Another message on a bottle, Part 4

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s conclude our chat about the old Mosby Medicine Company of Cincinnati and its proprietor, Gilbert H. Mosby, who was born in 1886.
 
Mosby got rich during prohibition, as his company’s elixir, Konjola, contained lots of alcohol. But when prohibition ended, things went south in a hurry. As we discussed last time, he and his wife, Roberta, divorced in 1929, and she walked away with $400,000 – the largest alimony ever awarded to that time in Hamilton County. According to a 2017 article in Cincinnati Magazine written by Greg Hand, Gilbert gave Roberta the mansion and some cash to settle up. The payments sent his company into receivership and he declared personal bankruptcy in 1934.
 
As we mentioned earlier, prohibition was over and the demand for alcohol-rich tonics was waning, but Mosby gave medicinal concoctions another shot and launched a new elixir named Indo-Vin, billed as “ethyl fuel for the human motor.” He also remarried at the age of 48, to 24-year-old Annie Marie Willis, a cashier at a Vine Street restaurant. The marriage was short-lived and they divorced after a couple of years.
 
Mosby moved west, cashing out his shares of Indo-Vin and landing an apartment on Sunset Boulevard. He created yet another medicinal corporation, now based in Hollywood, to sell his latest concoction, Van-Tage. Despite advertising endorsements by some B-string movie stars, Mosby found himself in trouble again. This time, his opponent was the Food & Drug Administration, which ruled against Mosby in 1938, asserting that his mixture of water, glycerin, caramel coloring, and some miscellaneous herbs had no medicinal effects.
 
By now, Mosby was remarried yet again, to dancer and Hollywood model Billie Huber. On their wedding day, Mosby was 50 years old. His bride was 18. The wedding made national news because the ceremony took place in a mine hundreds of feet beneath Virginia City, Nevada. Perhaps the remote location was an attempt to evade Betty Miller, a 20-year-old singer and actress who was suing Mosby for breach of promise.
 
The federal case shuttered Van-Tage, and Mosby relocated back to Cincinnati, where he organized a new business in partnership with George Remus, notorious bootlegger and wife-murderer. By 1942, Remus was living quietly in Covington, operating a small contracting company when he invested in Mosby’s Gil-Jan Medicine Company. The name of the new tonic reflects Mosby’s fourth marriage, to Dallas nightclub entertainer Janet Walters.
 
On Wednesday, May 24, 1944, Mosby was out of the medicine business, eking out a living as a salesman for a home decorating company, and he was feeling poorly. Janet put him to bed, then left a note telling him she was leaving. Mosby awoke in the evening and wandered onto the streets, apparently looking for her.
 
At the corner of Fifth and Walnut, Mosby collapsed and struck his head on the pavement. He never regained consciousness and died June 2, 1944, at General Hospital. A tip to the police claimed Mosby had been blackjacked by unknown assailants in the Turf and Field Café at 532 Walnut Street, but witnesses said there was no foul play; he just keeled over on the sidewalk.
 
Gilbert Mosby is buried in an unmarked grave at Baltimore Pike Cemetery in Fairmount. George Remus was among the eight mourners attending his funeral. His wife, who claimed she had no money to make the trip from her mother’s house in Cleveland, was not there.
 
Gilbert Hahn Mosby had passed away. He was 58. His first wife, Roberta Epperhart Mosby Watson, remarried and lived to be 98 and passed away the day before Valentine’s Day in 2001.
 
Mosby’s three-story mansion in Hyde Park that he built in 1927 sold for more than $3 million in June of 2017.

The photo below is of Gilbert Mosby and his third wife, Billie Huber. It appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer on Aug. 27, 1937.

 
 
Steve Roush is president of the Highland County Historical Society and served as chairman and vice chairman on the HCHS Board of Trustees for two terms, a board member of the Highland District Hospital Foundation, a vice president of an international media company and a columnist and contributing writer for The Highland County Press. He can be reached by email at roush_steve@msn.com.