The Hinkels settled in the former Highland Park neighborhood in Louisville, KY, when they first immigrated from Germany in the 1840s. Highland Park is now basically under pavement of the Watterson Expressway and the Louisville Intl Airport. In its heydey it was a boisterous thriving area, settled by railroad workers for the L&N rail yard and farmers who made a living selling truck vegetables downtown. We believe the first Hinkels were farming the area. We know for sure that the Grösch & Gray families on Ron's mother's side all had farms just west of here, south of the present-day Iroquois Park and stretching to the banks of the Ohio.
Ron and his siblings were all born and lived on Adair St in Highland Park until the early 1950s. They moved downtown from there, living in the Old Louisville area (6th St) and finally settled at 312 Shelby St in the Clarksdale Housing Project. Ron attended Margaret Merker Elementary on East Market St, Eastern Junior High on East Broadway, and Dupont Manual High School.
Ron's lifelong love of golf began when he started working as a caddy at the Cherokee Park golf course and Big Springs Country Club, near Bowman Field, with his friend Douglas Davenport (no relation to the Davenports in the family). They walked to the courses early in the morning and hustled jobs at the Club House. They made about a dollar for nine holes, and carrying those bags was a lot of work. Still carrying that bag (or pulling a cart with his clubs) 60 + years later, every chance he gets!
V.G.(called Uncle Veegie) drove a milk delivery truck for Oscar Ewing Milk Co in Louisville during the 1950s, and his brother Joe also delivered milk. Ron Hinkle remembers that his Uncle V.G. would stop during the day at their home in the Clarksdale Housing Project, near Shelby and Jefferson St, and ask Ron to check the current milk prices at the First Link Grocery at Shelby and Market St. The delivermen negotiated the wholesale prices with the groceries on their routes. So V.G. wanted to know his price point.
Aunt Kathy (Grasch Sleadd) worked at the telephone company in Louisville, and she called the personnel dept to give Ron Hinkle a good reference to help him get hired in 1964. Ron retired from the phone company after 27 years in Oct 1991.
