Apparently, his father, Hans Jacob HUBLER (1673-1731), was a landless man of some wealth who probably died before he was age 60 years old, and it is possible that his death, as well as, religious disparity spurred the emigration of Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789).

The economy of early 18th century Switzerland was caught in the throes of a mixture of an agrarian community and mercenary armies as Swiss farmers planted the peaceful pulchritude while Switzerland exported trained fighters to battle in European conflicts. Perhaps, Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) saw no future in either and sought more. There is some evidence that he fled religious persecution—the area around Twann was tumultuously wracked with disputes between various reformed Protestant sects from Germany and Roman Catholic groups from France, and Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) wrote that “a member of the reformed religion maliciously wanted to extract a certain sum of money from me” when he was in Twann. Later in colonial America, Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) did not seem to participate in organized religion, and did not seem to be a zealot. The exact cause for the emigration of Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) will probably never be known, but speculation is fun.

Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) left Twann, Switzerland and journeyed northwest downstream on the Rhine River to Rotterdam, Holland. After a short stay, he left for America. In 1737 at the age of twenty-seven, Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) arrived in the bustling seaport of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on an English ship that sailed from the Dutch port of Rotterdam. Penniless, he indentured himself to pay for the passage to America. The transatlantic trip probably took a month. Pennsylvania was a Mecca for those who sought religious freedom, but Philadelphia was also a gateway to the riches of the New World and was one of the most prosperous and populous (19,000 in 1750) cities in the New World.

Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) was not the first German-speaking immigrant in 18th century America. In fact, thousands of Germans had established a community just north of Philadelphia, appropriately called "Germantown,” with churches, farms, stores and German language newspapers. (It is now incorporated as part of Philadelphia proper.) Everyone basked in a financial, personal and religious freedom unknown in the Old World. However, Utopia was also risky. While the southeastern rim of Pennsylvania was a prosperous beehive of European immigrants, northern and western Pennsylvania was unsettled "Indian" territory whose potential was tempered by the unknown. Actually, the Native Americans helplessly watched their families and friends die from infectious diseases imported by Europeans, or the Natives were chased westward by the immigrating masses of white settlers. In 18^th century Pennsylvania, the American Indian only rarely raided and killed the intruding immigrants (until incited to do so by the French in the French and Indian War in 1752). They were not the greatest danger—the harsh, uncharted and unsettled wilderness of bucolic Pennsylvania was a more formidable threat.

Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) arrived in America with little money and no family; but he was literate, young, healthy and filled with a desire for freedom and a better life than he left behind. A quotidian man, Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) was destined for success. He probably worked in Philadelphia or Germantown for a few years (to fulfill his indenture contract) then ventured north into the wild, but arcadian, territory. With a few other pioneer families in the area, Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) established a township, Plainfield, about 75 miles north of Philadelphia. He raised a family of eleven, purchased and cleared land, farmed his soil, saved and shared his money, built the first inn in the region, and more. Pelf was not his passion, but he was proud of his achievements.

During the French and Indian War, the white settlers in Jacob HUBLER's area took refuge in nearby towns from marauding American Indians. The Native Americans were enlisted by the French to annihilate all English settlers; and Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) was probably one of those who fled to nearby Nazareth, Pennsylvania. During the American Revolution, Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) was too old to fight; but he served in the local Pennsylvania militia. Several of his sons and son-in-laws saw action for the insurgents in the War. So, all of the descendants of Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) can claim membership in the Daughters/Sons of the American Revolution and be proud of his patriotism in the fledgling country.

When Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) died at the age of 79 years of age, his farm consisted of almost 500 acres, a three-story stone inn and several outbuildings. Only the foundations of the past remain; but "Jacobsburg" is now a Pennsylvania State Park filled with nature trails and covered with a mantle of trees and bush. Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) is buried in Jacobsburg in an unmarked grave, and probably proudly watches as Americans walk through the grand hills and wildness in a park that has been preserved as he had found it three hundred years earlier.

The children of Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789) stayed close to home. His eldest son, Jacob HUBLER, Jr. (1742-1811), continued the family traditions of farming, longevity and productivity. His home was close to Jacobsburg in Moore Township, Northampton Co, Pennsylvania. Although he was listed as a "laborer" on his will, that was often a euphemism for a farmer or farm laborer. He owned no land, so he was probably a tenet farmer. Jacob HUBLER, Jr. (1742-1811) inherited the estate of his grandfather [Hans Jacob HUBLER (1673-1731)] in Switzerland] from his father [Jacob HUBLER (1710-1789)] who was unable to gain release of the money from the Swiss government. Jacob HUBLER, Jr. (1742-1811) finally retrieved 400 Swiss crowns, an amount which probably sustained him for most of his 69 years of life and helped raise his family of eight children and two wives. He died from a fall from a tree in 1811.

Like many immigrant families, subsequent generations of the HUBLER family moved west. More then a century later, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1809 - 1894) would note, “The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving.” Leaving many HUBLER siblings and cousins whom had become established in eastern Pennsylvania, some moved to central Pennsylvania. Abraham HUBLER (b ca 1779) married in 1798 and settled near Jacobsburg in Hanover Twp, Northampton Co, Pennsylvania. Less than two years later, in 1800, he headed west to New Berlin, Northumberland Co, PA. Abraham HUBLER (b ca 1779) was a weaver and practiced his trade for two decades in New Berlin; and then an itchy foot and the knock of opportunity stimulated his movement to the less populated and more remote Clearfield County in north central Pennsylvania. It is rumored that Abraham HUBLER (b ca 1779) headed west again to Ohio in about 1830 with his wife where he died, an old man; but no one knows his death site or burial place.

Moses HUBLER (1803-1855) was the middle son of Abraham HUBLER (b ca 1779), and he married a childhood neighbor in Centre County, Pennsylvania in 1825. Moses HUBLER (1803-1855) had four children while he lived in Pennsylvania, and then he and his wife moved to eastern Ohio in 1833 where he added eight more children for a total of twelve. Youngstown, Ohio became the HUBLER omphalos. Moses HUBLER (1803-1855) was a successful farmer until his untimely death with typhoid fever at the age of 52 in 1855. His widow then raised the children and ran the farm. While some of the sons of Moses HUBLER (1803-1855) moved to the farmland of Wisconsin or rushed to the gold mines of California, most of his children stayed in Youngstown.

Youngstown, Ohio was steel country; and as the Industrial Revolution hit, metal mills and steam stacks sprouted in the countryside of the HUBLER homestead. One of the most prominent men of Youngstown was Alfred Wick who lent his name to streets, buildings and children, including one baby boy of Moses HUBLER (1803-1855) in 1842, Alfred Wick HUBLER (1842-1921).

Alfred Wick HUBLER (1842-1921) was one of the dozen children of Moses HUBLER (1803-1855), and he continued the HUBLER name in Youngstown with eight children of his own. As a young man, Alfred Wick HUBLER (1842-1921) was not a farmer and left the side of his mother after his father, Moses HUBLER (1803-1855), had died. Alfred Wick HUBLER (1842-1921) served in the Civil War on the "Northern" side. He saw some battle action and watched many of his friends die from disease, the biggest killer in the most deadly American war. Typhus, probably caught while he was a soldier, would weaken him later in adulthood.

When Alfred Wick HUBLER (1842-1921) returned from the War, he began work in the steel mills of Youngstown, Ohio as a boiler in a roller mill for Brown-Bonnell Co. A union man, he was President of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers for the region for many years. However, weakened by typhus during his youth, Alfred Wick HUBLER (1842-1921) left the strenuous work in the steel mill and worked for his brother-in-law making candy and later laying cement for Eureka College.

A dapper dresser who sported a trademark pencil-thin mustache, Alfred Wick HUBLER (1842-1921) was proud of his appearance and family, but time was a heavy burden for him. His mind and health failed; and at the age of 89 years, he died at his home in Youngstown, Ohio and was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery.

Lloyd Lincoln HUBLER (1886-1972), the youngest boy in the family of A.W. HUBLER (1842-1921), was born with steel in his veins; and he used the tenacity that he inherited and the skills of his father to become the first HUBLER to go to college. L.L. HUBLER (1886-1972) attended Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio in the engineering department. His uncle, EDWIN HUBLER, who owned a small cement plant, paid his college expenses. The Midwest was steel country; and L.L. HUBLER (1886-1972) worked all of his life as an engineer in steel plants. He began as a structural engineer in Birmingham, Alabama in 1915.

The Depression hit the steel business especially hard and many employees and companies were left without work, although several years passed before white-collar workers fell. In 1934, L.L. HUBLER (1886-1972) lost his job in Birmingham, Alabama; but he found work at United Eng. & Fn'd Co. in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. However, he again was laid off in 1943. Searching for work in 1945, L.L. HUBLER (1886-1972) stopped to visit an acquaintance in Gadsden, Alabama and was hired immediately at Republic Steel Corp. where he worked for 13 years until his retirement. A jovial, short (5' 6") man, L.L. HUBLER (1886-1972) married twice but only had one child, W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993).

L.L. HUBLER (1886-1972) was a loyal man who supported his infant son and first wife during many years of separation, even in meager times. A sportsman, L.L. HUBLER (1886-1972), filled his retirement time with hunting and fishing. His second marriage was for company—not in the hunting fields, but at home. He proudly watched his son, W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) achieve the pinnacle of professions, medicine. Finally, his heart failed him, and L.L. HUBLER (1886-1972) died at the age of 76.

Winthrope R. HUBLER (1916-1993) did not sail through a life of smooth waters. From an auspicious beginning, the only child of L.L. HUBLER (1886-1972) seemed destined to achieve; but his frail, fanatical mother and robust, buxom father separated when he was young; and the effects of that split was a burden he carried all of his life. Probably because of his tumultuous rearing tied to an obsessive mother's apron strings in a single parent home in times of economic woes, W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) did not trust people easily and often was ruled by insecurity. However, driven by his mother and by genes which imparted both intelligence and success, W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) did the impossible—he became a physician. Even more, he joined the elite few dermatologists in America.

It was difficult to break the HUBLER foothold, and W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) returned to the family stronghold of Youngstown, Ohio to practice after finishing his medical training in Cleveland, Ohio in 1945. But risk and migration west were also genetic traits; and in 1947, he left a lucrative, successful dermatological practice in Youngstown and took his two sons and wife to Texas to begin a new life far from the HUBLER country in Ohio and his family.

In 1947, Corpus Christi, Texas was a sleepy town with a population of 90,000 on the Gulf of Mexico. The economy of the town was based on farming, an infant oil industry and a World War II vintage U. S. Naval Air Station. It was a perfect spot for W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) and his family. The smog and snow of Ohio were left behind for the clear, sunny skies and sand of South Texas. W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) hunkered down to begin a practice in dermatology that would last almost 40 years.

W. R. HUBLER, Jr. (b 1945) was a typical first child—intense, independent and abrasive, and he often was introspective and enjoyed solitude. When he developed a slowly progressive ataxia in high school, his affliction made him focus his intensity toward achievement, and he aimed his abilities toward a medical career. The second child, Lloyd (David) HUBLER (b 1947), had a different personality. He was a gregarious, jovial juvenile who often watched with quiet amusement as his older brother, W.R. HUBLER, Jr. (b 1945), noisily railed against the establishment. He excelled in all intellectual and physical activity. Parties and girls filled his realm. Clever and innovative, he decided on a medical career almost as a challenge. With proud parental support, both of the sons of W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) decided to pursue medical careers. Both sons married while in medical training, and grandchildren soon followed. Later, L. David HUBLER (b 1947) specialized in orthopedic surgery and settled in Dallas, Texas, and W. R.HUBLER, Jr. (b 1945) returned to Corpus Christi to join his father in dermatological practice.

In the late 1960's, there was trouble in the HUBLER home in Corpus Christi. With their "nest" empty in 1967, Marie Seale (1918-1988) and W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) could not cope. She sought help in the bottomless pit of alcohol, and he stepped in the quicksand of cupidity. The couple separated. It must have brought back all of the memories of his parental estrangement, and W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) could not handle the solitude and rejection. W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) and Marie Seale (1918-1988) were divorced in 1972; and shortly afterward in 1974, W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) married a second time to Helen Mullen (b 1952) who would gave him the psychological and emotional support he craved and needed, and also the youth which had evaded him.

In the 1980s, the memory of W. R. HUBLER (1916-1993) slowly began to fail; and by 1986, he was diagnosed as having Alzheimer's disease, and he had to retire from his medical practice. His family watched in horror as his mind was destroyed by the untreatable disease; and in 1990 when his physical and mental abilities became uncontrollable, W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) was incarcerated in a nursing home. He could no longer remember his roots, family or personal history. W.R. HUBLER (1916-1993) died in 1993 in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The HUBLER family is not exceptional, but it is representative of many of the families who immigrated to America seeking a better life. There were no aristocrats, intellectuals or wealthy among the HUBLER immigrants. Also, there are no major skeletons in the collective closets. But, the HUBLER families had their own lexicon. Sweat led to success; chance meant challenge; adversity equaled adventure; progeny connoted productivity; risk spelled reward; family equated future; disabled meant desire; right denoted responsibility.

The HUBLER progenitor came to America in search of a better life. He was willing to take chances to succeed and had a positive goal. He came to America because as a free man, he wanted more from life. The HUBLER immigrant forefather ended up as a landed farmer, although he came as a penniless cobbler. He emigrated from Europe with a work ethic engendered by his forefathers—a philosophy that many modern Americans seemed to have lost. Success was made by individual hard work, not the game of "getting more for less" which is pervasive in our society today. Individual rights were inseparable from individual responsibilities. “Unions,” “co-ops” and “communalism” were not part of their jargon. Fate was earned, not given. Every man carried his own destiny on his shoulders.

In 1997, the HUBLER surname heads an estimated 1,327 households and is shared by 2,919 individuals in the United States. It is not surprising that most HUBLER households are in Pennsylvania, the disembarkation point in America of the first HUBLER. Switzerland counts 698 individuals in 279 households.

The search for the famous and infamous in the HUBLER family continues; because much of what we are, we inherited.