HUNT John Herman

HUNT John Herman[1]

Male 1882 - 1974  (92 years)

Personal Information    |    Media    |    Sources    |    All    |    PDF

  • Name HUNT John Herman 
    Birth 24 Mar 1882  Saranac, Ionia, Michigan, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Gender Male 
    _UID AA3B78D6396AB04E9E0C37E741EB6B2E6135 
    Death 17 May 1974  [2
    • (OBIT: JOHN H. HUNT 1882 - 1974
      John Herman Hunt, 1927 SAE President, died on May 17 at the age of 92.

      Hunt was born at Saranac, Mich., on March 24, 1882. He received his technical education at the University of Michigan, being graduated from that institution in 1905 with the degree of bachelor of science in electrical engineering.

      After graduation, Hunt went with the Western Electric Co., first in the power apparatus apprentice department and later in the engineering department. Entering educational work, on year was spent as an electrical engineering instructor at Washington University and five years as assistant and associate professor of electrical engineering at the Ohio State University.

      Hunt entered the engineering department of the Packard Motor Car Co., in 1912, concentrating on the application of electrical equipment. In 1913 he became research engineer for the Dayton Engineering Laboratories, working on all problems of electrical installations on motor-cars with special attention to ignition. From 1920 until the summer of 1925 he was head of the electrical division of General Motors Research Corp., Dayton, Ohio.

      When the Corporation became the General Motors Corporation Research Laboratories in 1925, Hunt was transferred to Detroit as head of electrical for GM Research Laboratories. In April 1928 he was special patent investigator for GM Patent Section, and in December 1935 he was named director of the New Devices Section which evaluated thousands of ideas submitted to the Corporation by outside inventors and supplier industries.

      Hunt retired from General Motors in 1949.

      Hunt was president of the Engineering Society of Detroit (1936-38) and was honored by ESD by recent election to Fellow status.

      On loan from the U.S. State Department, he provided technical support to the U.S. mission to the United Nations. He was past president of the Prismatic Club of Detroit and former trustee of Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio.

      Hunt is survived by three daughters, Mrs. Margaret Terry, Jean E. And Ruth I.; two sons, John P. and Robert O., and two sisters. His brother, the late O.E. Hunt was a former executive vice president of General Motors.)
    Notes 
    • He attended the village school in Saranac, and graduated from the tenth grade there in June, 1898. He graduated from the High School in Ann Arbor in June, 1900, and from the Engineering Department of the University of Michigan with the degree of B.S., (in Electrical Engineering), in June 1905. He was elected to the Honorary Society of Sigma Xi, (for graduates who excelled in science). He taught country school during the fall of 1898 in the Stevens District School, the first school north of Saranac. And he taught the year of 1900-01 in Wales, Michigan. After leaving Ann Arbor, he worked as an apprentice at the Western Electric Co. near Chicago, (at ten dollars a week), until late in the Fall of 1906, when he went to Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., as instructor in the Electrical Engineering Dept.
    Person ID I80934  Noyes Family Genealogy
    Last Modified 12 Mar 2010 

    Father HUNT Edson Hale,   b. 25 May 1853, Saranac, Ionia, Michigan, United States Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 2 Feb 1937, Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, United States Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 83 years) 
    Mother WHITE Harriet Eveleen,   b. 27 Jan 1852, East Clarendon, Rutland, Vermont, United States Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 3 Apr 1936, Ann Arbor, Washtenaw, Michigan, United States Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 84 years) 
    Marriage 15 Apr 1880  South Boston, Ionia, Michigan, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Family ID F31652  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family STRINGER Irene May,   b. 18 Sep 1881, Hancock, Houghton, Michigan, United States Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 12 Feb 1968, Bloomfield Twnshp, Oakland, Michigan, United States Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 86 years) 
    Marriage 20 Jun 1907  Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    • (We were married at my home, 326 Putnam Ave. (old numbering), Detroit, Michigan. We were married in the evening, at 8:30, and your father wore his first, (and for many years it threatened to be his last) dress suit. Our attendants were your Uncle Ormond Hunt as "best man", my sister Erma as "maid of honor", my sister Beth as "ring-bearer", and Florence Hoy and my sister Helen as flower girls. We were married by Rev. Simpson Homer, of the Martha Holmes M. E. Church, and Mrs. Homer played the wedding march. For a honeymoon we spent a week at the Lake Orion cottage of our family friends, the S. L. Houghtons. We lived that summer in Detroit, in a furnished. house on Lincoln Ave., near Putnam. Dad worked at the Cadillac Motor Co.)
    Notes 
    • In the Fall of 1907 your father began his five year period of teaching at the Ohio State University in Columbus. The first year he was Assistant Professor, the next three years, Associate Professor, and the last year he was a "full" Professor, and nominal head of the Department of Electrical Engineering, in the absence of his chief, Prof. Caldwell. Our first year in Columbus we lived at the home of Prof. Harry Waldo Kuhn, on Ninth Ave., and boarded at "Brown's" on Eighth Ave. The next four years we lived in an old brick house at 1323 Forsyth Ave. It was the first home of Margaret, Ruth and. John. It wasn't elegant, nor up-to-date, but we had wonderful neighbors and were very happy there. In the summer of 1912 Dad worked for the Packard Motor Car Co. in Detroit. They offered him a regular job as Electrical Engineer, so in September we









      -17B-


      left John at the farm in Saranac, while the girls and I went to Columbus and packed up our household goods. (We visited at Auntie Minister's). We lived for a year at 180 Stanley Ave., in Detroit. On March 25, 1913, (the day of the Dayton Flood), Dad started work as Electrical Engineer with the Delco Co. in Dayton, Ohio. He went abroad on business for the company in April and returned in November. In the meantime, in October the family moved to Dayton, We lived for two years at 829 N. Main St. one year on Shaw Ave., four years at 823 N. Main St., and six years in our first "owned home", at 1180 Harman Ave. in Oakwood Village. We spent ten lovely summers at Delco Dell. In the summer of 1925, the General Motors Research Laboratories, with which Dad had been connected since 1920, as head of the Electrical Engineering Section, moved to Detroit. Dad lived at Webster Hall in Detroit and the family stayed on in Dayton for another year. On July 1, 1926 we moved into our present home at 1444 Edison Ave., Detroit.

      Your father left the Research Lab. in 1927 to become a member of General Staff. In 1928 he was put on his present job in the Patent Section, and two years ago he was also given the job of Director of the New Devices Section of General Motors.

      In Dayton your father was a charter member of the Engineers Club and prominent in the Society of Automotive Engineers. He belonged to the Civitan Club and the Dayton Country Club. He was President of Civitan in ... and vice-president of the Engineers Club in ... . He was national president of the S. A. E. in ... . At the present time, March 1936, he is president of the Detroit Engineering Society. (He was President of the ESD from 1936-38. Rackham Trustees approached DES in 1936 and recommended that it reorganize as a non-profit corporation. Accordingly on April 15, 1936, DES became ESD.) He also is a member of the American Institute of American Engineers, the American Society for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, the Institute of Automotive Engineers of Great Britain, and of Gamma Chapter of Eta Kappa Nu, honorary engineering fraternity. [4]
    Children 
     1. HUNT Margaret Elizabeth   d. 22 Aug 1975, Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, United States Find all individuals with events at this location
     2. HUNT Ruth Irene,   b. 31 Dec 1909, Columbus, Columbiana, Ohio, United States Find all individuals with events at this location
     3. HUNT John Parker,   b. 6 Oct 1911, Columbus, Columbiana, Ohio, United States Find all individuals with events at this location
     4. Living
     5. Living
    Family ID F31656  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 23 Feb 2024 

  • Photos
    Hunt - four generations 1886
    Hunt - four generations 1886
    left to right
    Elizabeth (English) Hunt
    Edson Hale Hunt
    John Herman Hunt
    Abigail (Willard) English
    J.H. Hunt wedding photo
    J.H. Hunt wedding photo
    20 Jun 1907
    John H. Hunt family - 1921
    left to right
    John Herman Hunt
    John Parker Hunt
    Ruth Irene Hunt
    Margaret Elizabeth Hunt
    Robert Ormond Hunt
    Irene May (Stringer) Hunt
    Edson H. Hunt family - 1898
    Edson H. Hunt family - 1898
    front row
    Edson H. Hunt - Father
    Vera E. Hunt - daughter
    Agnes A. Hunt - daughter
    Susan E. Hunt - daughter
    Harriet E. (White) Hunt - mother

    rear row
    Don H. Hunt - son
    John H. Hunt - son
    Ormond E. Hunt - son

  • Sources 
    1. [S4649] Manuscript-The Hunt Family Papers, page 22 of 54.

    2. [S82] Death-obit, Automotive Engineering August 1974.

    3. [S4649] Manuscript-The Hunt Family Papers, page 21 of 54.

    4. [S4649] Manuscript-The Hunt Family Papers.