Here's wishing you the happiest of holidays and the merriest of Christmases!

 

Ho-ho-ho!

 

It must have been about 1954 because my brother was born a bit later and he's no where to be seen in this group of photos from Mom. That's me with Santa. You probably have a similar photo too, and recognize it as the typical department store Santa image.

I'll bet anything that this one was taken in Cleveland at Sterling-Linder-Davis. The big tree was in the center on the ground floor and as I remember it, and granted that memory might be foggy, Santa was set up somewhere at the base of the tree. Maybe.

Downtown Cleveland, decorated for the holidays.

1954.

"BIGGEST EVER Sterling-Lindner-Davis' Christmas tree now is on display. The giant spruce is decorated with 1200 ponds of tinsel and 2400 ornaments, store officials report. The tree, 54 feet tall when it was moved in Saturday night, will grow six inches before it is removed after the holidays."

(Thank you, Cleveland Memory Project for these and other photos!)

We lived in the suburbs in a small Cape Cod style house in Maple Heights. Going downtown was a big deal, and going downtown to meet Santa was the very best a girl could home for, except for the presents later on Christmas day, obviously. We'd take the bus to the trolley and arrive at Higbee's in the Terminal Tower, then walk the few blocks to Sterling-Linder-Davis, and gaze in each department store window to see what wonders were on display. I can still smell the smell of arriving at the Terminal Tower underground and then entering Higbee's.

 

Mid-1950s store holiday windows were a wonder of mechanical ingenuity. I gaze on the electronic and digital splendor of today's store displays and long for the old 1950s train making its way around a tree and over a village and through a stack of presents. Does anyone even use tinsel anymore on their trees?

Higbee's window. The label on the Cleveland Memory Project says it's Christmas and I see a tree but is that Easter Bunny too? The back of the photo says: "Danny, 5, and Collee, 9, Majeske, son and daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Robert Majeski, Lakewood look at Christmas displays in Higbee's window."

Good old Santa! What a good listener! Maybe he was the last male in my life who really listened to me spout off a list of hopes and dreams;) Here's hoping that your Santas of past listened to you too. Enjoy the holiday!

Higbee's Christmas window 1958.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/12/heres-wishing-you-happiest-of-holidays.html

Cleveland: The Trout Club

 

 

I have a lot of very lovely memories from my childhood, and am especially fond of the time my family spent at a trout fishing club called Pine Lake Trout Club. Dad had a corporate membership through Johnson Plastics (see post from yesterday about Johnson) and then, I think, a private membership when he took a new job in 1960, with another plastics manufacturer in Stow, Ohio.

 

I remember fishing with Dad there, as does my brother. We both, to this day, like fishing and have many wonderful memories of it, both with Dad as well as in our adult lives. There's even a photo of Mom fishing as well as a couple of her Dad fishing too, which I posted earlier to this blog. This family just loves to fish:)

 

I also remember us going there to select and cut down our Christmas tree at least one year. Somehow we got transported deeper into the surrounding woods and wandered until we could all agree on the "perfect" tree. Then back to the Lodge to warm up before the fire while the hired men chopped and readied it for us to take home. I think it must have been the best tree we ever had! Now, all of those pine trees are gigantic, as you can imagine, because it's over 50 years later.

 

So there was the fishing at the Trout Club, but there was eating too. They served, and still do, outstanding cuisine, and on this recent trip I had a Chilean Sea Bass in the Dining Room that might make you weep with joy! But let me tell you about the Lodge first. It's such fun!

 

The PLTC has no liquor license, therefore the members each have a locker for their chosen adult beverages. Mixers are supplied by the club. I always loved the personal and corporate locker doors because each member could have it decorated any way she or he pleased. Some of the corporations have a corporate theme but the personal locker doors have it all going on! Here are some images of what we saw on Saturday afternoon of our recent trip. Click on these two to get the full effect!

 

 

Wild, right? Some of the doors haven't been decorated yet and you can easily spot them in these pictures. I decorated a door for Dad, and from what I remember now. I'm thinking that when he left Johnson Plastics he must have gotten an individual membership because it was just about the time we moved to Hudson that I painted a door for his locker: a jumping rainbow trout on the outside and the Three Graces (three naked ladies) on the inside. As I think about it now, that was a pretty sophisticated concept for a high schooler! Now a days "anything goes" on the locker doors, from actual objects, collages, assemblages, and even some old fashioned painting. I'm still fascinated by those locker doors:)

 

The Lodge is what the bar is called. It's a very cozy room where members go to have a drink or eat a casual meal. And Especially in cooler weather, it's a welcoming place. Check it out.



 

Here's Mom and my sis-in-law sitting by the fire on a cold and rainy Saturday about lunch time.

 

The walkway between the Lodge and the stream.

On Sunday the weather was perfect. We went back to the Pine Lake Trout Club after another round of looking at the old places we lived, which we'd visited in the rain on Saturday. On Sunday we got to see them all over again but in beautiful October sunlight. We ended up staying in one of the cabins at the Trout Club, with a wonderful fireplace, two baths, and a fully equipped kitchen. My brother commented that he was perfectly happy and could just go on and live there. Me too!

Sunday afternoon I wandered the grounds getting in touch with that little girl in me and watching the fishermen at play. No one was overly serious about it all. They were well equipped, no doubt about it, but even so were obviously there to relax and enjoy the surroundings. I had to wonder what these folks (all men) did for a living... and if there were any serious women members who love to fish as much as I do?

 

 

On the flight back to San Diego from Cleveland I happened to sit next to a guy who lived close to the Trout Club. He'd been there as the guest of someone and was glad that I mentioned it because he had two sons and thought it might be the perfect place to enjoy some quality time with them. Yes, it's exactly that kind of place. He also told me that there are other trout clubs in north east Ohio: one near Pine Lakes and four more neat the Blue Hole. Really! Who knew!

 

Yeah, if I lived in the area the first thing I would do is join Pine Lake Trout Club!

The pond at the Pine Lake Trout Club on a beautiful October Sunday afternoon.

The URL for this post is:  http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/10/cleveland-trout-club.html

Cleveland: The ugly part of change, at least to me

When we moved from the little mountain town in Western Maryland of Frostburg in 1952, we landed in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. It was near Dad's work and the loveliest little town you'd ever want to see. Don't believe me? Check the town web site here. See what I mean? Every building has that Colonial design and flavor about it, and some date back to the founding of the village in 1845. Cute, cozy, charming: those were the words my sis-in-law and I used from the back seat to describe what we saw on our recent visit to Cleveland.

After a short while, and I have to ask Mom exactly how short but I think it was about a year, we moved to the bedroom suburb of Maple Heights. Mom and Dad bought their very first house for about $20,000, as I remember. So of course we had to visit Maple Heights on our trip to Cleveland last weekend! The houses were all there and just as tidy and well-kept as ever, but much older, 50 years having passed since we lived there. You can tell the area homes were all part of a post WWII building boom: all Cape Cod style and almost identical in size and floor plan. Here was ours, below.

Grandpop Kelly (John Lee Kelly 1892 - 1969) on the right, me holding baby brother on the front steps of our house in Maple Heights.

Our house, this photo taken on our last trip to Ohio in 2007.

As we drove from downtown Cleveland to Maple Heights there came a point when I saw my old library, now a senior center, and I knew exactly where I was. Next stop was my old elementary school: Saint Wenceslas School. What a sad sight! It was all boarded up and there was a "for sale" sign out front! First the demolished the nun's residence and the candy store on the opposite corner disappeared too. Now this!

Here's the video I took on the spot as my brother navigated around. As you can, see it was a rainy day.

Saint Wenceslas parish was a heavily ethnic neighborhood full of hard-working Polish, Czeck, and Hungarian folks. I was the only "Irish" in my class, so I was a minority and knew it because the sisters who taught there made a point of it on a few occasions. (Here, we could start with the nun stories, but I'll pass on that for now. And yes, there were hard rulers involved!) As you've probably guessed, it was a heavily Catholic neighborhood back in the 1950s.

The church year drove the local lives of those kids who attended Saint Wenceslas. Celebrations and processions, first communions, confirmations were all milestones in our little lives, and the big guns were Christmas and Easter. I remember clearly going with Mom downtown to shop for Easter hats at Higbee's Department Store. That was fun!

There were other events that were kind of spooky for a little girl: word spread that every girl or woman was not to be alone with one of the priests. "Do not go into the priest's rectory alone under any circumstances," my good friend told me. I didn't understand then but I do now. Click here for more info. A sad shame.

Classes for us Baby Boomer were gigantic by today's standards and the 48 students in my class was not an unusually large number. Some classes easily reached 50 students. Those poor nuns really earned their pay. Somehow we all learned.

I got sad, I have to tell you, when I saw the old boarded up school. It was as if a part of my young life had been boarded up and closed out. I would never be able to go in that school with its attached church in the future, never be able to see the old classrooms, never be able to walk those halls.

Well, that's life: we live it and then it passes into our personal history.



The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/10/cleveland-ugly-part-of-change-at-least.html

Cleveland: A city changing while I was gone



This isn't the city I remember: river on fire, too many poor people all unemployed, polluted Lake Erie, boarded up buildings littering downtown, plants closed. That was the Cleveland of the more recent past, the one with the bad rep.

The Cleveland in my mind's eye from the 1950 was prosperous and aspirational in all aspects. Families grew and moved to better and better suburbs with larger homes and better schools, each increasingly distant from the city center. Downtown was where you went for big-time shopping and museums. Mom bought the furniture for our new house in Hudson at Sterling, Linder and Davis, downtown. I went on the bus and then the trolley to the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland of my youth was a good, solid place to grow up.

But this city of Cleveland in present day was, what? Completely redone. Downtown full of lofts, 20 and 30-somethings popping into cafes with their Mac Books. Is that a software development company I see in the Rockefeller building? Good restaurants and corner bars, all with a vibe and personality of their own. New towers going up, newer stadiums, and of course, that destination unrivaled by others: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Cleveland had a new personality. But pirogues and brats were still on her menu.

We stayed at a centrally located hotel right downtown, the Marriott Residence Inn Downtown, a historic hotel built in the last decade of the 1800s and now redone and symbolizing what Cleveland was and what it is now. We enjoyed the buffet breakfast in what must have been the grand ballroom, bedecked with fine stained glass windows, two in the ceiling and a bunch over windows. An arcade occupied one part of the hotel footprint and it was fun to walk down a balcony that in olden days held offices for various professionals, now mostly empty. The arcade main floor, and if you aren't familiar with their function in such cold weather locales then click here, holds a small and busy luncheonette, a chocolatier, a olde time barber shop, and numerous small but fascinating shops. It took me right back to the 1950s when Mom and I "went downtown" on the bus and trolley to shop.

 

 

The new Marriott Residence Inn that was the old Colonial Hotel.
(Photos courtesy the Marriott web site.)

 

 

Two of our old neighborhoods stayed exactly the same, excepting the new builds around the edges. We found Chagrin Falls and Hudson to be pretty much as we left them in 1964, with the addition of malls, larger stores, a supermarket or two, and of course plenty of new restaurants. The old stores had changed hands no doubt, and new ones took residence in their place.

 

 

Two ladies drinking tea at Sterling, Linder and Davis.

Courtesy of the Cleveland Memory Project.

 

The big Christmas tree at Sterling, Linder and Davis.

Courtesy of the Cleveland Memory Project.

 

 

I love to think about the flash and excitement of going downtown to see the big department stores in the 1950s, especially at Christmas time. If you are a fan of that holiday staple, "A Christmas Story", you'll be all too familiar with The Higbee Company and their store windows. The Cleveland Memory Project has a dandy selection of images from all the department stores and you can find them on their main page for the "Golden Age of Downtown Shopping". Just use the menu at center to find your favorite store.

 

The Terminal Tower still takes center stage on the square, but the Higbee Company is gone. I was thrilled to see the big brass sign still in place on the side of the building next to one of the display windows.

 

 

 

We all talked and talked as we drove around, about the old times and memories from childhood. Nice to hear Mom's version of events that I half remember. Even my brother remembers shopping for furniture with Mom for the new house in Hudson.

 

Sure, Cleveland has changed, but I'm liking her quite a bit now. She's getting back to that up-and-coming spirit I remember so well. I could see myself living there, either downtown with all the young people and the cafes but probably out in Chagrin Falls or Hudson, my old turf. More about those next time.

 

 

 

The Halle Department Store's Japanese Tea Room,

our favorite lunch spot. I still remember the children's luncheon special with all the little compartments for food, when I was happy to eat my spinach because it came in a little ceramic hen!

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/10/cleveland-city-changing-while-i-was-gone.html





Cleveland: Maybe you can't go home again, and maybe you can

Just spent the last weekend in Cleveland. Why Cleveland? I grew up there, my brother and sister were born there. Mom and Dad moved us there in 1952 when I was four years old so that Dad could take a good management position with lots of opportunity in the plastics industry. So we moved from the little mountain town of Frostburg in Western Maryland that I so often write about. It was quite a change and we enjoyed every moment of our Cleveland adventure. Mom and Dad moved us back to Frostburg in 1964, the year I graduated high school in Hudson.

There's so much to share that it will take a couple of posts to get it all covered. There were two highlights for me: Mom telling stories about us when we were little as we drove through the old neighborhood where I attended elementary school, and going to stay at the Pine Lake Trout Club.

I took a ton of photos and some videos too. They are already a golden treasure to me. And yes, I already have them all backed up all over and in the cloud:)

This post is just to say "Hi" again and let you know what the upcoming topic will be. Guess the theme is serendipity. There was this guy.... Oh, I'll tell you later. Life surely is amazing if you just go out there and live it!

 

Scenes from the Pine Lake Trout Club

Thanks, Lynnie for these photos:)

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/10/cleveland-maybe-you-cant-go-home-again.html

Sentimental Sunday: The Sunday Drive

Our little bungalow in a suburb of Cleveland, home during those Wonder Bread years.

(Photo taken in 2007.)

 

What is it about Sunday, the Day of Rest, that gets us remembering stuff? Maybe we simply pause to consider and give ourselves a moment to take it all in, and for me it feels that way. A Sunday tradition in our family was getting in the car and taking a drive. How about you, did your family do that too? Of course we can all have a good chuckle at the price of gas back then! And there was a live person called a service station attendant to pump it for you, check the oil and clean the windows! Hard to believe now:)

The tradition for our family started a long time ago, and maybe even before I was born right after WWII when gas rationing ended. When I was a young it was common practice to go to church, eat Sunday dinner, clean up and hop in the car. I had no say in where we went but that was fine and I loved the surprise of it. Mom and I would inhabit the back seat if a grandparent was going with us. Mom tells of how Grandpop Kelly loved a drive and when I was an infant she'd put me in the back seat to nap and we'd all drive somewhere. Grandpop would see something, get excited, and yell out, "Look, Gin! Look at that!!" (Mom's name is Virginia but back then a lot of people called her Gin or Ginny.) And of course I'd wake up when he shouted.

As the seasons changed the drive route would too. In spring we'd find daffodils and tulips in people's yards and look for blooming fruit trees. Then out in the country we'd go look for wildflowers. It's still one of my very favorite things to do, look for wildflowers. Now my trusty guide to San Diego county wildflowers is a permanent resident of the front seat.

In summer we could wind up anywhere! A lake, a forest, a park to picnic. I remember a Sunday drive to a Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome. (Just goodled this and find it was probably the ASM Headquarters.) That was fun.

But fall was my absolute favorite when the leaves on maple trees changed and were aglow in orange and red. We were living in Ohio in a suburb of Cleveland so there were plenty of healthy maple trees to entertain us including one beauty in our front yard.

Of course winter meant holiday lights on houses so we'd sometimes go out later when it started to get dark looking for the best house with the most lights. After a snow, and Dad was a good driver on snow, off we'd go all bundled up to see what nature had done. When I was old enough to drive, one Sunday after a snow Dad took me out to an empty shopping center parking lot. He put me in the driver's seat and told me to floor it. When we spun out he then explained what had happened and how to steer into the turn to get control back. Cool!

For years there was a place stuck in my memory bank that no one else remembered, a place we'd drive to on a winter's night to see the lighting display put on by the electric company. It was a beautiful park setting anytime of year but when the lights were on in winter with the snow all around it was pure magic for this kid! But no one else remembered a thing about it. For a long time I thought maybe I dreamed it up... but I could remember the name of the place clearly enough: Nela Park. I googled as soon as Google became a thing and no Nela Park. Then magically one day it was there! The listings and photos on Google Image gallery witnessed what I remembered. If you want to see Nela Park click here!

Yes, Sunday rides were really nice. Here's hoping you had some similar memories too.

The year is 1956 and that's Grandpop Kelly and my baby brother.

I'm holding him on my lap sitting on the front steps to our little bungalow in the Cleveland Burbs.

You can see Dad taking the photo in the reflection on the front storm door window.

 

 

Sentimental Sunday is a lovely topic from Geneabloggers , and I thank them for this blogging prompt!


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/03/sentimental-sunday-sunday-drive.html