Local People and Local Memories:
The Cleveland Heights Oral History Project
By Sven Dubie and Kara Hamley
O'Donnell
Longtime residents of Cleveland Heights may remember that in conjunction
with the second annual Heights Heritage Tour in 1978, a booklet titled
In My Day was published by the tour’s sponsor, the Heights Community
Congress. What made this early foray into the history of Cleveland Heights
unique was that it was based primarily on a series of oral history interviews
conducted by local volunteers. At the time, oral history as a historical
method was just coming into vogue, reflecting the nascent interest in
grassroots and community history. In the case of In My Day the desire
was to tell the story of Cleveland Heights through the eyes and experiences
of “a selected few of its longtime, active, interesting colorful,
outspoken, articulate, prominent, notorious, sprightly older residents.”
The ultimate goal, as noted in the introduction to the volume, was to
convey what that great practitioner of oral history, Studs Terkel, called
the “‘truths of history as people tell it’ rather than
by the ‘facts of recorded history.’”
Since then oral history has become
much more widely practiced and is an important tool in the repertoire of
those interested in capturing local history. And fortunately, there has
been a commensurate increase in the interest of Cleveland Heights residents
in sharing their recollections about the history of our community. In the
late 1990s, the Superior Schoolhouse was renovated and, in 2000, the site
was designated for use as the city’s historical center.
Superior School Kids,
c. 1900
Its stated mission was to present
and preserve the city’s history and architecture, through documentation,
exhibits and special events. Charged with overseeing the city’s collection
of historical documents and serving as historical liaison to the public,
the city’s Historic Preservation Planner, Kara Hamley O’Donnell,
would often meet people interested in sharing their recollections about
a particular place or event in Cleveland Heights. After a while, O’Donnell
recognized that there were a lot of valuable stories about the community
that ought to be collected and preserved. In 2001, with the support of the
city, she began to develop an oral history program as the first major initiative
of the Cleveland Heights Historical Center. In the summer of 2001, O’Donnell
attended the first Ohio Oral History Institute held at Youngstown State
University, where she was trained in the basics of conducting oral histories
and establishing local oral history projects. She then began recruiting
volunteers to conduct and transcribe the oral history interviews. Shortly
thereafter, she launched “This is My Neighborhood: The Cleveland Heights
Oral History Project.” The undertaking was conceived in the spirit
of In My Day in an attempt to capture as many of the stories of Cleveland
Heights’ residents and from as diverse a cross-section of the city
as possible. To give the project a sharper focus and to better capture the
local history of the Heights, O’Donnell decided to concentrate primarily
on the impressions and memories that residents had of people, places, and
events in their respective neighborhoods. Provisions were also made, however,
to consider the impact of broader national and international developments,
such as the Great Depression, World War II, and racial integration, on the
local community.
In the fall of 2001, more than a
dozen volunteers, all of whom had received basic training in conducting
oral history interviews, began to sit down with local residents to collect
and record their memories of local history. In the ensuing three years,
nearly fifty interviews with residents from all corners of Cleveland Heights
were conducted and transcribed, and the stories that were captured reflect
the rich, eclectic and vibrant history of our community. For instance, one
of the earliest memories of Cleveland Heights came from Stanley Adelstein,
who recalled that his parents moved from Cleveland up to the Heights in
the 1920s so they could “have their own home…in a lovely residential
community” surrounded by “wide open spaces.” He added
that “in 1924, that’s exactly what Cleveland Heights was.”
Adelstein fondly remember his Washington Boulevard neighborhood “when
the [streetcar] tracks were being taken out… and the trees being planted
on the center strip” of the boulevard. Adelstein’s wife, Hope,
thought back to the darker days of the Great Depression, when times were
tough all around. As she recalled, “the banks closed, and that left
an impression upon me that I will never forget. It was very difficult for
my father and my mother and a couple of brothers and sisters, but we took
in boarders and our house was jammed. I slept in the sunroom, which was
cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. But we managed and we saved
our home.” But even in the midst of hardship, some of the young
folk managed to have fun. Catherine Black Aldrich remembered “when
the Works Progress Administration was building Monticello Boulevard . .
. there weren’t houses in Forest Hills except the Tudor-style [Rockefeller]
homes. And they [the city] would block off Monticello and we were allowed
to go down there and roller-skate on Monticello Road.”
Monticello Construction,
c. 1939
Later during World War II, Aldrich
remembered when “Oakwood Country Club turned their facility over to
the U.S. Army, and so we had a Military Police base there. We had a USO
a couple of doors from Center Mayfield [Theater], so there were a lot of
soldiers there, all the time.” Many residents also recalled the rationing
that went on during the war. As John McDonald related, “we had drives
to collect various kinds of metals...I can remember people coming to the
door saying, ‘Do you have any pots and pans, or anything metal, that
you’d like to contribute to the effort?’ And, of course, there
were always war bonds that people were trying to sell.”
In the years after the Depression
and war, life in the Heights seemed idyllic. Norton London reminisced: “When
I was growing up in Cleveland Heights in the 1950s, we always had a safe
feeling, walking everywhere. We spent our summers playing sports at Forest
Hill Park, Cain Park, and swimming at Cumberland Pool.
Cumberland Pool, c.
1930's
In junior high I played football
for Roosevelt and our rival schools was Monticello. Then, when we all
got to Heights, we were friends and our football rival was Shaker.”
Another resident, James Yasinow, had similar memories about the neighborhood
in which he grew up: “Well, we didn’t need cars. I walked
to Boulevard, I walked to Roosevelt Junior High School. I took a bicycle
to Heights High School. I graduated from Cleveland Heights High School
in 1949. Sometimes I hitchhiked to school. In those days, kids did that
sort of thing. But I remember when we lived on Preyer. Right wherer the
street cuts off. It doesn’t extend down to Mayfield near Superior.
They closed it off. You could walk over to the corner of Mayfield and
Superior near where the Cleveland Heights City Hall used to be. I remember
a New York bakery there. I’d walk in there and my eyes were big
looking at those coconut bars. I think they were only selling for two
for a nickel, maybe a nickel a piece. But I thought that the greatest
thing since sliced bread was having a coconut bar. They were delicious.”
Dr. Herbert Jakob fondly recalled the conviviality of his community off
South Taylor Road: “These streets–-we call them the “B”
streets—there’s Blanche, Berkeley, Bainbridge, down all the
way down to Severance. At one time each street had their own block party.
This particular section of Blanche was so friendly when we first moved
here that everybody...we could name everybody. I could name the people
that lived in [each] house...We played together, we went to school together.”
Dr. Jakob also recalled the dramatic changes that residents of the Coventry
neighborhood experienced in the 1960s: “In 1964 [Coventry] was changing
quite a bit. A lot of the stores disappeared. The butcher shops were gone.
The bakeries, I think they were gone. They were gone. The meat markets
persisted for awhile. Weiss was still there. There was a...oh, I remember
the vegetable stores, you remember those? Greenburg, Englis. You know
where that steak house[Hyde Park Grille] is on Coventry? That used to
be Newmark’s bakery. Englis’ Fruit Store and Weiss Meat Market....Coventry
was beginning to change already into atypical sixties street with a lot
of people hanging out on the streets, dress almost looked like a miniature
Haight [San Francisco] district.”
Many residents, like Adele Mendel, fondly remembered some of their favorite
eateries: “I remember getting twenty-five cents a week for an allowance.
I remember Mawby’s, the first Mawby’s. It was on Cedarbrook
and Lee. We used to go there and get a hamburger for fifteen cents. And
there was a Chinese restaurant. We could eat lunch there for twenty-five
cents if we didn’t want to eat the cafeteria food at Heights [High].
We’d run over there and eat. New Moon Café. At night they
would charge a dollar for your meal. Once in a while my parents would
go there and have dinner. But lunch, twenty-five cents.”
Of course, there were also those
who could recount the changing ethnic and racial composition of the neighborhoods
in the Heights. Dr. Herbert Jakob noted that, “on Coventry, going
toward East Cleveland, there were a number of German Jews who moved in there.
Those German Jews who lived in that area formed the first congregation...which
ultimately became what they call Shara Tikvah. That used to be Rabbi Schtul’s
synagogue. He lived around there somewhere...The first services were held
in a house right opposite Coventry school, the lower part of the school,
which was adjacent to a street called Rock Road [Rock Court].
And Robert and Leatrice Madison,
who were among the first African-American families to settle in the Heights
in the 1960s, recalled that they were motivated to come here for the same
reason as countless others before them: “We’ve got to find
[a better place] for our kids to live. We’ve got to find...a place
that we can send our kids to school. And we looked at Cleveland Heights.”
But it was more than the just the good environment in which to raise kids.
As Robert Madison put it, “Cleveland Heights was our choice [because]
it had a great diversity of people. I mean, you got all kinds...you had
the hippies, you had poor people, you had rich people, you had a lot.”
Gathering such personal accounts of the history of Cleveland Heights
has enabled the Cleveland Heights Oral History Project to significantly
enhance our understanding and appreciation of the development of the local
community over the course of the 20th century. Not surprisingly, the oral
histories have subsequently been used in numerous projects that have sought
to the enhance community awareness of the unique history of Cleveland
Heights. The Oral History Project has created educational exhibits that
have been displayed at the Main Library, the Alcazar and other locations.
The interviews were also integrated into several historical dramatizations,
including in 2003 “From Here: A Century of Voices from Ohio,”
an oral-history-centered celebration of Ohio’s bicentennial.
Today, the interview transcripts, as well as various related historical
artifacts and pictures, collected as part of the Oral History Project
are on deposit at Cleveland Heights Historical Center at Superior Schoolhouse.
They are available as a resource for people interested in learning more
about the history of our community from the perspective of those who lived
it. It is also hoped that they will to serve as inspiration for Cleveland
Heights residents to continue sharing their memories of the people, places
and events that have helped to shape the vibrant history of Cleveland
Heights.
If you, or someone you know, might be interested in being interviewed
or might like to help with interviewing-transcribing, please contact Kara
Hamley O’Donnell at 291-4885 or kodonnell@clvhts.com.
