Arnie Herber: The arm that built a dynasty

GREEN BAY – Peter Herber and Sophia DuChateau were married on June 16, 1909, in the First Presbyterian parsonage.

The young couple was well-known in the Green Bay community.

At that time, Peter was employed with the Green Bay Traction Company — a Green Bay city streetcar operator from about 1905 to 1911 — which was taken over by the Wisconsin Public Service Corporation.

A little over nine months later, Sophia gave birth to a baby boy at their Velp Avenue home.

They named him Arnold Charles.

He later became more affectionately known as “Arnie.”

“He was of Belgian and Native American Indian descent. He was raised along with his younger brother, Peter, in Green Bay,” Steven Bodley said in “The Arnie Herber Story” — a commissioned piece prepared for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s “Hometown Hall of Famer” program.

A seemingly idyllic entrance into the world soon turned tragic.

By seven years of age, Arnie experienced back-to-back heartbreak when he first lost his uncle, Frank Duchateau, in October 1916.

A Press-Gazette article tells of Duchateau’s passing by a suspected suicide at the age of 28.

“Frank Duchateau, 28, son of Victor Duchateau, farmer of Brown County, ended his life by taking poison in Waukegan, Ill., last night,” the Oct. 2, 1916, article stated. “Domestic troubles are said to have been responsible.”

Duchateau was working in a Waukegan tannery after leaving his position at the Chicago & Northwestern freight depot in Green Bay a month earlier.

Also working for the Green Bay Chicago & Northwestern yards was Arnie’s dad, Peter.

A little over a year after Frank’s death, Peter was riding on the steps of a caboose at two o’clock in the morning, when he was caught by the corner of a car standing on a track running off from the lead track on which the train was moving.

“The crash of cars was heard by fellow members of the train crew who rushed back and found the injured switchman,” a Press Gazette article recalled.

Peter was caught between the cars while making the switch.

Just 35 years old at the time, Herber was killed instantly.

He had been at the railway yards for a year and a half after leaving Wisconsin Public Service.

Just 10 days after the loss of his father, seven-year-old Arnie performed “Christmas Emblems” beside four other students at the East Side Moravian Sunday School Christmas Eve ceremony.

To be continued