The Town
The war was going full force. Factories were pumping out supplies to support the war effort. Since most of the men were away fighting, the factories started hiring more women. Mom got a job at the Romec Pump in Elyria. She commuted for a while but since Dad wasn’t working; he was spending more time in the VA hospital, it was decided to sell the farm and buy a house in Elyria. John was devastated. He loved the farm. I don’t think the other kids minded so much. By then James had left school and was working at the Romec Pump too. Pat was always a city boy at heart. I missed the animals, but the comforts of the city: indoor plumbing, sidewalks and being only a couple of blocks from the store were such a novelty, I adjusted quite easily.
We did bring a couple of chickens with us. It was not unusual to have chickens in the city at that time, our neighbors had a full size chicken coop in their back yard.
One of the chickens we brought with us was a pet rooster named “Butch”. Yes, another “Butch”. Our family didn’t have much imagination when it came to naming pets. Butch used to follow my mother around like a dog, even when she didn’t have a bucket of feed in her hands. It’s unusual for a chicken to become such a pet. He would have followed her into the house if she let him.
One Sunday, we were having our usual chicken dinner. I was chewing away at my favorite part of the chicken, white meat from the breast, when Pat leaned over and told me “That’s Butch you eating.” I started crying but my mother said “It is not. Butch is still out in the back yard. “ So I calmed down and finished my meal. Later I found out that it had actually been Butch I had for supper. I felt like a canabal.
We went to grade school at St. Agnes, which was at the top of our street on Dewey Ave. In the fourth grade I had a lay teacher. I was glad that I didn’t have a nun, because I didn’t want to get “scalded”. My first day of school a girl came to my desk and poked me. “Hi, I’m Barbara”, I live next door to you. She became my best friend while we were in Elyria.
St. Agnes also had four classrooms, two grades in each class. My first day there, the teachers told us we could use the lavatory. I thought she meant laboratory. There was an unused room with lots of plants it and I thought that was where the “lab” was.
Pat, John and Dad stayed behind on the farm while the equipment and animals were being auctioned off. When Pat came I told him the new school had a laboratory and he was very excited about it. I can’t remember what happened when he found out I was mixed up.
The newness of being within walking distance of downtown was so exciting, that I think the second day we moved in, I walked downtown. I had 10 cents to spend at the dime store. Those were the days when dime store actually had things you could buy with a dime. I bought a little nativity figure of Jesus in the manger. (It really cost 11 cents but as that was all I had the clerk let it go for a dime). I had that figure until after I was married and moved into our house on Edgewater. It’s lost now, probably thrown out with the tissue I had wrapped around the figurines.
We lived in Elyria for 8 years. Dad got a job at Western Machine Automatic.
Our house was the nicest in the neighborhood although it wasn’t the most up-to-date. The house had been owned by the builder who build the several other houses in the neighborhood. They had the same floor plan but ours was bigger and had fancier woodwork. We had a reception hall with an archway and pillars leading to a large living room. There were pocket doors leading to the dining room and from there a swinging door to the kitchen. From the hall a beautiful wooden stair led to a landing with a bay window. The dining room had a bay window with a window seat that opened up for storage.
The house still had ceiling fixtures with gas lights. They actually were dual fixtures with both electric lights and gas jets. Dad had the gas jets turned off for safety reasons. However in the attic for some time, the only light was a gas jet.
We had hot running water. What a luxury! The bathroom was huge, it must have been a bedroom that was turned into a bath later. There were three bedrooms. Mary and I had one room, the three boys shared another and Mom and Dad had the third.
Our neighborhood was very close. We would have parties to celebrate birthdays and other special occasions. We would all gather at someone’s house and everyone would bring a dish.
Every Saturday all the kids in the neighborhood went to the movies. It cost 10 cents to get in. I usually got a quarter to go to the movies. If I didn’t take the bus which cost a nickel, I had 15 cents to spend on popcorn (a dime) and candy (a nickel for a Hersey bar). Since my girl friend’s parents would only give her a dime for the show, I almost always walked with her.
We liked Jungle movies with Maria Montez and Hedy Lamarr. The boys liked horror movies especially those with Bud Abbot & Lou Costello. Like ‘Bud Abbot & Lou Costello meet Frankenstien” or “Bud Abbot and Lou Costello meet the Wolf Man”.
In the summers, we would go swimming almost everyday at Cascade Park. Afterward we might go to visit the bears (poor bears, later the humane society made the park give them up to a proper zoo) or buy popcorn or play in the park.
In the evening the adults would sit on their porches and watch as we played Kick the Can, Red Rover, or Icebox. There had been a street railroad that at one time ran between Eyria and Lorain. The tracks were gone but the right-a-way still existed. This became our playground. Our street ended at the old tracks. On one side was a street light to which the boys attached a basket ball hoop on the other side they put up a pole with another basketball hoop. So we had a small basketball court within sight of our parent’s front porch. Sometimes in the fall we made a bonfire and roasted potatoes in their skin. I don’t remember anything more delicious that those potatoes. Julia Child never cooked anything as wonderful!
My friends Barbara Palinski, Jeanie Smiley and Dorothy Horvath played on our front porches. We made paper dolls and pretended we were movie stars. Dorothy got to be Dorothy Lamour because that was her name.
We rode our bikes to Sheffield and back. Dorothy and I played baseball with the boys. I would never have been picked because I wasn’t very good but Dorothy was, and if I didn’t play, she couldn’t, because her mother didn’t like her to be the only girl among all those boys. Besides, I think she owned the ball.
During the war there was a shortage of labor, so the farmers would hire us kids to work in the fields. We’d have to get up very early in the morning (5am) and show up at the public square. The farmers would be there with their trucks and take us to their fields. We picked strawberries, blackberries and beans. Other kids from the neighborhood would be there so it was a lot of fun. One time the farmer told us that he didn’t have the cash to pays us, that he would pay us the next time. We refused to get on the trucks until he came up with the money. He went into town to the bank and came back and paid us. But we never worked for him after that. I earned enough to buy a baseball and a tennis racket.
While the war was on, everything was very scarce. Food was rationed. We had to have coupons to buy food. Since my parents liked sugar for their tea, that was thing we were always running out of. Once for my mother’s birthday, a neighbor gave her a jar of sugar.
We used to save bacon grease and take it to the butcher. He would give us 25 cents a can for it, which was a lot of money to us.
John and Mary needed a bike for their part-time jobs. You couldn’t buy a bike at the store. Because of the war effort, all the factories were converted to make items for the war. They quit producing cars and bikes and turned to making tanks and ammunition. To get their bike, John went to the junkyard and found a frame. Then they bought the parts individually and put the bike together (you could buy parts very easily).
When Pat needed a wagon for his paper route, we could only get a wooden one with wooden wheels that soon split apart. The toys that were to be found were made of made of composite materials that did not hold up very well if left out in the rain.
James turned 18 shortly before the war ended. He still had to go into the army. He was sent overseas to Germany for his tour of duty.
After the war was over, Mom left her job at the Romec Pump and returned to being a housewife. Dad got a job at the Western automatic Machine Co.
Every summer, the Western Automatic. had an outing to Crystal Beach, an amusement park in Vermillion. All the rides were free and since several of the neighbors worked there, many of our friends were also there. Pat wanted me to go on the roller coaster with him but I was afraid. But when some of the neighborhood kids started teasing me about being “chicken”, I went with them. Pat was mad because I went with them but not with him.
At work, Dad saw a notice that the plant was offering a scholarship to Rochester Institute of Technology for children of the employees. John took the exam and won the scholarship. So he was off the Rochester for his associate degree.
I was going to school at Elyria Catholic High school. Pat was going to Elyria High School. Mary attended St. John’s nursing school in Cleveland. When she graduated, she worked a while at St. Joseph’s hospital in Lorain.Mom went on her first trip to Ireland since she left home as a young girl. She packed a big steamer trunk and went by boat out of New York. While she was there, her sister Julia gave birth to twins.
James got on the police force in Cleveland and was staying with mother’s cousin and his wife Johnny & Betty Mulloy. Pat graduated from high school and joined the Air force. Mary and a friend from nursing school joined the Navy.
Mom & Dad decided it was a good time to move back to Cleveland where most of their friends and relatives lived.