Carl Hoel was born on June 5, 1911 in Celina, Ohio. Carl is Walt’s dad and my father-in-law.

Carl, in the 1920s.

Carl was the youngest of 9 children born to William and Martha Fisher Hoel. The family lived in Celina, Ohio at the time. Most of their children were born there, but one daughter, Margaret, was born in Muncie, Indiana! William had a farm near Celina. By 1920, he was working as a machinist.

The family lived in Michigan briefly in the early 1920’s, but by the time of the 1925 Iowa State census, William, Martha and the five youngest children were living in New London, Iowa. Carl was 13 at the time and was in school then, though he only completed 8th grade.

At the time of the 1930 census, Carl is listed as currently unemployed. He was living with his mother and brothers Orville and Clarence in New London.

By 1940, Carl is living with his married brother, Orville and his wife Eleanor and their daughter Doris, along with his mother and Clarence. At the time he and Georgina had been dating for a while. I posted a few pictures from that time in this post. Carl was working as an automobile mechanic as was his brother Clarence. I wrote about Clarence here.

Carl and Georgie

Carl married Georgina Link on April 14 1942. I wrote about their wedding here. I found a copy of their marriage certificate recently.

Carl and Georgie spent the war traveling to various places for work. Georgie worked as a secretary for a company that built munitions plants and Carl worked as a machinist. We started the blog originally to tell the story of their trip across the country at the end of World War II. You can follow the Grand Tour of the West starting with this post.

Carl and Georgie settled in Fort Madison, Iowa and raised their family. I found a number of city directories They were living at 652 1/2 Avenue H in 1949, where their oldest son, Tony was born. In 1950, they bought 1424 Avenue D, which is where Marty and Walt were born and were Carl and Georgie lived for the rest of their lives.

This page is from the Fort Madison City Directory from 1960. Carl worked for Ochsners as a mechanic. He worked there for a long time.

Carl Hoel died on August 6, 1971 and Walt wrote about that day in this post.