Long-lost Toledo sword returns home Sister city’s gift displayed in Illinois home for decades
ByIgnazio Messina | BLADE STAFF WRITER Published on Oct. 30, 2016 | Updated 1:22 p. m.
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The sword was apparently given to a delegation from Toledo, Ohio, that went to Toledo, Spain, in 1934. It is unclear to whom ‘J. Martin’ on the plaque refers.THE BLADE/DAVE ZAPOTOSKY
Some of the finest Toledo steel — a gift from the government of Toledo, Spain — has returned to Toledo, Ohio, after it was apparently taken some 80 years ago.
Burt and Barbara Toepp had a sword inside a locked wooden display case hanging on their Naperville, Ill., family room wall for 45 years.
The silver sword with an ornate golden hilt and handle, along with an equally ornate sheath, are mounted inside the glass-topped box measuring 25 inches long by nearly 7 inches wide. It includes a small plaque with the inscription “Toledo Espana A Toledo, Ohio Y En Su Nombre, Al Ayuntamiento, La Casa, 1 Junio, 1934, J. Martin”
The blade itself is inscribed with “From Toledo Spain to Toledo Ohio” along with the name “J. Martin” and the date June 1, 1934. It was not clear who J. Martin was.
Toledo Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson didn’t know anything about the sword when she received it this month, other than it came from Toledo, Spain, a city famous for sword-making and steel-working.
It turns out the sword was likely a gift from the government of Toledo, Spain, given to a delegation sent to the Spanish city three years after the 1931 creation of the sister city relationship between the two Toledos. The relationship is the “oldest formally recognized sister-city relationship in the world,” according to the local Sister Cities International organization.
The gift went missing roughly eight decades ago, and it was forgotten, until now.
For the Toepps, its history was somewhat shrouded in mystery. They acquired it in about 1971 from Mr. Toepp’s uncle, Ralph Hoover, who apparently acquired it from his father, Mr. Toepp’s great uncle.
That’s where the story gets somewhat clouded and somewhat shady.
“My husband’s uncle by marriage was Ralph Hoover, and it was his father who had something to do in the mayor’s office in Toledo,” Mrs. Toepp, 80, said. “It went from Ralph’s father to Uncle Ralph, and when he died, it went to us, and we have had it hanging in our family room for 45 years.”
It was a popular conversation topic during ****tail and dinner parties the Toepps held in their Chicago-area home over the past 45 years, she said.
Mr. Toepp, 82, was recovering from surgery recently and could not speak. His wife could not recall the name of the man who apparently worked in the mayor’s office.
Historical records and photos point to Toledo’s 1934 Vice-Mayor Charles D. Hoover as the man who acquired the sword and apparently took it home. Vice-Mayor Hoover, who died in 1948, was also a city councilman and had set a Toledo record by spending 26 consecutive years in elected municipal office. His son, Ralph Hoover, the uncle of Mr. Toepp, was executive secretary to the Lucas County engineer.
In 1934, a delegation led by Vice-Mayor Hoover was sent from Toledo, Ohio, to Toledo, Spain, three years after the relationship was officially forged, according to multiple historical accounts, photographs, and articles printed in The Blade.
“The delegation was given a tremendous reception, not only in Toledo, Spain, but in other Spanish communities they visited,” stated Vice-Mayor Hoover’s 1948 obituary printed in The Blade.
The 1934 trip corresponded with an exhibition of Spanish art at the Toledo Museum of Art. A delegation from Toledo, Spain, was supposed to visit Toledo, Ohio, in 1937 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Toledo, Ohio, but the Spanish Civil War began in 1936 and later World War II disrupted that planned trip.
A black-and-white photograph shows delegation members in 1934 seated in a car parked with a crowd gathered in front of the Ayuntamiento, which means city hall, of Toledo, Spain.
Along with Vice-Mayor Hoover, the delegation included Grove Patterson, who was editor of The Blade, and Russell Brown, a Spanish teacher at Toledo’s DeVilbiss High School.
Mrs. Toepp said she and her husband recently asked their daughters if they wanted to take the sword because the Toepps were preparing to move out of their longtime home into a smaller, assisted-living facility.
“None of our girls wanted it, but one of my daughters thought it would be a good idea to send it back to Toledo,” Mrs. Toepp said. “I was afraid to ship it, so I called, and they sent someone to get it. She arrived, and I had it all bubble-wrapped for her to take back to Toledo.”
Her call to Toledo’s city hall in May was received by then-Toledo employee Alan Bannister.
Mr. Bannister, who was Mayor Hicks-Hudson’s executive assistant until June when he took another job, asked his sister — who lives in Chicago — to pick it up and return it to the people of Toledo. She held it for the three months until her trip to Toledo this month, then dropped it off at Mr. Bannister’s home. He in turn took it to the mayor’s Old West End home.
Jim Hartung, president of Toledo Sister Cities International’s board of trustees, said he was elated the sword was returned.
“I think it’s a rich part of Sister Cities, and I am glad it’s home,” Mr. Hartung said. “I can’t cast judgment on what happened before and how it disappeared, but I am glad it’s home.”
Toledo has been given many swords over the past century from the government of its Spanish counterpart. Among them is a 7-foot sword housed at the Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections at the University of Toledo given to the “Association of two Toledos” in 1976 for the U.S. bicentennial.
A 1934 photograph at the Canaday Center shows the 1934 delegation posing with what appears to be a different sword and sheath. Photographs of the sword now in the office of Mayor Hicks-Hudson could not be found in the collection at UT.
Mayor Hicks-Hudson brought the sword to work recently and placed it in the secure area of her 22nd floor mayoral suite rather than the area accessible to the public.
“I don’t want it to be stolen again,” she quipped. “We are going to find a place to display this because it is part of our history.”
Contact Ignazio Messina at:
imessina@theblade.com or 419-724-6171 or on Twitter @IgnazioMessina.
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