Located in the heart of Over-the-Rhine, Findlay Market was the most popular market in Cincinnati in the early twentieth century, as it is today. On market days pushcarts, wagons, and pedestrians com- bined to make this one of the city's most congested areas.

This manuscript is written from personal experience and deals with the Over-the-Rhine area between 1913 and 192,3. The work deals first hand with life and customs of a family, particularly the children, in the once predominantly German neighborhood. "Much has been written on this subject by writers obtaining their information from research. This piece is from a child's viewpoint as a resident of the district in that. . . time." The Author Over-the-Rhine -U.S.A.

by George M. Henzel

o-o-ta-a-a-to-o-es, di-i-me a ha-a-lf pe-e-e-ck." It's dusk on a summer evening and I'm at a "stand," more asleep than awake, hawking fruits and vegetables. Soon market is over and I've earned my quarter for the day's work. The year is 1919, the war is over, and I'm nine. The half peck a unit of dry measure, and the stand is at Findlay Street Market in the Over-the-Rhine district of Cincinnati. Over-the-Rhine because a canal from Toledo to Cin- cinnati passes through the city's basin area. South of the canal is down- town. North, and to the foot of two of Cincinnati's seven hills> is an area almost wholly German. "To cross the canal into this German neighborhood was like crossing the Rhine River," said the businessmen downtown. World War I had brought about many changes, but customs die hard, and many traces of that "Vaterland" lingered on. Other outdoor markets served the city, but none the size of Findlay. No fixed limits were set. Depending upon the number of German truck farmers, local hucksters, and the weather, it grew and shrunk. Like an octopus, with the market house as its body, it reached in all directions. And it was my good fortune to live along one of the tentacles. That my parents felt dif- ferently about living in a tenement, never occurred to me. They could not afford a home in the suburbs. An artist might recapture the market scene, but lost are the heavenly smells of a day spent at old Findlay Market. The aroma of the citrus from California, and even the wooden crates in which it arrived, and the perfume of the shipped, and the ripe locally grown apples. The local ones "were grown for taste, not looks," claimed the farmers. Gone is the Russet, with its nut- like flavor,bu t covered with rusty spots. Concord grapes, Indiana musk melons, quinces, pawpaws, sugar pears, Damson plums, cherries, goose berries, and a dozen other mouth-waterers at the stands tended by the German speaking, or German accented farm wives. Add to these, the wet with dew, freshly picked vegetables—sweet and golden- bantam corn, rhubarb, string beans and unshelled butter beans, and peas; radishes—red and tasty or white and hot, each bite with a "schnap like a rifle shot," they bragged. And as night fell, the empty crates and boxes were burned, and the coal-oil and carbide lanterns were lit, all adding their pungent odor to the air, and the aroma was almost too much to bear. But all of this was anti-climax, just a build-up for what awaited you in the market house. From the moment you opened one of the heavy metal swinging doors, your nose was assailed by one treat after another. Kunkel's Pickels—"every pickled, preserved, and vinegar-ed delight or relish imaginable," was their boast; Speise's Cheese—where you'd drool over the cheese-makers art from the corners of the earth, from rat cheese (because it was used to bait mouse traps) to that huge two-hundred pound wheel of genuine Swiss. An exception here, while you held your nose, and even your breath, to pass the display of Limburger, nauseating to us but a delight to the old German beer drinkers. Meat counters took up much of the market house, and nothing was pre-cut or packaged. It was twenty-five cents worth, a pound or two pounds, a two- inch or three-inch cut for sauerbratten, a veal cutlet for wiener schnitzel, and you watched it cut from the "quarter." If you were smart, it was joked, "you stood to one side of the scale and kept a wary eye on the butcher's thumb." Busiest spot among the butcher counters was Busch's Sausage, where the German art of Sausage-making was practiced. Even the rival butchers agreed that "only a Knockel Kopf could pass this counter without a longing glance at a Ham-sausage, a Liver-sausage, or a huge Wiener Wurst." And then, lastly, that magnet, drawing every kid—the cookie counter. Every kind of cookie, but number one to the kids—broken ice-cream cakes! A bargain because they were broken. Probably purposely broken, for use as a loss-leader. Leaving by the front door of the market house, you passed the fellow who ground and sold fresh horseradish, a frequent ingredient in German cooking. If he was grinding, a real good sniff, cleared all eight sinuses and watered your eyes. And a block down the street, crossing the bakery gratings and wafting in the hot bread and pastry aromas, you came to the tea and coffee store. Here, the roasting coffee and peanuts, and the bulk tea and spices, to quote the owner, "took your nose on a free trip to the East Indies." Findlay Market was not the only place to earn a quarter for a day's work. There was the manager of the neighborhood chain grocery store, who some- times needed help. "You know how to use a scale?", was his only question, for the food sold in grocery stores at that time came in bulk. Sugar, potatoes, lard, cheese, dates, rice, beans, nuts, raisins, and prunes were received in from twenty-five to one-hundred pound bags, wooden boxes and buckets, and cans. The quarter-a-day weigher weighed these into one, two, and five- pound paper bags or split-board trays. Most fruits were not weighed, they sold by the dozen and the vegetables by the measure. Burlap bags were opened with the curved banana-knife used for removing "hands" of bananas from the stalks, that were hung from the ceiling on a

8 knotted rope. Boxes and buckets of dates, raisins, prunes, soap, smoked fish, and candy were opened with the cheese-knife, which also cut cheese and was used once, a manager claimed, "like a machette, to discourage a would-be hold-up man." Tools, were held to a minimum and had many uses. Cardinal rule for a weigher, as laid down by the manager, was that "The weighed-up bags must count out to AT LEAST as much as the original bag or box. The one-hundred pound bag of sugar, that produces forty-nine two- pound bags, will also produce an ex-weigher." If it produced fifty-one two- pound bags, it must have been heavy to start with, or the weigher was buying job insurance. Managers coming up with fifty-one two-pound bags too often, also became ex-managers. The "large economy size" idea had not yet ap- peared and the German hausfraus shopped often and bought in smaller amounts, so there was lots of weighing. Biggest bug-a-boo in weighing, was the lard, dates, raisins, and prunes. Scraping fifty one-pound trays of room temperature lard from a fifty-pound can is apt to be a messy job for a preteen-age kid. But worse, were the dates, raisins, and prunes. Only an ice-pick would separate them, and they stuck to everything they touched, including the weigher. Ugh! If your work met with the manager's approval, he might ask, "You good at arithmetic? Can you add a long column of figures?" If you said you could, he would let you "wait" on a few customers, but he'd check your additions for some time, just to make sure. Cash registers came later, and the money-wise hausfraus took the added slips home with them to check the figures. There was no self-service, the customer stood and asked, and the clerk or manager went and got. To the kid learning to clerk, it was, "Don't climb on those shelves, use that extension arm to get those items on the high shelves." or "Better let me cut that piece of cheese, and you watch a couple of times." or "Keep your fingers in back of that banana knife. It cuts kids fingers just like it cuts bananas." This early training produced many future managers, among them an older brother of mine who later "ran" one of their stores. And yet another source of spending money was the lady that lived on the second floor next door. It was generally agreed by us small fry, that she weighed two-pounds less than the Island Queen, one of our river steamboats. Actually, well over four-hundred pounds, she would call from the window, "Hey, Sonny, will you go to the grocery for me?" And surely you would, be- cause you knew there was always a nickel in it for you. She could not come down the stairs forward. The calf of her leg, sliding against the edge of the stair tread, would push her foot off of the next tread down. And then it was bumpidy, bumpidy, bump, bump, BUMP! She only came down the stairs after dark, and then backwards. And this was done in slow motion, with a "death grip" on the bannister. She never went to the grocery. For eager beavers, thirteen was an eagerly awaited age. Sixteen was the compulsory age for school attendance, but at thirteen you could work part time. When you reached this magic age, you went to the candy store at Lib- erty and Pleasant streets and hit up the owner for a paper route. He was agent for the newspapers. He would tell you "Get your Birth Certificate, take it to the Board of Education on Ninth St. and get a work permit. Then see me." Papers sold for two-cents, with less than one-cent going to the paper boy. Delivery routes and corners to hawk the papers came up frequently. Deliv- ering a route and hawking the baseball extras, paid you about a quarter EVERY DAY. On your corner, with your bag on your shoulder, it was, "Extra, Extra, Reds win a ball game," or "Extra get your late edition, Big Bank Robbery." Crying out the headlines on the street helped to boost sales. If you were ambitious, in a week's time you could buy a pair of skates! I never felt richer. Unfortunately, this feeling of "riches" did not extend to Dad. We had moved to Cincinnati from a small town to afford us kids a better education. The town from where we had moved was also mostly German and he liked the Over-the-Rhine people, but he did not like living in the tenements. Busi- ness had not yet picked up to allow him to move us to a house in the suburbs.

Youngsters in Over-the-Rhine had several means of earning extra spending money, which included working at Findlay Mar- ket, clerking in the neighborhood grocery stores, or hawking newspapers. One of the thrills of summer was riding the Island Queen to Coney Island on Findlay Market Day. Some kids with a handful of passes spent the entire day riding up and down the river.

Never a Dull Moment

Life for us kids was not all scrounging for jobs, there was plenty of time for amusements. That twenty-five cents, earned at market, the grocery store, or selling papers, was a bonanza in that day. Maybe it took all day to earn it, but it meant two shows and enough penny candy to satisfy, and probably decay, a sweet tooth. Once a year was Findlay Market Day at Coney Island. Not Coney Island, New York, but Coney Island, seven miles by river steamboat up the Ohio River. All day and into the evening, the Island Queen, the Island Maid and the Morningstar, their steam whistles hurrying the late-arriving passengers, arrived and departed from the foot of Broadway. And as the picnic poster said, "Ride the free excursion boat to our picnic at Coney Island." All any kid needed for a great day at Coney was ten cents, a Findlay Market Boat Pass and a hungry look. Five cents for carfare each way to and from the wharf, the boat pass was free, and the hungry look for the picnic area at the Island. Every picnicking "burger" family had more food than they could eat, and it was, "Hey, Sonny, you wanna sandwich or some cookies?" And who didn't? Of course, if you had MONEY, there were rides like the Cyclone and the Loop the Loops, and also booths and other attractions, but what kid needed those luxuries. The boat ride alone, was a big part of the day, and some kids with a handful of passes, spent the day riding up and down the river. There were many things to do on the boats. Go up the wide stairways to the top deck and hold your ears, or try to holler louder than the steam calliope. Hang over the back rail and watch the huge stern paddle wheel churn the river, and maybe your stomach. Or, if on a side-wheeler, go below and watch the back and forth movement of the long "arms" that drove the side paddle wheels. Or sneak down to watch the action in the boiler room until a stevedore shouted, "Git away from that gate! You ain't 'lowed down here!" Sighting the excursion boat from the opposite direction, a cry would go up. Every kid aboard would dash to the passing side, waving wildly at the wildly waving kids on the passing boat. Fortunately, enough grown-ups aboard stayed put, or the boats would have capsized. A few other steamboats also still plied the Ohio River, but this was the lull between the day of the steamboat and the present diesel tug. The railroad was king, and about to be deposed by the auto and the truck. Many other organizations had "days" at Coney and some had their "days" at Chester Park, a rival of Coney's, but in the city, not on the river. The news- paper for whom I carried, had "Peter Rabbit" day at Chester, named for a story that ran in their paper. The newspaper would print a notice that, "This 'day' was for their paper boys, who would be given strips of ride tickets and admission free." The Clark Street carline, that went to Chester Park, was the only line in the city using trailers. Naturally, no kid rode in the first cars- all jammed into the trailers. At the park, lines for the rides were long, but worth waiting out. With ride tickets gone, the last ticket was saved for Hilarity Hall. The sign outside said, "Once inside, everything is free. The Giant twisting Slide, the Soup Bowl, the Spinning Saucer, the House of Mirrors, and enough others to keep you occu- pied all day." The trouble was, in all this movement, you could lose the nickel saved for the carfare home. Mom solved this problem for me by wrapping a nickel in a handkerchief and safety-pinning it inside of my pocket. The Clark Street car ride was the best in the city. In addition to the trailers, it passed a lot of nice smelling businesses, and a few not so nice smelling. Everybody said, "Even a blind man would know where he was. His nose would tell him." To fully enjoy the ride, the windows had to be open. First there was Streitman's Factory and the smell of the cookies baking. Next, Jergens Soap Co., and the odor of perfumed soaps and lotions. Soon you approached the Stock Yards and you pinched your nose to keep your stomach from doing nip-ups. If you got your fingers off of your nose just in time, you caught the smell of Kahn's American Beauty Hams. Another mile or so and you were passing through Ivorydale, named for Procter and Gamble's Ivory Soap. The smells here were not the same as those back at Jergens, inasmuch as P & G made a lot of products, the odor of which spread over all of Ivorydale. All of this for a nickel. Excursions were week day, summer things to do, but every Saturday was show night. You either saved a dime from what you earned, or begged until

12 The Clark Street car ride was one of the best as the line passed numerous aromatic businesses. Everybody said, "Even a blind man would know where he was." Odors ranged from the deli- cious smell of cookies baking, to soap making byP&Gat Ivorydale, to the pungent smell of the stockyards.

Stockyards At Chester Park one saved the last ticket for Hilarity Hall for once inside everything was free. -If III -»

All a kid needed for a fun filled day at Coney Island was ten cents, a Findlay Market boat pass, and a hungry look. Mom gave you one to get rid of you. Nickel for the show and a nickel for candy. Candy was from either Mrs. Ryan's Candy Store at Liberty and Goose Alley or the Greek owned French Nougat, at Liberty and Vine streets. Our folks alowed that, "Mrs. Ryan had the patience of a Saint. Stand for minutes on end while we kids ran our eyes up and down the candy case and finally made up our minds. This penny item, that two-for, or that three-for, to get the most for our nickel." If not Mrs. Ryan's, then the French Nougat, with its many flavors of hard, pan candy. Pan candy was hard as stone and was broken into pieces with a small metal hammer. Held in the mouth awhile, it turned chewy enough to pull the fillings from your teeth. A nickel "toot" or "poke" of candy lasted for most of the show. To really splurge, you saved your nickel for the candy vending box fas- tened to the back of the seat in front of you in the show. If it was empty, you crawled over the kids on either side, or stretched over the back of the seat until you found a loaded one. Pushing your nickel into a slot, popped open the top of the box and out came a nickel Hershey Bar. This was for fancy tastes. Imagine the racket, with a hundred or so kids rattling bags, squirming across seats and wildly cheering and screaming at the Pearl White Serial on the screen. The candy making art was at its peak, but the denture making art, a direct result of the former, was little further along than the George Washington model. Mom wore her lower denture, very low, in fact, in her apron pocket, except when eating. "With five active kids on the loose, where would you have kept yours?" she asked. The show held turkey raffles around Thanksgiving. One night about 9:00 p.m. after the show, my sister and I brought a live turkey, that we had won, back to the tenement flat! Didn't faze Mom even a little bit. She butchered dressed, and baked it for Thanksgiving. In addition to Coney and Chester, picnickers had the choice of several "Groves," such as Strieker's. These Picnic Groves were acreages, a short walk into the country from the ends of several street car lines. One Sunday each summer was the Barber's Union Picnic, usually at the end of the Oakley car line. From noon till dusk, there was baseball, horse shoe pitching, pinochle, beer, soft drinks and, of course, the lottery wheel. While we kids played and roamed the area, the barbers talked barbering and griped about their hated competitors, the scabs. Considering the hours and barbering prices of the day, it's hard to believe that they were "Union." "We work from eight to eight daily, eight to mid- night Saturday. And Journeymen Barbers earn nine-dollars per week, base, plus a percentage over a certain amount of receipts! How in the world can the 'Scab' work longer hours and for less money?" said Dad. He was a strong union member, whether a Master or a Journeyman Barber, and dirtiest word in his vocabulary was "Scab," said with such force that we kids thought it was a cuss word. 15 Sights Galore

When there wasn't something to do, there was something to see. For in- stance, our neighbor who backed down the stairs. The only reason she came down at all was to attend the show, one block away. She went through the back yard, out a double back gate, down Goose Alley to the side exit of the show. Some neighborhood kid, with the permission of his or her parents, always accompanied her. At the show, she said to the kid, "Go around front and buy two tickets, and tell the Manager to come to the side door." The Manager would come to the inside of the side exit, open the door, and let her in. Next to this side door, the arm between two seats had been taken out and a plank put in to re-inforce the double seat. The Manager said, "Nobody with an ounce of sense, would sit on this uncomfortable seat, so it was always empty for use by this good customer." Like most grossly overweight people, she passed away at an early age. The funeral was held at home, and she was laid out in a hastily built large coffin. The funeral director decided that, "In no way could six men, good and strong, not even six big 'Deutschmen' ease that coffin down those stairs. Arrangements would have to be made with a piano mover." They winched her out the front window! A piano dolly rolled her to the hearse and she was hefted aboard. Where-upon the floor of the hearse settled some six inches and the spring leaves bent the other way. While a piano mover assisted funeral might seem rather odd, life in the area was full of such sights. A street car jacked up off its tracks to remove a victim underneath, still wearing his skates. Seems he didn't know how to

Sometimes a streetcar lost its brakes coming down a hill, espe- cially Vine Street hill, causing it to jump the tracks. They drained the canal! "That canal was as much a part of Cincinnati as the Rhine River was a part of Germany. They wouldn't drain the Rhine River, would they?"

throw one skate crosswise behind the other to brake his speed. Another street car lost its brakes on Vine Street hill. The injured motorman said, "We hit the curb halfway down at about fifty-miles-an-hour. She jumped the tracks, crossed the sidewalk, went through the store front and smashed the whole building." Most of these happenings meant little to us kids, but there was one that dismayed us. They drained the canal!!! Imagine that, drained the CANAL! Opponents to this action, like us, claimed that, "That canal was as much a part of Cincinnati as the Rhine River was a part of Germany. They wouldn't drain the Rhine River, would they?" Why, even the prefix on our telephone numbers, was Canal. Post Office Station V, that served us, was known in the Post Office as "Swim," for how else would you cross the Rhine, but swim. Those canal boats, pulled by mules, were part and parcel of our city. That was our River. We kids built rafts and floated on it. The foot bridges that crossed it were our gymnasium equipment. On a dare, we'd cross hand over hand, hanging from a tie-rod under the foot bridges. The rapid transit tubes that they built in the old canal bed were also at first a playground for us. Later, they became a dangerous area for kids, and were boarded up when the parkway was completed. The canal and later the parkway, made a turn at what would have been Eleventh Street. It thus passed a block away on two sides of Washington Park, largest park in the area and center for much Over-the-Rhine group activity. Band concerts at the band stand with Sousa Marches, a baseball diamond, a swimming pool for kids, and a dance pavilion. Small local dance combos played once or twice a week in the summer for teen-age and young adult dancers. The fee was five-centspe r dance, and this activity was not for us kids. The dancers were dressed in their best and behaved the same as they would have at a downtown ballroom. We kids came to stare, and were thor- oughly ignored by these "elders" who had found something called "girls," and they now looked down their noses at us brats and our antics. The young people in this age group, which included my sister and older brothers, also got up Sunday or holiday hikes. They would go by street car to the end of some car line and then hike several miles to the end of another car line and return home. Lunches were sometimes carried and hikers, dar- ingly, wore knickers and bloomers. Many romances blossomed. (How utterly different from "street gangs" and "Hell's Angels.") Some of our playgrounds, such as the streets and the canal were a bit on the dangerous side, but Marconi was still inventing the radio, and television just science-fiction. Who needed them! There were sights a plenty to be seen and enjoyed if you kept your eyes and ears open and your imagination work- ing. Within a short walk or a five-cent car ride, were all the wonders in the world. A great place to build that imagination was the Old Public Library, a few blocks across the "Rhine" in the other direction. First the Fairy Tales, then Secretary Hawkins and on up to O'Henry and the thousands of other ad- venture books in the Children's Room. In the grown-ups section, the books were up on balconies three or four stories high, and in a half-circle around the room. This because the Library was in an old Opera House, and the balcony and boxes were now filled with book racks. To a child's eye, that ceiling was a mile high. If we kids went in there and headed for those bal- conies, a librarian would stop us with, "No, no, the children's room is upstairs in front. And be quiet, there are students in here studying." This with a finger in front of her mouth in the "Sh-h-h" position. Besides the books that we carried home, we also lugged a "stereopticon" and the pictures of far-away and exciting places. Carrying home the suit- case holding the stereopticon and pictures gave us almost as much of a kick as looking at the pictures. On many an occasion, we ran, more than walked, to make it home in time for supper, because we were so wrapped up in some adventure book, that we lost track of time. Television is a severely restricted

18 The Old Public Library was a great place for a child to wile away the hours and let his imagination run free. Located in an old opera house with the balcony and boxes filled with book racks, it looked to a child as if its ceiling was a mile high.

medium, when compared with a child's imagination turned loose in a library full of adventure books! Four of Cincinnati's inclines were still running, street cars and horse drawn vehicles had trouble getting up the city's seven hills. Mt. Adams, Bellevue, Fairview, and Price Hill Inclines were in use, and Bellevue was only blocks away. On a dull day, with nothing else to do, you could climb Bellevue hillside and if you were halfway up and under the incline, BOTH platforms, going up and coming down, met and passed over you at the same time. And you were too far away from the attendants at the top or the bot- tom, hollering, "Hey you 's, Git out from under the Incline!" We couldn't understand their worry, as the only problem we could think of, was the dripping oil and grease from the cables and the platforms. Returning from the incline, you could pass either Hudepohl's or Moer- lein's brewery. Through the open windows could be seen and heard the bottling machinery with its clinking, marching bottles. And in the brewery yard, that reeked of tan bark and horses, you'd watch a cooper fixing the busted wooden barrels. And those horses—big as a house! .

The Bellcvue Incline provided many hours of enjoyment and adventure for the children of Over-the-Rhine. Next to slow you down, was the fire house. Nothing shined like that brass- trimmed pumper. See your face in every brass coupling. "Made in Cincin- nati.", it said. The fire in the firebox, the harness hanging from the ceiling ready to drop onto the horses. The folded canvas hoses, ready to be grabbed by a fireman as he jumped off of the still moving pumper. And that pair of beautiful, and beautifully groomed and trained horses, as they moved them- selves into hitching position; twitched as the harness was dropped and buckled; and trembled while waiting for that command—"Git ap!" In addition to fire fighting and spit and polish, firemen had another sum- mertime job—barber to the poor kids. All winter the kids' hair was cut by their mothers. We, who had regular haircuts, claimed that, "A bowl was placed over their head and all hair that stuck out was hacked off with the kitchen scissors." Come summer, that hair was hot and a nuisance while playing ball or swimming at Washington or Grant, the nearby parks. So—the firemen would grab the kids, hold them at arms length, and with the horse clippers, clip them bald. And the two tone heads were a sight to see until the sun tanned the white scalp to match the already tanned face. The reason for the scalping at arms length was, "to avoid the bugs that were frequently in the hair." The clippers, of course, had to be held over a flame and sterilized before they could be again used on the horses. And the hair, bugs and all, was quickly gathered and burned. Lice, like bed bugs, were not a sign of poverty or uncleanliness in the tenements. Even the cleanest kids, or the best scrubbed "clean deutscher's Flat," could be quickly re-infested by a new kid's hat in the school cloak room or a new family moving into the tenement. Lice were combed out with a fine-toothed comb made for that purpose, and scalp then treated with

20 an evil smelling salve from the drug store. Mom hated bed bugs more than lice. "More work," she said. "First you have to strip the bed and wash every- thing. Then squirt Peterman's liquid bed bug killer into the springs and seams of the mattress to kill the nits. And all the while, burning the bed bugs that run, with a lighted candle." So much for the "wild life," but back to the fire house. Real thrill was to be there when they went out to a fire. The sparks flying from the horses' hooves on the granite block street. The smoke starting from the pumper stack. The horses' manes flying. The wheels sliding on, or jumping across the street car tracks. If you hadn't already decided to become a fireman, this did it. The streets and street car tracks were not so much of a problem, accord- ing to the firemen. The metal tires on the equipment were wide enough to cancel out the wet and the tracks. Real worry was the horses' shoes, for if a horse went down, they were in real trouble. Most main streets were wood- block, granite-block, brick or cobble stone, only a few were black-top. And with these rough streets, other drivers of the horses and wagons frequently rode in the street car tracks. Wet tracks and the hurry of a driver to get out of them for an on-coming street car, were often enough to capsize the wagon. The narrow tires on the early autos also fit in the tracks, and they too, rode them. Life, therefore, for a street car motorman was often one after another heart-in-the-mouth, near misses. "We have air brakes, a button on the floor to drop sand on the tracks, another button to drop the cow-catcher out front, and a third to clang the warning bell. But if they can't get out of the tracks, even the air brakes and sand are not magic," said a street car company official, after a series of accidents. The motormen stood up to operate the car, and in emergency did a Spanish Fandango dance—jumping on buttons, fanning the air brakes, and turning the air blue with a few choice cuss words. Sleet storms, a frequent occurrence in Cincinnati, turned the motorman's job into a nightmare. As the trolley wires iced, the trolley pole wheels sparked, cracked and often lost electric contact. Each street car had a long, wooden- handled scraper to remove ice from the wires. Scraped wires sometimes broke. This called for a repair crew, who well knew that, "a 550-volt loose trolley wire, skipping, hissing, sparking, and twisting on a wet street called for even trickier footwork than a Fandango." They shut off the power.

In and about the Tenement

With all that went on out on the streets, we didn't need any more inside the tenements. But need it or not, the traffic in the hallways was often more than that out on the street. At one time there were twenty-three children in the four flats in our tenement. People coming and going, kids dragging

21 toys up and down, deliverymen. Maybe a couple spooning, or a drunk sleep- ing it off. And the tenements changed like the seasons, so there was always something new. The store on the first-floor front was rented at various times to a number of different businessmen or other organizations. A man who sharpened dentist's drills by mail-order, a Holy-Roller group who actually yelled, groaned, and rolled about on the floor, but failed to enlist enough converts. And at a later date, before it was necessary to be licensed, a "Radio Station" that broadcast music played on a victrola, to people with crystal radio sets. He closed down, due to lack of advertisers. Tenants and tenements are impersonal terms, and were not used then. You were the "Klein family," and you "lived" in the "second-floor Flat," or the "third-floor rear Flat" in "Schmidt's Flat Building," or "over Meier's Saloon." Apartments were for rich people, out in the suburbs. Once, when the Armenian woman upstairs was about to be delivered of her first child, as per custom with their people, all of the men relatives gathered to await the event. The wife later explained, "had it been a girl, they would have quietly gone home. But, it was little Stanley, and we cele- brated for three days." All of this in a three-room, third-floor tenement flat. This family, being Armenian, cooked Armenian style. And the smell of highly seasoned mutton, cabbage, grape leaves, and a few other of their native foods, often drifted down the stairway. This food was undoubtedly delicious, but strange to our noses. A few times she brought down samples for us to try. "Good," Mom would say, "Try some." You couldn't have forced it down us kids with a potato masher. Stairways and flats in the tenements were lit by gas. The fixtures had gas mantles, a small flimsy affair, often broken, and giving little light. So— when electric came in, and with the permission of the landlord, my sixteen- year-old brother, who was studying to become an engineer, put electricity in our flat. Even years later, Dad marveled that, "It passed inspection, the Electric Co. installed a meter, and for a couple of years we had the only flat with electricity." Working days and studying nights, this brother became an engineer, and for the next forty years designed and built Standard Oil Com- pany's refineries around the world. And as if all this action on the streets, stairways, and in the flats, was not enough, it spilled over into the back yards. To start with, as on the farms, the toilets, referred to as "Chic Sales," were out there. Many were locked and a key given to each tenant. A frequent cry was, "Mama, throw down the schlussel," schlussel, being German for key. The very name of the firm that cleaned out these out-houses, provided much earthy humor for us kids. "Chic Sales" were usually in groups of two or three—that is, separated on the top, but not on the bottom. A develish kid once hid, quietly, in one until the next one was occupied. And then with a rolled newspaper, reached under and whacked the bottom of the occupied seat. The scream could be heard

22 for a city block. And the catch on the door had to be replaced. The victim probably suffered constipation for the rest of her life. In the yard too, were the garbage cans. Garbage was put out unwrapped, and cans often lacked lids, thus spawning many blow-flies and maggots. Garbage collection was once a week, in open metal wagons drawn by mules and traveling mostly in the alleys. The wagons were facetiously referred to as "Honey Carts," or "Perfume Wagons." Both of these backyard conven- iences, the "Chic Sales" and the garbage, were often vandalized, especially on Halloween. If there was nothing going on in the home area, my brothers and I had an advantage, we could go two doors down the street to my Dad's barber shop and watch the goings on there. Look at the latest copies of the Police Gazette and Punch Magazine. Read the show and circus posters. Puzzle over the Trie Press, the German newspaper published weekly in Cincinnati. Try to beat Dad at a game of pinochle or sixty-six> if he wasn't busy. Haircuts were twenty-five cents and if the hair was worn long, it was to stretch the time between cuts, not because it was the style. Barbers gave face massages, shampoos, singes, removed blackheads, and burned off warts with nitric acid. In connection with a haircut, he also cut the hair out of the patron's nose and ears, trimmed the eyebrows, and shaved the neck. But, no hair was cut on Saturday! Gillette's safety razor came along a little later, and few men shaved themselves with a straight razor. They went to the barber once or twice a week. Dad boasted that, "From 8: oo a.m. to midnight Saturday, he could, and occasionally did, shave one-hundred customers at fifteen-cents each." Barber shops were usually next door to a saloon, and with a common back door or hall. The waiting customers went to the saloon for a beer or two after establishing their "place" in the barber shop. Dad's spare time on Friday was spent honing and strapping a dozen or more razors in preparation for the Saturday onslaught. Standard joke in the barber shop concerned the barber who had a favorite straight razor. Over the years, he had replaced the blade three times and the handle twice, but he wouldn't part with it for any amount of money. One section of his back shelf consisted of many pigeon holes, each con- taining a shaving mug or mustache cup, belonging to a customer. This cus- tom was fading out and only a few customers still insisted on this status symbol. For many years these unclaimed mugs were used at our house as coffee mugs. They were not for drinking water. At the kitchen sink we kept a "sanitary" glass, from which we all drank. Those show cards that sat in the window, or on the shelf in Dad's shop were for the two burlesque houses in the Over-the-Rhine — Peoples and Heucks. Dad got two passes for showing the cards. And with the mention of burlesque, your mind, in all probability, leaps to girly chorus lines and the strip tease, but such was not the case. Burlesque had not yet sunk to that level. Mom and Dad and other husbands and wives made up their audi- ences, and burlesque was still as described in the dictionary—a satire of the serious plays and revues. Baggy pants and a low type of humor, yes, but not just SEX, and sex-oriented humor. Neither Mom or Dad, would have, or did, attend burlesque when it changed. Both of these family houses closed and left the Empress and Olympic, downtown to exploit sex. The circus posters also rated a pair of passes. But inasmuch as these passes only saved part of the cost, and he could not afford the actual cost of seven people at a circus, he gave the passes away. Better that nobody went. I never saw a circus until I was fully grown. In case you are wondering about the Police Gazette as reading matter for us kids. What interested us was the prize fighters like Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson, and Jess Willard, and the baseball stars like Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, and Honus Wagner. What interested many of his customers therein was away over our heads. Everything in its time, and Nature works in wondrous ways!

Si" THE MAI CINDERELLA

Circus posters, placed in shop windows, rated a pair of passes to the shop owner. The Show

What we in the Over-the-Rhine called the "Show," was, of course, the neighborhood theater—Empire, Main or Woodward. Each had two com- plete shows every evening, plus a matinee on Saturdays and Sundays. Each show was a two-reel feature, a short comedy and a serial, and it ran for one week. The serial was aimed at us kids and ended each week with a "cliff- hanger." You just had to get there next week to see what happened. What happened next was that the hero or heroine got out of the dilemma and worked himself or herself into another "cliff-hanger" as the serial ended. We never tired of this simple come-on, and could hardly wait from week to week. The favorites in these serials were the Pearl White and Harold Lloyd types. The comedies were of the Keystone Kops variety and were mostly action and slap stick. And the features were often "tear-jerkers," that we kids sat through just to see the comedies and the serials. The girls and women cried and sighed all through the feature, but unless it was Douglas Fairbanks or some other swash-buckler, it lost us. While waiting through these features, we kids ran up and down the aisles, went to the wash room, jiggled the candy boxes on the back of the seats to see if maybe they would pop open, or crawled over or under the seats and "wrassled." All this noise and commotion might bring the usher down with a threat to throw you out, but it didn't really interfere with those who were watching the show. The films were silents with the words flashed on the screen, and a piano player was down in front playing music appropriate to the action on the screen. These pianists were skilled artists. They played the Classics and other good music and fitted them to whatever came on the screen. Between the two shows of the evening, and before and after, they lowered a stage curtain. In the center of the curtain, in large letters was the word "Asbestos." A big joke with us kids was when asked what we had seen at the show, to answer "Asbestos." The real reason for the asbestos curtain, prob- ably a result of the disastrous Iroquois Theater Fire in Chicago, totally escaped us. The lure of a uniform, especially a uniform tied together with authority, starts young. The job we all wanted was Usher—Uniform, Authority (backed up by the Manager) and Free Shows. The job of usher turned over frequently, and the reason it did was unknown, both to us kids and to the succession of teen-agers who held the job for short periods. The answer was simple eco- nomics. The shows each had but one set of uniforms, and as the usher out- grew the uniform he outgrew the job. Coming attractions were posted in glass-covered poster cases out front, and in the lobbies of the shows. The posters were lurid and sensational, with a habit of exaggerating. More often than not, we left the shows wondering if we had seen the same picture that had been promised by the posters. But as we left, we saw the posters showing the next picture coming up, and again we could hardly wait to see it. Popcorn was yet to take over the lobbies, and with the exception of the Her- shey bars on the back of the seats, you had to bring your own refreshments. We brought candy, cracker-jacks, chewing gum (a dozen or so wads on the bottom of every seat) and cookies, but nothing to drink. And the water fountain in the back was in constant use. The unpadded seats were so close to the next row in front that an adult's knees touched the back of the seat in front. The film broke frequently and the audience whistled and stamped their feet impatiently while it was patched, rethreaded, and started again. Often, the restarted film skipped or repeated several scenes, which brought on laughs or catcalls. Everybody enjoyed themselves and couldn't wait until next week. Downtown there were theaters with admission prices beyond our nickel. There were also vaudeville and stage plays, but all these were for the people with money. To celebrate some special occasion, Mom and Dad might see a vaudeville show, but these celebrations were few and far between.

Two of the neighborhood "shows" were the Empire and Woodward. Each had two complete shows every evening, plus a matinee on Saturdays and Sundays.

The Games We Played

If there was no excitement to draw us kids, there was usually enough of us around to get up a game. And the games we played were simple and needed little equipment, some of it home-made. Caddy, Catchers, Hide-and- seek, Go-sheepie-go, and marbles were the more popular. Baseball was played in the school yards and the parks, but not on the streets. There were

26 too many windows. Caddy was a good example of home-made equipment. All one needed was two sticks. One, the caddy, about one-inch square, three-inches long, and sharpened to a point on both ends. The other a paddle about eighteen-inches long and four-inches wide. Some of our elders considered Caddy a cross between Golf and Baseball, "Because," they said, "In play, the caddy was tossed to the sidewalk (like playing the golf ball where it lay), and the player then stooped and chopped either pointed end of the caddy a sharp blow with the edge of the paddle. This caused the caddy to leap straight up into the air (like a pitched ball). And while the caddy peaked its climb and started to fall, the player drew the paddle back, and with its flat side, drove the caddy as far down the street as possible (like batting a ball)." Scoring of the game was as in golf. The player using the least number of strokes to reach a certain street intersection, some two or three blocks away, was the winner. And, like in golf, there was usually a bet made— "Bet you an agate, I can beat you," or "Bet you a stick of Black Jack chewing gum." If not a marble or a stick of gum, then some other prize from the things carried in a kid's pocket. Included in that pocket were most likely several "geesties," an "invy" or two, and maybe an "agate," street names for our marbles. The geesties were small and made of hard clay, and the invies larger, and of glass. The agate, sometimes called a "cat's eye," was between the other two sizes and appeared to be made of the mineral agate. Two games were played; either shooting them from a "ring" in the dirt, or rolling at one placed on a crack in the sidewalk. Almost every game played afoot, was also played on skates. Imagine a game of caddy, a cross between golf and baseball, played on skates! Took some real co-ordination. A boyhood without skates was unthinkable. Only a grounded hot-rodder could feel such agony today. Not shoe skates, or nylon wheels or slick rink floors, our steel skates were for the street and had noisy ball-bearings. Clamps, tightened with a skate-key and leather straps held the skates to your street shoes. Shoes were of leather, and sneakers were only worn on the gymnasium floor at school. Wide cracks in the sidewalk, sewer lids, litter, cellar doors, lamp posts, and many other obstacles only lent excitement to the art of sidewalk skat- ing. Even a ballet instructor would have admired the instant change from smooth skating to a knee-raising, quick-step across a stretch of brick side- walk, and then back to smooth skating. Truly a "fait accompli," a study in motion. No less a trick was to cross the two curbs and lowered surface of the alleys between each block. Or, when older, to bend the knees as you came up on the alley and clear it in one mighty leap! Occasionally, we saved enough to go to a skating rink. One Halloween, wearing a dress costume that had belonged to my sister, I enjoyed fooling all of the other kids, until it backfired on me, with a "Hey, you can't go in the men's rest room!"

27 Falls on skates were not to the derriere, as often humorously pictured. Most of the momentum was forward, and it was the hands and knees that lost the most skin. There is nothing like a smooth appearing stretch of con- crete to remove a huge amount of hide. Broken arms, baseballed fingers, skinned noses, and chipped teeth were all a part of growing up. One sprained, and two broken arms, blood poisoning up to my elbow, a one-inch scar on my scalp and enough punctures and gashes to need a gallon of peroxide, was the price I paid. "About par for the course," my folks reckoned. Much of this self-inflicted mayhem was patched up in Dad's barber shop. Barbers were no longer surgeons, as in medieval times, but most were able to stop the flow of blood. Between straight razors and squirming kids, the nicked chins and snipped ears were common. A small box of yellow caustic, kept on the back shelf, was used to stem the flow.

The Dispensary

The barber shop doubled only as an Emergency Ward. Most medicine was practiced at home, not in a doctor's office. Druggists were as apt to prescribe as doctors, although not legally, but their "prescriptions" were always over the counter medicines. Peroxide, and later on, iodine and mer- curochrome were a must, even if not effective. It was like Dad said, "At least the foaming of the peroxide and stains of the other two were assuring. They must be doing something." Sloans Liniment, and Dad's own solution, that we kids called "horse liniment," were applied to a long list of aches and pains, with one exception. Neither were early day versions of the modem Preparation H. The man who discovered this fact, also held the world's record for the standing high jump. Lydia Pinkhams, Doan's Little Liver Pills, Ex-Lax, Olive Oil, Herb Tea, Sulpher and Molasses, Pine Tar Cough Syrup, Epsom Salts, ad infinitum. Who needed a doctor for ordinary ills. A visit to his office cost two dollars. Pestilence, that busy horseman of the Apocalypse, stalked the tenements on a daily basis. Measles, mumps, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and chicken pox, to name the more familiar. As Doc Sauer remarked, "No childhood spent in the tenements will escape them all, and many will have several. Your major worry should be not the short term illnesses, but the long lasting, often fatal tuberculosis." Only the doctors called it tuberculosis. In the tene- ments it was consumption, and like cancer, it was whispered. Vaccinations were just coming in. When the doctor's diagnosis was "Contagious," a call went to the General Hospital, and the contagious ambulance wagon from the hospital picked up the patient. And it was, "Don't argue, it's the Law, he has to go. And leave this sign tacked to the outside of the door. It lists the disease and warns everyone to stay out unless on business." This from the ambulance attend-

28 ant, in case you didn't read English. For some of the diseases, the flat was sealed and fumigating candles were burned. After airing, the tenants could again occupy their flat, but the odor stayed. Consumptive patients went to the Tuberculosis Sanitarium and either stayed for years or died of the illness. If you hurt yourself through your own foolishness or by doing something you had been told not to do, and the blood was not running, you tried to conceal it as long as possible. The cure was always as bad, if not worse than the injury, and there was always the possibility of a spanking or tongue- lashing in addition. A blister that I acquired in a place I shouldn't have been, was blood poisoning to my elbow before I complained and was taken to a doctor. A broken wrist, probably out of the sling before it should have been, became too painful to bear. In the doctor's office, the doctor whispered to Dad, "You hold his arm and stand between the boy and me, and hold tight." With a snap, they re-broke the wrist and re-set it properly. As they say, that smarted! Other ailments such as boils, carbuncles, ear aches, etc., that we most likely got in the un-chlorinated park swimming pools, got more sympathy, but just as painful treatment. Various ointments were applied to draw the boils to a head, at which point they were "squeezed" out. One night was spent on a "pallet," made up on the kitchen table, with Mom and Dad alternately at the tableside, through the night, applying hot olive oil and hot compresses to a king-sized earache. My three brothers and my sister, all made one or more trips to the Con- tagious Ward at General Hospital. Only I escaped. I had mumps, for which hospitalization was not needed. Mom was so often a visitor to General Hos- pital that she knew the routine for visitors to the Contagious Ward, better than some of the nurses. When a brother came up with Erysipelas (St. Anthony's Fire), Doc Sauer said, "Keep him in a darkened room for three weeks or it will effect his eyes. And you better give him this medicine through a straw, as it rots the teeth." With seven people in three rooms, how do you keep one of them in a dark- ened room? And you don't get medicine down a kid with a straw. You hold his nose until he gasps for air, and then you belt it down. Colds were positively ignored unless the cough began to sound like the croup. And it was almost like the old joke of giving an ounce of castor-oil for a cough—you'd be afraid to! We were afraid to cough too loud because the horrible home-remedies you got would have gagged a skunk. Changing from long underwear to union suits in spring, usually touched off a good "barker," but getting rid of the itchy things was worth it. My sister was especially thankful to get out of the "longies," "Because," she complained, "They make lumps at my ankles under my stockings." Imagine! . . What a reason. Along with spring came that first sunburn and the "peeling," with every kid around the swimming pool trying to peel off the biggest piece of skin from his arm or neck.

29 Shooting marbles and roller skating were two popular pastimes of Over-the-Rhine youngsters.

Medicine was practiced at home and druggists acted as doctors and prescribed over the counter medicines: Lydia Pinkhams, Doan's Little Liver Pills, Ex-Lax, olive oil, herbal tea, as well as per- oxide, iodine, and mercurochrome. Pity the Cook

While we kids hawked food at the market stands, weighed it in the grocery store, and sold papers, Mom went out and bought, and sometimes haggled for, all this bulk food> and lugged it home. And there were no wrappers to tell her how to prepare it, or at what temperature to set the oven. Tempera- ture of the oven was set by the amount of gas you let into the burner, or the wood you threw in. When my sister was old enough to help, Mom told her, "Cooking is by guess and by golly. Measures are by pinch, by handfuls or to taste. You're either born to it, or you learn by doing and listening close." Diet was something for the sick. Breakfasts were of a stick-to-your-guts nature. Ham, bacon and eggs were something you heard were eaten on the farm, and cereals had not yet made Kellogg and Post millionaires. Breakfast was a stack of pancakes, or fried mush. If you were lucky, fried Goeta, sometimes known as Hobba-grits or Philadelphia Scrapple. The spelling of those items is phonetic, as I never saw them written out. The dish was made from pork, and either cornmeal or oatmeal. And, hold your stomach now, the pork was usually a hog's head, placed in a large pot and boiled. Directions to the novice were, "When completely cooked and cool, scrape the meat off of the bones. Bring the meat and broth to a boil and stir in the cornmeal or oatmeal—slowly." The cornmeal posed no prob- lem, but the oatmeal was another story. The thickening oatmeal trapped air which worked to the surface with a "plop," and sprayed the stirrer with burning hot oatmeal. To stir this, you wrapped your hand and arm in a heavy towel and stirred at arm's length, with head turned and eyes a-squint. When finished it was poured into bowls and placed in the ice-box, where it jelled. To cook it, you sliced it, half-inch thick, and fried it a golden brown. It could be eaten just that way or with Karo molasses or jelly. As they said, "On this kind of Breakfast, you could swing a pick all day." Catsup didn't come from the store in a bottle. Catsup was the end product of that bushel or two of tomatoes, bought at the peak of the season and at the end of a market day, at fifty-cents per bushel. And we kids helped make it. With the tomatoes cored and cooked, we pressed them through a large collander with the bottom of a cup (at our house, an old shaving mug). With skins and seeds discarded, the pulp was cooked together with a sewed- up bag of spices. Sewed-up, so that only the flavor appeared in the finished catsup. Bottles were saved from year to year and had to be scalded. Corks and sealing wax had to be bought anew each year. Lots of red sealing wax was used, as any air leaking into the catsup would cause it to spoil. If we got tired and began to fret, Mom would say, "You're lucky, my family put up applebutter, peach preserves, jellies and jams, pickles and relishes, and many more things. Stop complaining, you're the ones that eat it." Thanksgiving, when the pumpkins appeared on market, several batches of "punkin pie" were baked. A large pumpkin was halved and cleaned, and one half put in the ice-box. The half to be cooked was cut into large slices and peeled, a slippery, tricky task, reserved for grown-ups. Cooked and seasoned, it was baked into half a dozen pies, and consumed for breakfast, dinner, and supper. Not to mention in-between snacks. A week later, and before it dried out, the second half was baked into pies. You guessed it, no "punkin pie" was consumed, or wanted, before the next year. Chicken was CHICKEN! Not a half-grown specimen with a thin layer of meat between the skin and bones. The cook with a farm or old country background, bought her chicken "on the hoof." I can still hear Mom at the store, "That's a Springer. I want a couple of Friers, with some meat on them. Let me feel those legs and breasts." And the chickens would flap their wings and squawk as she reached into the cage and probed for solid meat under the feathers. The live chickens were taken home, butchered, dressed, and dis- jointed. Let me ask you a question or two. "Have you ever held a chicken's feet and wings while its head was being removed?" or "Plucked the feathers and the pin-feathers, after it was scalded?" or "Smelled the burning pin- feathers, if they were singed off?" How I ever managed to eat the chicken, 111 never know! The neck, wings, gizzard, heart and liver were for soup. The rest was "skillet fried." Milk was added and the chicken allowed to simmer. Voila! A dish fit for a king! Hard to realize that this tasty treat was the fore-runner of the present tough, batter-covered, deep-fried monstrosity, masquerading on thousands of menus as fried chicken. The soup was most often noodle. Not noodles, shaken from a bag, but made from scratch. Flour and eggs were kneaded to the right consistency; then, floured, rolled with a rolling pin, placed on a sheet of newspaper, and hung over the back of a chair to dry. When just dry enough, they were rolled into a roll, sliced into strings and dumped into the waiting chicken broth. M-m-m-m, Delicious! Mom, like most other mothers of large families in the Over-the-Rhine, cooked many German dishes before the war. But shortages during the war and the many new products on the market after the war brought about changes. New recipes appeared in the newspapers and elsewhere and Mom was quick to try them. Little by little, the German dishes began to disappear. Wild rabbit was still legal and available at market and in season, we fre- quently had "hausenpfeffer" (a rabbit dish), until a brother developed a swollen gland that was finally diagnosed as Tularemia. And thus another German delicacy bit the dust. The tools the cook had to prepare these basic foods into tasty meals? Well, usually a gas stove, big and black, and in need of polish every week; an ice-box for summer and window box for winter; and a kitchen cabinet. If you could afford it, and like the ads said, "A Hoover Kitchen Cabinet, that wonder of wonders, and it can be financed for less than a dollar a week." Refrigerators were still in the future, and that ice-box was a problem forever. A sign had to be put in the window to tell the ice-man to deliver ice. The pan into which the ice melted was like an "albatross around the neck" of the poor wretch designated to empty it. If it ran over, perish forbid, it soaked the painted or papered ceiling of the flat below, and there was Hell to pay. Even if you lived on the first floor and the melting ice water fed through the floor in a rubber hose, stuff could happen. The ammonia used in making the ice could clog the rubber hose and flood the ice-box. Give your electric refrigerator a friendly pat, the next time you pass it. If the ice-box was the villain, then the Hoover Kitchen Cabinet was surely the hero. The convenience of this boon brought pride and joy to the heart of the cook. Just imagine, a flour bin with an attached sifter; turn a small crank and sift the flour into your bowl. A built-in bread box with a sliding door. A slide-out bread board. A shelf of spice holders. Storage space above AND below. And a waist-high working space, in the very midst of all of these conveniences. Tools to clean tenement flats was just as primitive as that used for cook- ing. Take wash day, for instance. We had a wooden washer that was water- powered. One hose to the cold water faucet, the other in the sink, and water pressure drove the agitator (ever wonder what happened to our water?). But this didn't get the "whites" clean. Soap came in bars, to be whittled or grated into the tub or the boiler. It was either Fels Naptha or Werk's Tag soap (the metal tags to be saved for premiums). Bleach was something connected with muslin, or what the sun did to clothes. To whiten the seven shirts my Dad wore each week and white sheets and pillow slips, you boiled them. That's right, boiled them, and took them out of the copper boiler with a wooden stick. Or before it was broken, two wooden sticks, fastened to- gether in the center, and used with a scissor motion. If still not white, you put them on the corrugated wash board and rubbed them with your knuckles. Irons were no longer the famous flat irons. Ours were the newer ones, with the separate handle, but still heated on the kitchen stove. Two irons were used, but only one handle. While ironing with one, the other heated on the stove. To test for heat, you wet a finger on your tongue and touched it quickly to the sole of the iron, and if it sizzled, it was ready. Cleaning was once a week, and thoroughly, usually on Saturday. We kids helped, each with his or her own assignment. Kitchen chairs and table, their varnish long gone, were scrubbed. Rugs were swept with a broom, and later on as they came on the market, the different hand-operated sweepers. First a Bissels, and then a Sturtevent, that did everything the later electrics did,

33 but worked by the pushing. Windows were washed, the outsides with one hand, the other hand holding on for dear life to the bottom of the sash, while sitting on the sill, feet inside—body outside. Beds were stripped and changed. And when the dust settled from the sweeping, the furniture was dusted. "Herring bucket Dutch" was a term given to the many women who scrubbed their hall steps with the soap and water in a used smoked or pickled herring bucket, from the grocery. The "dutch," a corruption of the word Deutsch, meaning German. Busy, as keeping house for a family of seven was, Mom still found time for a little gossip, and without leaving the flat. When inside toilets were installed, the high window in there lined up with a hall window next door. By putting the lid down and standing on the toilet bowl, she could rest her elbows on the high window sill and comfortably gossip with the woman next door. This without tuning out anything going on in the flat, or "Quiet, in there! I can't hear." As we kids drifted off to bed at night, Mom was usually sitting at the sewing machine in the kitchen. Until I was out of grade school, I never wore a store-bought shirt or trousers. All were either cut down or made from remnants, bought at bargain prices. To borrow a Navy expression, Mom, like most German-descent mothers, ran a tight ship and she stood for little or no back-talk or acting up in her kids. Step out of line and she said, "I'm gonna hit you," and at the same time she hit you! All of us developed the knack of throwing up an elbow at the word "I'm." But let a neighbor or another kid pick on you, and she was on them like a tiger.

The ice-box was a constant prob- lem, particularly the pan which caught the water as the ice melted It was a real pain for the one who had the job of emptying it. Mothers bargained and haggled with salesclerks over the price of caps, overcoats, shoes, and other clothing which they were unable to make at home.

Shirts and trousers were turned out by Mom on the pedal-type Singer Sewing Machine. Caps, overcoats, sweaters, and shoes for us kids had to be bought, and on a tight budget. These items were not bought downtown, where prices were set. They were "wrangled" from the merchant along Central Ave. and west Fifth and Sixth streets, where terms like "Thief," "Robber," "Goniff," and "Crazy" were common. While Mom haggled and ex- changed questions and comments with the salesmen, we kids crawled under the tables or behind the racks to hide our embarrassment. It was, "Five dollars! You think I'm made of money? You're a bunch of robbers. Three and a half is all I'll pay!" And then the salesman or the owner, "You think I'm in business for fun? You might as well steal it! Four and a half." And Mom again, "Four, if it fits well. Come on out here and try this on again." Four it was, and that was probably the expected price from the start. We kids had to be dragged to these sessions unless it was to buy a "Secretary Hawkins Mackintosh" for which we would gladly suffer such an ordeal. Clothes in the Over-the-Rhine, like today, were almost a uniform, but they were not any different than those worn in other sections of Cincinnati. You graduated from cloth diapers to rompers, a one-piece garment that buttoned

35 up the front and covered you from neck to knees. This was worn exclusively until it was time to go to school. (Schools did not require birth certificates and some kids started to kindergarten at age four). As you started to school, you went into knee length pants, gathered above the knee with a piece of elastic sewn in the gathering. The elastic to hold up the black cotton stockings that came up over the knees. A cotton shirt, tucked into the pants at the waist completed the outfit. Underwear consisted of a one-piece union suit, with appropriate "trap door" in the rear. Shoes were leather. And when the soles wore through, Dad had several sized cast-iron lasts on a stand that he used to re-sole them. The new soles were either nailed on or sewn on with a shoe-maker's hand awl and resin- covered heavy cord. The new soles were cut from "leather findings," large pieces of heavy tanned leather that could be purchased at that time. The outer garments were all "Secretary Hawkins" inspired—a heavy wool or reprocessed wool, car-coat length coat with large buttons and a belt that buckled. A wide collar on the coat could be raised to cover most of your face and head. Caps were a fold-up wool cloth that could be pulled down and covered your whole head except for an oval hole in front of your face. This was the uniform for grade school. Entering high school was almost the equivalent of a Bar Mitzvah. At this point you went into LONG PANTS, and maybe even a long pants suit. You also donned a tie and, if you were fortunate enough to have french cuffs on the shirt, cuff links. Cuff links, at ten-cents a pair, and in infinite variety, were available at the five and ten. Shirts were invariably white—a colored shirt was looked upon as effeminate. A few years later a whole revolution hit the high school scene—golf attire. Long pants, the symbol of manhood disappeared and golf knickers, in every imaginable color replaced them. The black stockings of grade school became the loud multi-colored plaid golf stockings for high school. Shoes were two- toned, black and white or brown and white, and in need of whitening daily. Even the shoe laces were multi-colored and with tassels on the ends. But the real rainbow, or riot, of color appeared in the pull-over sweaters and ties, worn with the outfit. The fad lasted for half a dozen years—time enough for many to go all the way through high school, dressed every day as though playing eighteen holes of golf. Not to be outdone by the sartorially dressed boys, the girls wore an outfit that we now associate with cheer leaders—pleated skirts, two- toned shoes, etc. Imagine a high school with 3,000 students, half golfers, and other half cheer leaders, or so it would appear from their attire. A short- lived additional fad appeared as the golf attire was fading out—Cretonne Vests. The colorful vests probably represented a reluctance to give up the peacock syndrome that had so gripped the high schoolers for so long. Sure, We Went to School

Considering the interesting activities in the Over-the-Rhine, it's a wonder that we ever found time to go to school. But, for that matter, things weren't dull at school either. Due to the large number of German immigrants, both English and German were taught at the same time in the public and catholic grade schools. But with World War I, and public feeling running high, the school board suddenly announced, "German will be dropped from the cur- riculum." The Catholic Schools also stopped teaching German. Several years later, it was again taught, on option, in the high schools. My German teacher in the lower grades was a man from Prussia, named Schratter. I should say, Herr Schratter, inasmuch as he insisted on the use of the German Herr, the word for Mister. As yet unaware of this fact, we kids knew him as "Mr. Herr Schratter," a funny sounding name to us. Out of Herr Schratter's right hand grew a pointer, such as used by teachers at the blackboard. At least we thought it grew there, as it was never missing. Tapping on the blackboard, the desk, on a few inattentive heads, and many fingers, it was ever present. Even in the school yard at recess and noon, where Herr Schratter was the monitor. It was, "Stoppen, Was ist los?", and here the pointer was more apt to catch a back, or several degrees lower, to break up a fight or other fracture of the rules. Herr Schratter, like the rest of the German teachers, fell victim to the war prejudice, and we kids lost a chance to become bi-lingual. German was gone, but patroitism more than took its place. Every Fourth of July, Labor, and Decoration Day we paraded. Every kid in a white shirt or waist and dark pants or skirt. School competed against school, Sixth District against Rashig against Peaslee, to produce the biggest turnout. Everyone had a small flag, and some two flags to wave wildly, along with jumping up and down, if by good fortune the parade passed their own house. In music class we sang the patriotic songs of the day. Over There, Pack up your Troubles, There's a Long Long Trail a-Winding, being the odds-on favorites. Everybody knew the words and music, and the school buildings reverberated. Other days we wrapped bandages or picked seed out of "oak- um." On arriving home, Mom would ask, "What's that smell? What have you been in to? Oakum? Go wash your hands with the Werk's Tag Soap." But war or no war, once during each school year, every school kid went to the zoo. With two sandwiches, some cookies, and an apple, all in a brown bag, and ten-cents for carfare, we reported to school. The ten-cents went to the teacher, and with bag in hand, we lined up two or three abreast, and marched to the street, where several "Summer" street cars were waiting for us. Our parents, teachers, and the Street Car Company officials must have had a lot of faith in the Lord to load forty or fifty active kids on an open-sided, fresh-air street car.

37 A highlight of the school year for the students was the annual trip to the zoo. On arrival at the zoo, noses were counted, a leaving time was drummed into our heads, "At three o'clock. One, two three, (with fingers held up) Three o'clock. Don't forget. Not a minute later!", and we scattered like feath- ers in a windstorm. Until three o'clock, every man at the zoo, who wore a watch in his vest, with the usual chain across to the other pocket, was in- cessantly bombarded with "Hey, Mister, what time is it." And, needless to say, the return trips to the school seldom left on schedule. Most of our teachers greyed early. Once, at school, a teacher, annoyed too often, banished three of us. We were sent to the seats in back of the class room and took no part in the class work. As punishment, and to regain her good graces, we had to memorize all fifty-six prepositions in the English language, and in alphabetical order. "Aboard, about, above, according to, across, before, behind, below, beneath, between, betwixt, ." Strange how long something memorized at that age can stick with you. Another memorizing task doled out to us, for what reason I don't remember, was Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. "Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged ." Useless? Well, hardly. Years later, as a postal clerk, I was able to memorize eight-hundred separations in eight days, working all the while, and pass the scheme examination with a mark of ninety-nine percent. Try that with a mind trained under our present failproof promoting of functionally illiterate students, all the way through college. Some of the pupils were large for their age or grade. And some of the teachers small for the paddling (then legal) of these pupils' seats. One very small and elderly teacher neatly solved this problem. She'd order the culprit, "Stick your head in the umbrella stand," this fixed the target and freed both of her hands for the task. And don't tell your parents that you were paddled, as that got you a second paddling by a better paddler. The razor straps hang- ing on those barber chairs "strapped" more than just razors. Dad's barber shop stayed open until 8:00 p.m. and he was usually eating his supper at one end of the kitchen table, as we did our school night work at the other end. Help, you got from him, but not answers. He was tougher than our teachers at prodding you to reason out the answers. And if you had no night work, he wanted to know why! His move to Cincinnati, and his willingness to spend years in a tenement was to enable us to get better schooling. His had been limited to eight grades and he would see to it that we got more, no matter what the inconvenience to him. After his supper and our night work, we frequently played cards, and the more difficult the game, the better. He figured, "You have to think to win, and it also teaches the player to be competitive." At the age of ten, we knew Five Hundred, Contract and Auction Bridge, Pinochle, Sixty-Six, Poker and Seven-card, and Gin Rummy.

39 When Canasta became popular, we learned to play it in a week's time. The Book of Hoyle was as well thumbed as our dictionary. We attended public school, but half of the kids we played with went to Catholic schools. The Catholic Church was very visible in the Over-the-Rhine. A church every few blocks and many of them had schools, one a seminary. St. John's put on the Passion Play, like Oberammergau, Germany, and had paying patrons from all over the city. Weather permitting, enough Easter outfits appeared to almost rate a parade. Bits of palm galore on Palm Sun- day and ashes on many brows on Ash Wednesday. Meatless Fridays were the rule. An annual Holy Name Parade was held, and kids in Confirmation dresses and suits were taken to the photographer to commemorate the event. Church bells were so common that they not even noticed. Nuns in their habits, and priest and brothers in their robes, were met on every street. Even the Pope would have felt at home in the Over-the-Rhine.

On to College—Barber, That Is

"Nobody ever got rich in the barber business, but few barbers ever starved either," said Dad. So he decided to send a couple of us boys to barber college to give us a trade to fall back on, if necessary. He did not encourage us to become only barbers, as he wanted us to do better than he had. So, at age fifteen, and during school vacation, he enrolled my brother at Old Reliable Barber College, at Third and Sycamore streets. Age was no barrier, as long as you came up with fifty dollars, and you were tall enough to reach the customers. Free customers at the college were the down and out, the River Rats (bums who traveled the river), and the job-less. Paying customers (prices were less than half of regular barber prices) were the thrifty and the courageous. It took courage to let a fifteen-year-old,wit h a straight razor that he had just recently learned to sharpen, scrap away at your whiskers or hack away at your hair with a hand clippers, a tricky tool even in the hands of an expert. But they never lacked for customers on which to learn the trade. In the barber business an old man with a lined face and a couple of days' growth of beard was known as a "squirrel," and to shave a real squirrel would be just as easy. Squirrels abounded among the college's customers, and almost as much blood was shed as in the operating rooms at General Hos- pital. The left side of a customer's face is shaved by a right-handed barber using a back hand stroke of the razor. The new student, with shaking hand, trying to loosen his death grip on this awkward position of the razor; adjust its angle to the face and slide it, also in the reverse direction, was apt to concentrate so hard that the point or heel of the blade ran into some ob- struction, such as a nose, an ear, or an adam's apple. Fortunately, most of these "sacrificial goats" were so fortified with "the grape," that the yelling

40 and screaming was held down to a roar. In almost every class, some unfortunate student turned up with two left hands, and with much blood-letting, soon acquired the nickname of Butch. To break up the tension, there was always lots of horseplay among the stu- dents, and naturally, Butch was the butt of many tricks. It was slightly upsetting to a customer who had plopped himself down in a vacant chair, to have the student at the next chair yell out, "Hey Butch, you got a cus- tomer." This was even known to propel a "hep" regular customer out of the chair like a high-velocity projectile. Hair style of the day was a "feather edge" and sideburns to the mid-ear, and this called for a great deal of scissoring. At the college, almost as many ears were scissored as were not scissored. And a snipped ear-lobe bleeds like a stuck hog! The fellow who had the concession for the little boxes of yellow caustic must have made a million. A student also had to learn how to give a face massage, shampoo and singe, and it was not too difficult to sell these services to a customer under the influence of "the grape." The shampoo with the soap running down the customer's collar, or into his eyes, and the massage with his face rubbed crimson red and almost scalded by the hot towels was somewhat akin to a session on the medieval rack. But the singe was a positive threat to the well- being of the student, customer, college, and the building. A burning taper to seal the ends of the freshly cut hair is one thing, but on a customer breathing out ninety-proof alcohol, it's a horse of another color. Could have blown up the whole building. A popular hair dressing for the slick look of the day was a solution mixed by the barber, consisting of gum of tragacanth and some perfume and color- ing. When the hair dried, it became as stiff as a board and you could have walked through a hurricane and not a single hair would have moved out of place. This solution was applied liberally to the hair of the kids barbered at the college. It effectively hid the "stair steps" that were supposed to be feather edge and also glued down the too closely cropped crown that tended to stand up like a cock's comb. The one and only face lotion was witch hazel, and it, like the customer's breath, had a bit of alcohol in it. Witch hazel on a well shaved face lends a feeling of exhilaration. On a face raked by Butch, it helped to raise the cus- tomer up and out of the chair. The college was a great place to learn how to trim the hair out of ears and noses and to shape the eyebrows. Some of the customers came in looking like grizzly bears. Of course, some of them went out looking like grizzly bears that had tangled with a buzz saw. And then there was the student who worked part time at General Hospital shaving hernia, appendicitis and rectal patients for surgery. After prepping his first appendicitis patient, the sur- geon took one look and roared, "Good God, there's nothing left for ME to do!" A "close" shave, in barber terminology was one in which the customer was actually shaved twice, the second time with water instead of lather, and against the grain of the beard. This was done to make the shave "last" longer. Some brave souls among the college's customers had the temerity to ask for close shaves, not realizing that they already had a "close shave" by just get- ting in the chair! Then too, there were those who came in and asked for the "Head Barber." With that, the entire student body, in unison, would chorus out, "We are all head barbers. That's where the hair grows." Among our customers were also the "loose skin" individuals. No matter how much skin you pulled up above the collar to shave, there always seemed to be more. One conscientious student, working on such a loose skinned customer, came to an indentation and said, "You must have been in the war, that's a nasty looking scar." And the customer answered, "No, you had better stop there, that's my belly button." And of course, there was always the balding customer who wanted "something to keep his hair in." We recom- mended an empty cigar box. As you can plainly see, there was no end of humor in the barbering business.

Customers at the barber college consisted mainly of the down and out, the river rats, and the jobless although there were a few thrifty souls who were paying customers. At the finish of a haircut, the regular barber held a small mirror so that the customer could see the back of his head in the rear mirror. He then turned the chair a half turn to show the customer a front view of the haircut. And when the customer nodded approval, the cloth was removed, flipped smartly, folded neatly, and laid across the arm of the chair. He then helped the customer into his coat and picked up the whisk broom and dusted the customer's coat lapels and back. At the college most of these niceties were dispensed with. The sooner the victim was out of sight, the less embarrass- ment to all concerned. But—if the job turned out well and to your satisfaction, the whole routine was gone through, and with a flourish. And if this produced a tip, sometimes "flipped" through the air by the customer to the student, said student was in seventh heaven. And the admiration was visible on the faces of the other students. My brother, who preceded me, and myself when I reached fifteen, had a slight advantage. With Dad to coach us, and the rest of the family to practice on with his guidance, we quickly became adept. And as apprentices in his shop, we qualified at the back-up trade he desired for us.

World War I

World War I was not only hard on the schools, but led to other problems in the Over-the-Rhine district. Many cherished organizations became sus- pect. Even the Turnverein was looked upon with suspicion. If German was spoken in the home, or in the family rooms behind the saloon, it was not spoken outside. German expressions like "Was ist los?", "Nicht sprecken sie Deutsch?", "Prost," "Gut Morgan" or "Gut Nicht," and to us kids, "Dum- mer Kopf" or "Weise Kopf" fell into disuse. And with less German spoken, there was less broken English used. There was not so much, "Make the door shut," or "Run up the window shade," or the Pennsylvania type, "Take off your pants, the lint." Dad, who spoke some German from talking with his customers, spoke it no more. So many of his customers were drafted that he had to close his shop and work in a war plant. His age and number of children kept him out of the draft. One barber chair was set up in our three-room flat and he con- tinued to cut our hair and that of a few of our relatives. Mostly, the chair served as a merry-go-round for us younger kids. Closing his own shop was heartbreaking to Dad. This pushed his eventual escape from the tenements further into the future. Coal, sugar, oil, and many other items became scarce and costly. Once we kids carried two bushels of coal from a rail yard a mile and a half distant. Beets, for sugar, were started out west. A "recruiter" used Dad's shop, before he closed it to enlist help for the beet fields. To each customer it was, "If the

43 Army isn't drafting you, how would you like to go out West and work with sugar beets?" The pay was good and a few signed up. A corporation was started to convert the shale in Colorado to oil, and many shares of stock at one dollar per were sold in Cincinnati. The war hysteria took some strange turns. Bremen Street became Repub- lic Street. Many German family names were Americanized by dropping end- ings or by using the American translation of the German meaning. With the harsh German language falling into disuse, the softer English words changed the conversational tone. For instance-Gott in Himmel became God in Heaven and brot became Bread. An enterprising firm came around to all the businesses and sold them each a large flag on a pole. They then drilled holes in the sidewalk in front of the businesses and put a capped sleeve in the holes. Flags flew every day, not just on the holidays. Every coat lapel bore a small flag on a pin that fastened into the button hole there, that was part of every suit of the day. These same button holes carried lodge emblems or political buttons, if not a flag. Tie pins, rings, belt buckles, and other jewelry also sported flags. The national anthem was played at the start of almost every event, whether a sport, a meeting or even in the theaters. The country might be at war with Germany, but the Germans in the Over- the-Rhine-U.S.A. were as patriotic, if not more so, than the rest of the city. For there is something in the German make-up that responds to martial

The corner of Bremen and Liberty streets was renamed Republic and Liberty streets. music and inarching in a flag-waving parade. They were as fiercelypartisa n to their adopted country as they had ever been to the "Vaterland." Many of these people had left Germany to live in "Free" America, and they were perfectly willing to fight for that freedom. The flu of WWI hit five of the seven members of our family, all at the same time! An Uncle died of the flu and for a short while his wife and their year-old baby moved in with us. If nine people living in a three-room flat seems crowded, we never noticed it. Grandpa King (family name in Ger- many had been Koenig) used to come to visit and stay for a week. Grandpa raised many an eyebrow in the Over-the-Rhine, inasmuch as he was a dead ringer for Kaiser Bill. He wore his white beard in a point and carried a cane, a result of a short hitch in the Army. There were many reasons to rejoice on November 11, 1918, but so many of Dad's customers did not return that he could not re-open his own shop, and he went to work as a journeyman in another shop, and thus another road-block was erected against his escape from the tenements. Most visible effect of the War in the Over-the-Rhine was the coming of autos and trucks and the disappearance of the horses and wagons. The first trucks, for beer and drayage, were slow and we kids on skates, hung onto the tail gates. This was only practical on the black top streets and you had better know when a granite-block or cobble-stone street was coming up. This, of course, was not done if the truck was going to pass your house. Among the earliest autos were the Electrics, steered with a "tiller bar" and always driven by wealthy older women, making "charity" visits in the area. These Electrics looked the same, front and back, moved about ten miles per hour and were eerily silent—just a quiet hum. The first auto we ever rode in was a 1913 T-Model Ford, owned by an uncle. This was the model with the brass topped radiator, and like all T- Models, had three "bands"—brake, clutch, and reverse, which you changed almost as often as you changed underwear. He drove it mostly between home and his camp on the Little Miami River, and the rest of the time tinkered with it. Like other early drivers, he also rode the street ca'r tracks. Dad said, "He must be a frustrated street car motorman." It was the faster auto and truck traffic that drove us kids off of the streets and onto the sidewalks. The jealous wagon drivers claimed that, "A team of horses will rear-up on their hind feet as though held there by the reins of the driver, to keep from trampling a victim in their path. An auto is not so particular." Doc Sauer made a couple of house calls in his early car and this created quite a stir. A visit to a tenement dweller by someone in an auto, was excitement. Everybody watched, especially the kids, many walking around the auto, eyes wide with admiration. We kids in the family, hanging out the front window, and thoroughly enjoying being the center of all this goings on.

45 Street and Family Businesses

Other small businessmen were not so affected by the war as Dad, particu- larly those who conducted their business on the streets and in the alleys. On non-market days, the hucksters, with no market stand to tend, traveled the alleys with horse and wagon and hawked whatever fruit or vegetable was in season. To attract attention, they would beat on an old metal pot hanging on the wagon, and sing out their produce by name. "Get your fresh green corn," "Red ripe watermelons," "Home-grown tomatoes," etc. House- wives came down to look, haggle, maybe buy, maybe call the huckster a robber. If she bought, she had either brought a basket with her, or gathered the corners of her apron and the produce was dumped therein. Another, but busier user of the alleys was the ice-man, with his leather apron and shoulder pad. Scoring the block of ice with his heavy tongs and a deft jab or two with the ice pick, and a chunk of ice was cut to size. Size was indicated by the ice-wanted sign in the window of the flat. A quick flip and the chunk was on his shoulder, steadied and balanced there with only one hand on the tongs. While he delivered, we kids grabbed the loose chips and sucked on them. In the winter, this same merchant, same wagon, same horse, sold coal. A hopper hung by chain from a scale, weighed the coal into bushels. To deliver, it was dumped from the hopper into a burlap bag and carried, like the ice, on his shoulder. In the flat, it was dumped from the bag into the coal-bin next to the stove that furnished the heat for the tenement flats. He sang out his product and its price, "Coal, Co-o-al, Get your coal here. Fifteen cents a bushel." Anthracite sold for more than bituminous, but was worth the difference, it burned longer and was cleaner. Beside the coal bin in the flat, was a hatchet to break the lumps of coal. But a few were left unbroken for use to bank the fire overnight.

3

An ice-man delivered the size block requested on the ice-wanted sign which customers placed in the windows of their fiats. Beer delivery was through the cellar doors facing the street. The wagon driver rolled the barrels off the wagon to the cellar door and then slid them down a wooden chute.

One delivery man who did not use the alleys, was the beer wagon. Too big to get in the alley to start with, and delivery was through the cellar doors facing the street. Delivering the barrels of beer was as stylized as a dance routine. The driver's, "Whoa," "Hack," and "Git ap" to get the wagon at just the right spot. The reins and the rope pad thrown to the sidewalk, the reins tied to a pole or light standard, the pad positioned on the walk. The driver in his long leather apron, covering a stomach almost as big as one of the barrels to be unloaded, then moved several barrels from the racks to the edge of the wagon. The drivers looked big enough to lift a full barrel back up onto the wagon, but they didn't even lift them down. With a jerk, the barrel was yanked from the wagon and allowed to fall on the rope pad. We kids were always fascinated by this, and hoped to see one bust some day, just for excitement. When all were unloaded, they were rolled to the cellar door. Inside the door were both steps and a wooden slide for the barrels to slide down. The empties were pulled up the slide with a hook on a rope. The driver always went into the saloon for that free glass of beer. If the beer delivery time was also feeding time for the horses, nose bags and a burlap bag of oats was hauled from under the driver's seat. The nose bags were filled and hung on the horses' heads, with their noses in the bags. This was followed by a bucket of water on the ground, to wash down the oats. I once asked my Dad why they all had such big bellies. He said, "Every one of them had swallowed one of the barrels that they delivered." He forgot to add—"a glass at a time." Other horses and wagons that entered the Over-the-Rhine were the "Black Maria," the medicine men, and the gospel wagons. They didn't come often, and therefore were more interesting when they did appear. The "Black Maria" with a police officer or two hanging on the back step, was seen the least, but caused the most excitement and talk. The medicine men and gos- pel wagons always set up at night, on the then empty front walk of the market house. Both used singing groups and a musical instrument or two, such as a bugle, to attract a crowd. Every medicine pitchman claimed "This Snake Oil will cure every ailment known to man." And every spreader of the gospel preached, "Come to the Lord and he will cure all your ills." Neither occurred! We kids were only the fringe of the crowd around the wagons as we had neither snake-oil money, nor souls to be saved. Both, the medical and the gospel wagons, had a back platform on which a miniature performance was given. The "Doctor" usually had an Indian in full regalia who put on a "rain" or "fertility" dance with appropriate stomp- ing and grunting. Under the warpaint was a would be actor from Brooklyn, who hadn't been able to make it in vaudeville. If not an Indian, then a banjo player who beat out tunes like Dixie, My Old Kentucky Home, and Oh, Su- sannah. At the end of the performance a "shill" would raise his hand out in the audience and be called up to the platform to praise the snake-oil or salve that he had bought last trip and it had cured him of a terrible ailment. The product was then sold to the audience who were now clawing one another to get to the pitchman before it was all gone. The preacher on the gospel platform had a convert or two to attest to their salvation and list the joys attendant to their conversion. And then a couple of young women converts in appropriate dress, and accompanied by a wind instrument or two and a tambourine, sang hymns. Abide with Me, Rock of Ages, He Walks with Me, The Old Rugged Cross, and a dozen more. Half way through the performance, the audience were singing along, word for word, and decible for decible, with a hallelujah and a raising of the arms between each hymn. And then, as if by miracle, a convert, then two, and finally a half dozen rose out of the audience and were blessed by the preacher. At about this point, the original young women converts passed through the audience with their tambourines and the contributions flowed like manna from heaven. Horses and wagons, carts, etc., also provided ready-to-eat food on the street. The "Cream Waffle" man also bugled his presence. The "Soft Pretzel" man with his basket strapped around his neck, and the "Hot Tamale" man

48 with his push-cart used bells to gain attention. Other bell-ringers were the itinerant umbrella repair man and the knife-sharpeners. Life in the tene- ments was not only not dull, it was also, not quiet. Missing among street merchants, was the "Good Humor" man. Ice Cream was sold only in "Ice Cream Parlors" and some candy stores. It did not keep in ice-boxes, so it was rushed home and eaten immediately. The stores used chipped ice mixed with rough salt in their metal-lined wooden freezers. Small spatula-like metal scoops were used to dig it out of the metal cans and it was sold in pasteboard buckets, with a string handle. You got a small flat wooden spoon if you were going to eat it there or on the street. Unlike the street merchants, the regular stores in the area were family affairs. Bakers just baked, either all night or very early in the morning. Their wives and daughters waited on the customers. Often their sons were "sent back to Germany, to thoroughly learn how to bake those struedels, Vienna brot, wasser weeks, zweiback, and slabs of peach, apricot, cherry and butter coffee cakes, with fluffy white icing on top, that melt in your mouth." Just thinking about a home-baked ham or imported swiss cheese sandwich on Schneider's stone-hearth rye bread, could start the juices running. On every other comer was a saloon, and many had a family room in the back, inasmuch as no woman would go into the saloon proper. The owner and his sons tended bar and the women prepared the free lunch that sat on the bar, and the food if a "Businessmen's Lunch" was served. On Saturday, they made turtle soup, actually mock turtle soup, a sweet-sour concoction using shredded beef in lieu of turtle. All the neighbors sent one of their kids, with a tin or enamel bucket, to the back door of the saloon for ten-cents worth. Vinegar was a frequent ingredient in German cooking such as sauer bratten and wilted lettuce, with bacon bits and grease. Beer was a nickel a glass or a dime a bottle; whiskey, fifteen-cents a shot. The only mixed drink was a "boiler maker" consisting of one shot of whiskey and one glass of beer. The owners lived upstairs over the saloon, owned the building, and in due course, several other buildings. The dry goods store sold cloth and remnants, patterns and notions. Oc- casionally a women's dress maker was the owner or the owner's wife, or there was a connection with a dress maker. A few sold ready-made women's hats and clothes. Regular grocery stores, like the chains, sold mostly in bulk. Cider and white vinegar and coal-oil came in fifty-gallon barrels. You brought your own containers, usually a glass gallon jug for vinegar and your can with its cap and spout for coal-oil. Whole milk was not homogenized, had no Vitamin A or D, and came in half-pint, pint, and quart glass bottles with the four- percent butter-fat floating on top. You shook the bottle to "homogenize" it or poured off the cream and left the skim milk, and used them separately.

49 Vendors such as the waffle man and lemonade man provided ready to eat food on the street and others such as the umbrella repairman, knife sharp- ener, and key maker visited the neighborhood regularly. More milk was bought condensed and in cans, than fresh. Two holes were punched in the top, and the can became the dispenser. (We bought Wilson's, cut off the labels and sent them in for premiums.) Store counters were wood, and at one end, had a roll of wrapping paper on a dispenser. Another dis- penser held a ball of twine up near the ceiling, with the string dangling down over the counter. Customers known to the owner, often "ran a book," that is, bought on credit. A bell on the door that jangled when the door was opened, brought out the grocer or some member of his family, all of whom lived in the rooms behind the store. One exception to the family businesses were the butcher shops. A few women butchers worked in the market house, but none in the butcher shops such as Glutz's. Meats were kept in a walk in freezer with several waist-high doors on its side. Sausages that could stand being off of ice, were hung on hooks behind the butchers. Other meats were brought out of the freezer and cut to order. If your order was big enough and you had a kid with you, the kid got a free weiner wurst to eat on the way home. Hamburger was available, but did not constitute half of the customer's menu for the week. Typical purchase was half a pork loin, either the loin or the rib end; a pound of boiled ham, not pressed or packaged, but sliced off of the ham. After most of the ham was sliced off, the ham bone was sold to be cooked with beans, cabbage, or a dozen other one-dish meals. A half of a baked ham, and not the butt end, would be bought with the request to slice off a few slices "for Sunday breakfast," and the rest was baked for sup- per. Sausage was the butcher's own version, made up in his spare time, and sold loose. Sausage from the packing houses was not "skin-less" but put up in skins made from the intestines of the butchered animals, called casings. Beef was bought in sizeable cuts to be marinated in vinegar for various Ger- man dishes. The packing houses put up many sausages, the recipes for which, had been brought over from Germany—blut wurst (blood sausage), head cheese (not a cheese at all, but the Americanization of a German word), chicken liver sausage (which contained no chicken livers, and today is known as braunschweiger), and the list went on and on. Chickens were sold whole or disjointed, not disjointed to disguise the mostly bone, but disjointed so the cook could recognize a leg, a breast, a wish-bone, a back, a neck, etc. No packages of breasts, legs, etc., were avail- able, you took it whole or the parts of one whole chicken. During the war, a butcher shop opened in the Over-the-Rhine that sold horse meat. Beef had become scarce and more expensive. The horse meat was available and cheaper, but was darker and somewhat tougher. Many tried it, but it gave little competition to beef and pork. What didn't help the sale was the joking that went around. Such as, "Don't let anybody holler 'Whoa' while you are eating it. You'll choke to death." The selling stopped at the end of the war. Sawdust covered the floor, and the butcher blocks were wire brushed often. Waxed butcher paper was dispensed copiously. And what fascinated us kids were the knives. Dad's razors were honed and strapped with care, whereas Glutz's butcher knives were sharpened with a flair. You might even say reckless abandon. Knife in one hand, a poker-like hone in the other, the knife down one side of the hone, flashed through the air and then down the other side of the hone, and all at lightning speed. We thought that they were practicing for the dueling scenes we saw at the show. Banks were for businesses. The people who had money to save, put it in the "building." The building being short for building and loan, later changed to savings and loan. And the savings were always used to buy a brick house out in the suburbs. The buildings were only open a couple of evenings a week and only for a couple of hours on those evenings. The directors of these people's banks, were merchants who owned other businesses. The funds were loaned out for buying or building homes. The drug stores (later referred to as pharmacies) sold mostly prescrip- tions, patent medicines, body braces, and a few notions. Some, like the Dow Chain, had soda fountains, and were the favorite spot for teen-agers to take a "date" after the show. Cokes were a nickel, sodas a dime and a banana split a whole quarter. We kids couldn't wait to grow up and afford a whole quarter for a banana split or even maybe another whole quarter for one for a date. That was really living it up. The druggist was a customer at Dad's shop and had his own shaving mug in the rack on the back shelf. A mortar and pestle adorned his shaving mug, as did other appropriate symbols designate other shaving mugs of other busi- nessmen. Competing with the drug stores, was the Greek Acropolis, where the same soda fountain fare was available and in addition, double-decker toasted sand- wiches. A ham and swiss cheese combination selling for thirty-five-cents. We kids were aware of this "high finance," but were not a part of it.

Holidays

Life for residents in the Over-the-Rhine was not all work, there was some enjoyment, but most people worked six days a week and went to church on Sunday. So, a good deal of the celebrating was in the evenings; Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Election night, Halloween, and Fourth of July night. Halloween handouts were home-made doughnuts, cakes, and cookies, or maybe apples or other fruit. Very little candy was passed out, and if it was, it too, was home-made, such as taffy or peanut brittle. The smaller kids wore masks and only a few wore costumes, and they seldom wandered off of their home block to beg for treats. The bigger ones, past the begging age, went to masked parties, the skating rink, or out to do some tricks. These tricksters usually stayed to the alleys and did their "dirty work" quietly. If caught, they were clobbered by whoever caught them. No good to tell your parents, as this brought a second, more severe licking, and your Mom or Dad going over and apologizing for your bad manners. With Halloween out of the way, Election Day was next up, and the strong Democratic and Republican Clubs in Cincinnati made politics a hotly de- bated subject in the Over-the-Rhine. With President Taf t born in Cincinnati, Presidents Grant and Harrison born just a hoot and a holler away, and four more presidents born elsewhere in Ohio, how could it be otherwise. Politics were discussed in the saloons and barber shops as much if not more than, the weather. At election time, political buttons appeared on every coat lapel and politicians spoke from the park bandstands and tramped through Find- lay Market shaking hands and kissing babies. The Tafts were big in national, state, and local politics, producing a future city mayor, and a senator and Republican primary contender against President Ike. On election night, with no radio or T.V., the news came in the extra editions of the newspapers, as the counts went on. It was, "Extra, Election Extra. Election close. Wilson ahead." or "Extra, Ohio native son, Harding, leading." The men on the streets, awaiting the election results, built bonfires from old crates, barrels, and other trash, and placed an election bet or two. Christmas was Christmas Eve, at which time the candles on the tree were lit and the presents were opened. The tree was lit with various colored candles fastened to the tree with a metal clip. Decorations consisted of pop- corn, strung together by needle and thread, cut-out religious pictures, and

Germans in Over-the-Rhine were extremely patriotic and loved the music, marching, and flag waving of the parades. fold-out bells, stars, etc. If you had a victrola, you cranked it up and played a religious record or a Christmas Carol. And maybe you could get Dad to saw out a tune on the fiddle that he played by ear, or sing a chorus or two of Oh Tannenbaum, the German Christmas Tree song. Christmas Day was anti-climax and was for going to Mass, eating, wear- ing the new clothes, and enjoying the presents. Presents for us kids usually consisted of one much-wanted toy, a new item or two of clothing, and lots of candy. Santa Claus had not yet become so big a part of Christmas. The celebration centered around the lighted tree, midnight Mass, and the man- ger scenes (some elaborate) in the Catholic Churches. The religious aspect was still very much evident, the commercial just starting. New Year's Eve was for grown-ups. If we kids begged hard enough at bed time, we would be shaken awake in time to hear the fireworks, the shooting of guns, and ringing of the church bells, and in the morning, not even re- membering having been awakened at midnight. They ate a light snack at midnight, and for sure, a piece of pickled herring, "for good luck in the New Year." Everybody kissed one another, and a new year was under way.

Daytime holidays were for parades and the school children often marched in them. Other holidays meant little to them other than a day off from school. Kids considered the Fourth of July as the biggest holiday of the year and every child had to have some fireworks.

Fourth of July was probably the biggest holiday of the year. Every kid had to have some fireworks: Cannon Crackers, Roman Candles, Son-of-a- guns, Snails, Sparklers, Carbide Cans, Cap Pistols, and above all, noise makers of some description. The "smallfry" started with Lady Fingers, very small fire crackers that could even be pinched shut on the back end and not burn your fingers when lit. When a little older, you got regular fire crackers with enough powder in them to burn fingers if not thrown quickly after they were lit. In your teens, you were allowed cannon crackers, that were never to be even lit, while holding them in your hand. A Carbide Can had a tight lid and a vent hole. You then, you should par- don the expression, spit on a lump of carbide in the can, snapped on the lid and held the vent shut with your finger. Shaking the can caused the wet carbide to form a gas. You quickly placed the can in the gutter, clamped it there with your foot, lit a match and applied it to the vent, from which you had just removed your finger. The loud explosion and the lid sailing a block down the street pleased us kids no end. An older brother once sug- gested, "Let's make a Carbide Can out of a fifty-gallon lard can, instead of the usual one-pound Karo molasses can. It'll probably sound like a cannon." He did, and it did! Another Fourth he proposed, "a man-sized Rattler, not the little six-inch twirling toy we all have." Prior to the Fourth, at wood- working shop at school, he designed and built one two-feet long. It made enough racket to wake the dead. All day sounded like a WWI battle field. All evening and half the night, the Roman Candles, Sparklers, etc., kept the sky lit. Most dogs and cats hid in the closets or under porches for the day. Everyone, except the firemen, hated to see the day end. And most mothers added to their prayers that night, "Thank you, Lord, for brick buildings and tin roofs." Daytime holidays, other than those on which we marched in the parades, meant little to us kids other than a day off from school. Dressed up for Easter kept us from our normal activities and was usually boring. Thanks- giving was just a big meal, little different than the chicken we had most Sundays. A couple of years we mixed in with the kids that were collected in the area by God's Bible School and were hauled to their church and fed a turkey dinner. This was for the poor kids, and we did not think of ourselves as poor. A little pinched for money maybe, but not poor. Redland Field at Western and Findlay streets was a "shrine" to every youngster in Over-the-Rhine. The Reds

Next to holidays, the biggest interest in our young lives was the Reds. The Cincinnati Reds Baseball Team may have belonged to August Herrman, but nobody in the city believed it. They were our Reds. And what happened at the day's game, or in their league standing, was as important, if not more so, then anything else that happened in, or to the city.

Interior of the Redland Club House taken September 16, the day that Cincinnati clinched the flag by outgeneralling the Giants, 4 to 3. The photograph shows the whole-hearted endorsement by the Reds of P-O-A Union Suits for Men Professional baseball originated in the City of Cincinnati and many of its citizens were truly historians of the game. The players' batting averages were as well known as their rise through the minors and the majors. And the heros of the game held the city in the palms of their hands. Redland Field, at Findlay and Western, (about a mile from Findlay Market), and the real reason for the trailers on the Clark Street carline, was a shrine to every kid in the Over-the-Rhine. We lined up at the players' en- trance and held our breath as these giants appeared at the field. The fences around the field were wood and not very high and many baseballs, in practice and during the game, were driven over the fence. A baseball retrieved by a kid and taken to the gate, admitted that kid to the ballgame. But big league baseballs were hard to come by, and many of the kids that retrieved a ball just kept going at full speed away from the field. A baseball trophy from a big league game was more of a prize than seeing one of the games. Opposite the field on Western Avenue were several four-story factory buildings that served as a "free" bleachers to the games. Friends and rela- tives of the owners of these buildings were allowed up on the roofs of these buildings and had almost as good a view of the game as those in the bleach- ers. During crucial games or during the Series, an admission was charged for these roof-top viewing positions. Inasmuch as few kids had the fifty-cents for even a bleacher seat, it be- came a game to sneak into the ball park. Many methods were worked out to get in without paying. Until the fences were made higher (the sluggers ob- jected to this), the pyramid was the most popular method. Four or five kids would rush an unpatrolled section of the fence and build a pyramid. The top kid would go over the fence and run and hide in the crowd. This was repeated with each taking his turn at different spots, or on different days. Another trick was to watch the ticket taker until his attention was diverted. The fastest kid in the crowd then broke into a run, through the gate and headed for the stands. If the ticket taker went after him, the rest of the kids dashed through the gate and ran in the opposite direction. The results of the day's game, whether in Cincinnati or on the road, came in on ticker-tape machines in many saloons around the city. These tapes were watched as avidly as any stock broker watched the market ticker-tape. We kids hung around the swinging doors of the Over-the-Rhine saloons and questioned every departing patron concerning the score. Both afternoon newspapers put out a baseball edition. The Cincinnati Post on a pink front sheet and the Times-Star on a green one. Both papers geared this edition to the transpiring game. As the last out was called, the "composing plate" was completed and thrown in place, and the presses rolled. Within minutes the baseball editions were in the wagons, and later on, motorcycles and trucks, and on their way to the distribution points.

57 Fifteen minutes after a game, the papers were being hawked on street cor- ners miles away. With ordinary games creating such stir, imagine the 1919 World Series! The city practically came to a standstill. Straw hats with ribbons saying "Reds," and red ties saying "Cincinnati" were everywhere. Every kid had at least one Reds button to pin on his shirt. Cincinnati Reds pennants were flown from every vehicle and displayed in every window. When Cincinnati won, the whole town was ecstatic. And imagine the pall and the gloom when it later came to light that the games were "thrown" by a few players on the Chicago team! Baseball was hurt. Chicago was devastated. Cincinnati humiliated. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis became Baseball Commissioner, and for twenty- four years ruled the game with an iron hand. The Reds were later bought by Powell Crosley of radios, refrigerators, automobiles, etc. Redland Field became Crosley Field, and finally the team moved to Riverfront Stadium, where the baseball heroes are still Cincinnati's heroes.

I HOPE THE DESSERT 15 A<5 GOOO A9 THAT PENNANT N\EAL I WAITED SO LONG

The 1919 Reds won the World Series but their victory was diminished somewhat when it was learned that games had been thrown by some of the players on the Chicago team. Travel generally meant a visit to a relative's house by streetcar, but once a train trip to far away Pennsylvania was taken.

Travel

We were not so poor that we never got out of the area, but travel to us kids in the Over-the-Rhine, usually meant going by street car to visit a relative. Most of our "trips" were to an aunt and uncle who lived in Norwood, a suburb of Cincinnati. This was the same uncle with the 1913 Ford. His father was retired from the Baldwin Piano Company. Our uncle told us, "They brought him over from Germany because of his skill as a wood turner. For years he turned and finished the fancy wooden legs and other pieces for the expensive grand pianos made by Baldwin. Coming to America after he was middle-aged, he never learned enough English to converse in it comfortably, and therefore spoke German. His one recreation was playing pinochle, at which he was an expert. Our visits there always wound up with the grown-ups playing pinochle in a very spirited manner. A trump was never just tossed out to take an unexpected trick—it was "thumped" onto the table with the knuckles banging with some force. And if all the remaining tricks were assured by the trumps in your hand, you banged each one successively harder, leaving the cards pile up for a final sweep of all the cards toward you, with a look of triumph on your face. While the pinochle game raged, we kids played in the "stone yard" next door where they carved and engraved tombstones. Or sat behind the wheel of the Ford and imagined ourselves the driver, or even went out front and turned the hand crank, making sure not to engage it. Tiring of these, you could always go up and down Montgomery Pike looking in the windows of the stores. And, of course, a tour through Woolworth's five and ten, with

59 two or three trips around the candy cases, nose pressed against the glass and drooling all the while. Late at night, after the pinochle game broke, we kids were wakened from wherever we had finally worn out, laid down, and gone to sleep. We never remembered the street car ride home, other than again being shaken awake and moping the couple of blocks home and finally to bed. On one memorable occasion, we actually went by TRAIN all the way to Elwood City, Pennsylvania, to visit another uncle. We packed a huge lunch and sat up all night in the coach to Pittsburgh, where we waited several hours for the train to Elwood City. By the time we reached our destination, we were so hungry, dirty with soot, and tired that it took two days to get back to our rambunctious selves. The ride on the train was real excitement. Walk from car to car and stand on the moving plate between the cars—shaking back and forth. Go in the wash-room and look down the hole through the bottom of the "John" and watch the ties in the rail bed race by. Pull out paper cup after paper cup and fill them with water at the fountain and try to carry them back to the seat without spilling them. Walk down the aisle grabbing each handle on the top corner of each seat and weave like a drunk to the swaying of the train. And all the while taking care not to get locked in the "John" by the conductor while the train was stopping for a station. Tired of seeing us racing around, Dad sat us down and tried to amuse us with stories. He told one about the fellow who was a genius with figures. While riding on a train, the genius turned to his fellow passenger and said, "Look at that herd of cows. There's six-hundred and three of them." The other passenger opened his eyes wide with surprise, and asked, "How could you count that many cows from a train moving sixty-miles an hour?" "Easy," answered the genius, "I just counted the cow's teats and divided by four." With that to think on for a while, and tired from all the running, we finally tilted the seat back and put our stocking feet up on the facing seat and tried to go to sleep on this jolting, swaying bed. We went with our uncle to the rolling mill where he worked, to watch them "pull" large diameter hot metal pipe through dies down to one-half and three-quarter-inch gas and water pipe. We were fascinated to see those short, large pipes stretched into what seemed to us, half a mile long smaller pipes. We could have stood there all day, and we never got through describing it to our playmates back home. The return trip to Cincinnati was uneventful, except that we got into Cincinnati very late and then just missed an "Owl" streetcar. With more than an hour to wait for the next Owl, we walked the mile-and-a-half home through the quiet and deserted streets. We passed what appeared to be a drunk down on the sidewalk, and Dad was going to help him up, but Mom said, "Don't do it, it might be a trick." So, we hurried home, tired, happy,

60 and bursting with stories to tell the family members who had not made the trip. One other trip was made by train. Our neighbors upstairs were returning to the family farm in Falmouth, Kentucky, for a week's vacation and offered to take along us two youngest kids—"To give these 'tenement kids' a taste of real life on a farm," they said. The train ride was again lots of fun, but on the farm, we were like a couple of fish out of water. Without our usual haunts and mob of playmates, we were lost. We roamed the farm, stared at the animals, ate the good food, but could hardly wait to get on the train and back home to the streets and alleys of the Over-the-Rhine.

Finis

Not many families in the Over-the-Rhine were poor. Most were in mod- erate circumstances. Something in the German character, either brought over to America by the German immigrants, or burned into it by life in the tenements, was an overpowering desire for a brick house in the suburbs. A frame house, or a stucco or stone house, would not do. It was always "they bought" or "we're buying" a brick house in Price Hill, or Westwood or Cheviot. Many of the residents in the Over-the-Rhine were machinists and worked in the mills and machine tool factories of Cincinnati. After the war there was an exodus of these German workers to those "brick houses." All through the years before and during the war, they had put their savings in the "building," and they now bought or built in the hills surrounding the city. This same desire burned in the families of the businessmen in the area, and gradually they too, business and all, migrated to those hills. Although no one in our family had been born in the Over-the-Rhine, Mom and Dad were of German descent, and they too, by association, dreamed of a brick house up on the hill in the suburbs. With the canal gone and "burgers" leaving, the Over-the-Rhine was no longer either a physical or ethnic community. The flats that emptied into the hills were taken, by strange coincidence, by disadvantaged families that came down from the hills; the hills of Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia. And so, as all good things come to an end, the Over-the-Rhine slowly faded into the past. With the economic situation improved, Dad was again able to open his own shop, and this time in the suburbs. So, on one glorious day to him, after nine long years in the tenements, he was able to tell us kids, "Today, I bought that 'brick house' in Corryville." Although a triumph for Dad and Mom, it was a sad day for us kids when the last piece of furniture was loaded on the moving van (a truck now) and we walked for the last time through that empty flat. Nine years had sped away. A war was fought, and won. A hundred holidays enjoyed. An epidemic

61 survived. And now it was goodbye to those walls that had seen us through all our joys and sorrows. Dad went with the moving van and Mom and we walked slowly to the street car, looking at the houses and sidewalks, whose every brick and crack we kids knew by heart. Mom wrapped in thoughts of a new life style ahead. We kids were too old to cry, too young to express the feeling of loss, that made swallowing difficult. As the street car climbed Vine Street hill and the Over-the-Rhine disappeared behind us, the door closed on a giant-sized piece of our lives.

GEORGE M. HENZEL, a former long time resident of Cincinnati, is a free lance writer presently living in the Madison, Wisconsin area.

The economic situation improved and one day after nine years in Over-the-Rhine father announced, "Today I bought that 'brick house' in Corryville."