Spotlight on History
Life Savers and poetry: a Garrettsville family tale
By Roger Di Paolo
The inventor of Life Savers candy rests in Park Cemetery in Garrettsville. A recent visitor placed a wrapped piece of the iconic candy on his headstone.
Clarence Crane’s marker also includes the name of his son, Harold Hart Crane, a renowned 20th century American poet.
Father and son died one year apart, but Hart Crane isn’t buried there. In fact, he isn’t buried anywhere. It’s a complicated story.
The Crane family traced its roots in Portage County to Simeon Crane, who settled in Shalersville in 1808. Simeon’s son, Edward — the poet’s great-grandfather — was the first non-Native American child born in the township; one of Edward’s brothers was the first settler to die there.
Another ancestor, Elizabeth Streator Sanford of Windham, the poet’s great-great-great-grandmother, was Portage County’s oldest resident when she died at 103 in 1867. She left 400 living descendants.
Back to the candy man.
Born in Garrettsville in 1875, Clarence Arthur Crane was the son of one of the wealthiest men in town. His father, Arthur owned a maple syrup operation located north of Garrettsville that shipped about 60,000 gallons of syrup each season. Clarence also held a controlling interest in the town’s bank. His brothers, Frederick and Cassius (known as Cash) ran Crane Brothers, Garrettsville’s largest store.
Clarence married Grace Edna Hart in 1898, two months after they met at Nelson Ledges. The couple began housekeeping in a new home built for them by Clarence’s father. Their only child, Harold Hart Crane, was born there on July 21, 1899.
Clarence initially worked for his father, but turned to the candy business after moving to Warren with his wife and son when Hart Crane was 4 years old. He formed the Queen Victoria Chocolate Company, which operated from a factory in Cleveland.
Life Savers emerged in 1912, with necessity being the mother of invention. Chocolates melt during the summer, making the candy business almost a seasonal one. Clarence discovered another option — a candy that wouldn’t melt, which he developed with the aid of a druggist. Using a machine made for producing flat round pills, he concocted a hard mint with a hole in the center.
The candy looked like a life preserver, and Crane dubbed them Pep-O-Mint Life Savers. Initially marketed as a breath mint they later became a favorite of saloon owners, who sold them to customers to hide the odor of alcohol and tobacco. By then Clarence Crane had sold the rights to his innovation and returned to the candy business, forming the Crane Chocolate Company in 1916, with headquarters in Cleveland.
His son, Hart, was a teenager by then. His parents had an unstable marriage — Grace suffered from mental illness — and Hart’s childhood was marked by bouts of fever and nausea. The boy discovered his talent for poetry, but got little encouragement from his parents, who divorced in 1917. He quit school and began a nomadic existence, moving between New York City, where he worked a variety of jobs, and Cleveland, where he worked in his father’s business. He also worked at a confectionary shop in Akron.
His life was unstable. He struggled with his sexuality, which led to an affair with a co-worker at the Akron shop when he was 20. He also was an alcoholic, which fueled periods of depression that hindered his dreams of becoming a poet.
His first volume of poetry, White Buildings, was published in 1926 after he had gained a following in literary circles. He wrote a series of poems, Voyages, following another disappointing love affair. His epic poem, “The Bridge,” framing the Brooklyn Bridge as a symbol of America’s past and promise, brought the fame he sought when it was published in 1930. It also earned him a $2,500 Guggenheim Fellowship — the equivalent of nearly $50,000 in the Depression era — which he used to travel to Mexico.
He was living there when Clarence Crane died at 56 in Chagrin Falls, where he lived with his second wife. The burial was delayed until he could return to Garrettsville. The Ravenna Evening Record noted the postponement in a front-page item that described Hart as a “noted American poet.” His trip to Ohio for Clarence’s service would be the last time he visited Garrettsville.
Despite the Guggenheim grant, Hart was beset by financial woes and his drinking worsened. In April 1932, he sailed from Mexico, bound for New York City, on a steamer, the S.S. Orizaha. “I’ve become so lonely, I could die,” he told a friend.
This proved to be grimly prophetic. His drinking worsened, and he was robbed and beaten, perhaps in rebuff to sexual advances he made on the ship.
Shortly before noon on April 27, 1932, he leaped overboard about 275 miles north of Cuba. Witnesses said he shouted “Goodbye, everybody” as he climbed the railing of the ship. He ignored a life preserver thrown to save him.
His death made front-page news in the Evening Record, in a story headlined, “Report: Young Poet Drowns.”
His body was never recovered. An inscription was added to the tombstone installed at Clarence Crane’s gravesite a year earlier. It reads, “Harold Hart Crane, 1899–1932. Lost at Sea.”
Park Cemetery is located on the northwest corner of the intersection of Center Street and Brosius Road, Garrettsville. The large Crane family monument is located near the fence facing Brosius Road, with small individual stones for family members.
Roger Di Paolo is a Portage County historian, former editor of the Record-Courier and a member of The Portager board of advisers.
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