We will endure a Friday the Thirteenth this week, but no one seems very anxious about that ominous day. Cincinnatians used to call Friday the Thirteenth a “hoodoo day,” when bad luck abounded. Well, sometimes the hoodoos do, and sometimes the hoodoos don’t. Here are some Friday the Thirteenth memories from Cincinnati.
You might say Cincinnati was founded on Friday the Thirteenth. It was Friday, September 13, 1794 when President George Washington signed the official documents transferring 248,250 acres of southwest Ohio land known as the Miami Purchase to John Cleves Symmes.
It was on Friday the Thirteenth that Cincinnati annexed Columbia-Tusculum. This historic neighborhood – even older than Cincinnati itself – became part of our city on Friday, December 13, 1782.
On the other hand, the People’s Theater on the southeast corner of Sixth and Vine streets burned to the ground on Friday, June 13, 1856, and took most of the neighboring block with it.
In 1937, the Cincinnati Reds suffered one of the worst defeats in team history when the Chicago Cubs pounded them 22 to 6 on Friday, August 13. That Friday the Thirteenth loss was not exceeded until July 6, 2009 (a Monday), when the Philadelphia Phillies obliterated the Reds 22 to 1.
IMAGE EXTRACTED FROM MICROFILM BY GREG HAND
Cupid traditionally took a vacation every Friday the Thirteenth in Cincinnati. The marriage license clerk might as well go fishing. No one wanted that ominous date on their official documents. In 1908, not a single marriage license was issued on Friday, March 13. An exception was February, when a Friday the Thirteenth preceded Valentine’s Day, as it did in 1920. Requests for licenses that year soared, because Valentine’s is the most popular wedding date outside the June nuptial season. Brides and grooms believed a Valentine wedding neutralizes a Friday the Thirteenth marriage license.
Salesman Joseph Schiffer and his bride certainly ignored all the folks who predicted hoodoo for their marriage. Schiffer met pretty Maud Leonard of Cincinnati on Friday the Thirteenth. They courted for 13 months, then married on another Friday the Thirteenth. The hoodoo likewise took a pass on Mr. and Mrs. Robert Shipman, who were married on Friday the Thirteenth in 1906 and celebrated their golden anniversary on Friday, April 13, 1956.
Two veterans of World War I told The Cincinnati Post on Friday, June 13, 1919, that they considered Friday the Thirteenth their lucky day. Joseph Lattner was a sergeant in the marines whose name includes 13 letters. He enlisted on the thirteenth, served in Company 13, and passed his marksmanship test with highest honors on the thirteenth. Leroy Gazel, a marine corporal, enlisted on the thirteenth and was assigned to Bunkhouse 13. He shipped out on the thirteenth, with orders to report to the front on the thirteenth.
Several Cincinnati clubs existed to flout the jinx of Friday the Thirteenth. The 13 Club of the 1880s seated 65 diners at 5 tables of the Queen City Club – 13 to a table. The Queen City Mystics, an association of amateur magicians, always scheduled a meeting each Friday the Thirteenth. So did the Friday the Thirteenth Club, which met every unlucky day at Standley’s Café in Evanston and charged each member 13 cents for dues.
Just to prove that Friday the Thirteenth hoodoo was a heap of hooey, The Post’s “Village Gossip” columnist (Al Segal in disguise) hosted 22 people who had been born on June 13 to spend a day at Chester Park with him on Friday, June 13, 1919. Among his guests was Cincinnati Mayor John Galvin, born on Friday, June 13, 1862, celebrating his 57th birthday that very day.
There was certainly a lot of bad luck to go around on Friday, August 13, 1915. That’s the day the Hamilton County Grand Jury returned its findings. According to the newspapers, the grand jury indicted every suspect presented by the prosecutor. Top of the list was Anna Fitzmaurice, wife of saloon owner Edward Fitzmaurice, charged in the stabbing death of barkeep John Ryan. Good luck returned to Mrs. Fitzmaurice in December, when she was acquitted.
Cincinnati’s postmaster in 1926, Arthur L. Behymer, certainly felt the jinx when he awoke on Friday, August 13. Hearing a mouse in his bedroom, he got up to investigate. Behymer determined the mouse was in one of the bedroom walls, so he pounded on the wall to chase the mouse away. While the little rodent froze in terror, Behymer’s pounding sent an expensive vase crashing to the floor.
Some folks just don’t take any of this bad luck ballyhoo seriously. The Post noted in 1955 that area high schools were going to be hopping on Friday, May 13. Ursuline Academy scheduled their junior-senior prom that night. Woodward High School students were preparing a red carpet for their special May Fete guests, the Cincinnati Redlegs. Western Hills High School sophomores had their annual Jungle Stomp in the cafeteria. And it was opening night for the Highlands High School production of A Dance with Our Miss Brooks.
Don’t go giving John C. “Dukie” Rice, of 217 Woodward Street, any guff about Friday the Thirteenth hoodoo. “Just because I was born on Friday the Thirteenth, people call me a jinx,” Dukie told The Post in 1923. “But I’m not. I’m the luckiest kid on the street.” Dukie’s mother agreed, noting that he had almost been run over a dozen times while playing in the street, but always dodged in time. Every summer, Mrs. Rice said, Dukie jumped into the Ziegler Park swimming pool with all his clothes on and hadn’t drowned yet. Dukie’s luck ran out one Thursday afternoon in 1984, when he was pronounced dead at the scene of a traffic accident.
There is a cure for the Friday the Thirteenth hoodoo, at least according to the performers at the old Chester Park back in 1928. They advised counting to 13 exactly 13 times. Or, on waking up, to get dressed, then undress, then get dressed again. Or cut the Thirteenth day out of all your calendars. Or just stay in bed all day until it passes.
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