Herman Fetzer was born on a farm in Copley Township (now a part of the City of Akron) on June 24, 1899. Fetzer attended Maple Valley School and South and West high schools. In 1916, he joined the staff of the Akron Times as the Kenmore and Cuyahoga Falls reporter. The following year, he was a student at the University of Akron for a brief time. Fetzer began writing his column Pippins and Cheese in 1920 under the pen-name Jake Falstaff. He was also visiting editor with the St. Petersburg Times during this year. Between 1920 and 1925, Fetzer returned to Akron and started Keeping Up with The Times and At Large in Akron . He also wrote editorials and an editorial page feature, News From Utopia, and contributed to Franklin Pierce Adams' (better known by his initials, F.P.A.) Conning Tower column in the New York World as well as writing occasional pieces for magazines. In the spring of 1925, Fetzer was listed as assistant editor of the Akron Times when it was sold to the Scripps-Howard league and merged with the Akron Press . He continued Pippins and Cheese and also wrote At Large in Akron as Afternoons Around Akron for the Akron Beacon Journal . He also wrote an outline of the city's history serialized in the paper and later published with supplementary segments as a book, A Centennial History of Akron . In 1925, Fetzer wrote The Songs and Ballads of Reini Kugel, which was designed and printed on the Mumaugh Press in Akron by Paul Mumaugh. In 1927, Fetzer wrote a weekly book review column and gave up Pippins and Cheese for A Voice from the Gallery, a column discussing current events. Fetzer dropped this column in 1928 in favor of rewrites, feature stories, and interviews on a half day basis, while writing Afternoons Around Akron and his editorials. He also wrote The Book of Rabelais, a fictional biography of Francois Rabelais (1494-1553), a famous French Renaissance writer, humanist, doctor, scholar, and monk. Fetzer brought Pippins and Cheese back from November 1928 to April 1929. After this, he departed from the Akron Beacon Journal . For a few weeks, Falstaff was with the Akron-Times Press as a rewrite man, but he soon left to substitute for F.P.A. on the New York World . Later this same year, Falstaff tried his hand at free-lancing and published Reini Kugel: Lover of this Earth . During 1930, Falstaff joined the Cleveland Press and revived Pippins and Cheese one last time. He also went to fill in for F.P.A. in New York for a second time. He stayed with the Cleveland Press doubling as columnist and rewrite man until his death in Cleveland, Ohio on January 17, 1935. After Fetzer's death, his wife, Hazel "Toni" Fetzer, and a New York agent, Sally Harrison, edited his poetry and prose and published many more of his works posthumously including The Bulls of Spring, Jacoby's Corners, and others
From the guide to the Herman and Hazel Fetzer Papers, 1918-1973, 1918-1973, (Archival Services, University Libraries, The University of Akron)
