The Mail-Journal, Volume 26, Number 20, Milford, Kosciusko County, 1 July 1987 — Page 51

Growing up in Syracuse with many friends

(Continued from page 2) which inspired a popular song of the day, “Poor Pauline.” These movies all seemed to be of a fascinating and wholesome nature, which were enjoyed as entertainment, yet part of the world wasn’t ready yet to accept them as such. Sensing this, even at my young age, I was somewhat troubled by an uneasy feeling of; perhaps being a part of something not quite right, even wondering at times, just what my minister and teachers might be thinking about me. I’m sure I might have more easily guessed if they had been more like some of the types that are shown today. So it was with rather a feeling of relief that after a few years, our theater was sold to another cousin, Phyllis Miles. She in turn sold it, but the building itself, still owned by my father, was burned in the 1925 fire which burned much of that block. At any rate, as a “fringe benefit” of theater exposure, I had enjoyed singing “Poor Pauline” when our neighborhood kids would “play show” in the haymow of our barn which stood on the back of our lot, beyond the garden and chicken park, like most all the rest of the neighbors had at the time. Grandma Ellen’s lot next door even had an extra building —a “smoke house,” as well as the barn where Grandpa Ed painted the buggies. These were later torn down after she sold the back half of her lot to Wade and Jessie to build their bungalow. Continuing Uptown Continuing uptown locations, just west of the theater was Brainard’s Variety Store and at the end of the block was the Holtan Hotel. Across the alley was Dr. Bowser’s fine brick house and office below. At that time, there was also Dr. B. F. Hoy and Dr. Ford as town doctors. I believe the dentist was one Dr. Hontz, soon followed by Dr. Otto Stoelting, who first rented a room above our theater and paid a small portion of his rent by Straightening my teeth. We xftadn’t yet heard of orthodontists. Directly across Main Street from the Bowser house was the brick building now housing the license bureau which was the post office. Upstairs was Blanche Wingard’s Hat Shop with all her pretty plumes and flowers. When the post office was moved, there were restaurants in this building for many years. Going east across the alley on this south side of Main Street was the hardware of E. E. Strieby, another relative. His name, along with Uncle Will’s, is on the corner stone of the uptown school which was torn down, both having been school board members. These names keep company with the superintendent of the school, Charles Bachman, who was the son of Aunt Jane Miles Bachman. In this Strieby Hardware was one Sam Akers, a jolly portly built clerk who always had some clever remarks to cheer one up for the rest of the day. Going east was the Hoch Drugstore. Then, I think, the L. A. Seider Grocery was next. This is where a bag of candy was given When charged grocery bills were paid. It made me wish that my parents would stop paying cash for our groceries. Then we would pass the continuous-running barber shop of the amiable Bushong generations. Klink Family Continuing east was a building on a higher elevation with a series of steps to enter. It was a butcher shop run by two brothers, Daniel and Frank Klink, who had come from Edon, Ohio, around 1903. Little did I know then as I would roller skate past this building or stop to buy scraps for our kitty cat, that I would become

the high school sweetheart of this Daniel’s son and that this Orval Klink and I would marry and be the parents of a precious daughter named Beverly Klink, who in turn would marry her South Bend College of Commerce sweetheart, John Lockwitz. Nor at that age, how could I imagine the years would slip by so fast and that I would become old enough to have two grandsons and three great-granddaughters, all equally previous to me? Then at the east end of this block, as I remember, was the grocery of other relatives, this belonging to Ed Miles and his son, Elmer. Above this building (with a steep outside stairway) was the home of a Beardsley family who operated a photography shop. Continuing east across Huntington Street was a small butcher shop, facing west, owned by Millard Hire’s father, Wesley, wed to my cousin, Winifred Holloway. Next door east was the bank where everyone knew Silas Ketering was an officer there. I’m not sure of the order of occupants in the next building. I do remember that the Wingard Clothing Store, which had been next to the recently tom down' Connolly Building at the very east end of the block, moved into this place for many years, since Wade Zerbe and Melburn Rapp worked quite some time for Blanche Wingard before the Bachman store (Uncle Will’s) originally moved there when the new Pickwick Block was being developed by W. E. Long. However, I am very sure that in the middle of this block was another grocery store run by Aunt Katharine Kindig’s son, William, and his wife, Mae, the parents of attorney Joe Kindig, who moved to Nappanee. After many years, the Kindig Store was sold to John Grieger, then Byron Connolly, and it still houses Bales Butcher Shop at 106 E. Main St. Then came the building which housed the first location of the Wingard Men’s Shop next to the corner Connolly Dry Goods and Dress Shop. I remember a kindly Warren Eagles working with the Connollys and I have the feeling they were related. Library Then east across the alley there were either two or three houses in the part of the block where our Carnegie Library was later built. As was before mentioned, our library was first located in the east side of the basement in the school building. I remember a lovely Mrs. Knorr as the librarian. When I mention our school across from the library, it completes my imaginary revisiting tour of the two main uptown blocks of our business section. Yet I am omitting the east side of the first block of South Huntington Street which had some businesses, but my memory is not clear about their locations or when they came and went. The only one about which I do recall was a tea room called “The Sign of the Kettle,” started by other relatives, Zelta Strieby Leacock and Irene Macy Strieby, in the present Love Furniture Store. School My memory is more vivid about my early impressions of our beautiful classic-styled brick school building. Even before I was old enough to attend, it became a favorite place to visit. It happened that my dear mother’s sister, Aunt Launa Strieby, wed to William Jones (parents of the late trustee Mattie Jones) lived in the basement of the school eight months of the year as caretakers. So my mother and I often visited them there. I was always delighted to go because it gave me the oppor-

tunity to write on the blackboard of the basement’s first grade classroom, so close to their aparton that big blackboard was almost my idea of heaven in those years. Little did I realize then that after I had graduated and attended Ball State Teachers College (now university) and had taught a year at the Moore Country School, that I would be teaching a fifth grade directly above this room in 1924-25 and writing much more serious things on that blackboard. Nor did I realize that later in 1935-36, that I would be teaching my own little daughter, Beverly, in a third grade in the room directly above Mrs. Knorr’s library room, which I liked to visit. At that time, I was being impressed by hearing how this big furnace room, quartered farther back in the basement, had such a big boiler that if Uncle Will didn’t watch it very closely, it might even blow up this whole school. I was also starting to see and realize what a beautiful character my Aunt Launa was. During all the many years with the school, besides helping with her husband’s maintenance, she was led by her kind heart to be comforting some child at all hours of the day. She was truly filling the shoes of “today’s” high salaried school nurse, psychiatrist, counselor, sympathetic substitute mother, and seamstress, who was constantly sewing up garments to help a certain few little scantily clad children to keep warm through the winter months each year. It was common practice for teachers of all grades to send ailing pupils down to Mrs. Jones with sore throats, headaches, etc., until school was dismissed, before the day of school nurses was ever considered. She graciously, and modestly, filled this need without a bit of “fanfare” or recognition, which in my more mature years made me recognize that she was one of the loveliest “unsung heroines” of her day. So when I was old enough to be sent to school (not really, for I was only five years old when I somehow entered the first grade) I had this comfy feeling of knowing Aunt Launa was in the basement and in the superintendent’s office was Grandma Ellen’s nephew, Charles Bachman. There always remains a special attachment to one’s classmates and the teachers who were so close to us in those formative years. My teachers included: Mr. Bachman; Latin teacher Lillian Hammon (whom no one ever disliked), who also taught us home economics over in the old school building back of us; W. C. Gants; math teacher Court Slabaugh, who coached teams in that same older building; and Lucy Miles, who made us appreciate Shakespeare, even though we thought we never could. At that

Full & Self Service Hope You Enjoy The ©Syracuse Sesquicentennial ★ Diesel ★ Gasoline ★ K-l Kerosene ★ LP Gas ★ Mini-Mart ★ Ice & Ice Cream Full & SalfService CorWath WAWASEE SERVICE CENTER STATE ROAD 13 - SYRACUSE

Wed., July 1,1987 — THE MAIL-JOURNAL

time, Calvin Beck and Guy Bushong were upper grade teachers, while Irene Sprague and her sister, Jessie, taught fifth and sixth grades, respectively. Somehow Carrie Shannon taught my class for the second, third, and fourth grades consecutively and our beginning first grade teacher was a Miss Cook who taught us in the basement room. Later years, in the lower grades, came more familiar names of teachers that younger people remember, including: Ruth Rapp, Lulu Seider, Ruth Meredith, Mary Gantz, or a Benson, and Edna Hess, who had the talent and foresight to start a class for students of varying learning abilities. This does not include all the names of the fine teachers who entered those doors. Nor does it include the name of one J. P. Dolan, to whom we owe so much in the very very early years for organizing and starting the school system of Syracuse. My love affair with this school deepened every year as I attended it; every year as I taught in it; and until the day I was so saddened to hear it was distined to be torn down. Sledding On The Hill I can hardly think of this school without picturing what so often happened on the quite steep hill beside it on Harrison Street. In the winter, teen-agers would start at the top with sleds and rather long toboggans, and gather such fast momentum that they would land many blocks south on Harrison Street. I know that my two older brothers, Hallie and Burdette, were usually among them. I think Ken Harkless, Millard Hire, Phil Bowser, Orrin Klink, Jerry Hoopingarner, “Beanie” Howard, Dallas McClintic, a Dewart boy, and a number of others I don’t recall, were often among these daring riders, also. I have a hazy remembrance of my brother, Burdette, talking about a near-catastrophe on one

Photos Restorer

- I ■ z "Our Prints Are Lifetime Guaranteed' R. 3, Box 261-Al, Syracuse 457*4601

snowy night. In the days around 1910-16, cars were not as much of a hazard as horses and buggies or wagons were, if they suddenly appeared from an east or west direction. So guards were usually placed at least on the corner of Main Street to signal a safe time to start down hill. But on one evening, when Burdette was guiding the toboggan, signals became mixed up and an unexpected horse and wagon appeared at the corner of Main and Harrison Streets. So it was only by the grace of God and my brother’s fast maneuvering, was he able to steer the toboggan between the sets of wheels of the wagon at this great speed, to avoid a very sad catastrophe. It always reminded me of one of Mr. Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not” stories. Another connotation that the school hill always brings to mind, is the Memorial Day celebration in the spring time. School superintendent Mr. Bachman would have all of us children lined, up along this hill with our flower bouquets, ready to decorate our soldiers’ graves after the bands and other marchers would come up from the southern starting point. I was given the privilege of decorating my dear Grandpa Edwin Forrest Holloway’s grave. He, of course, was a Civil War veteran, and other children were also given that same privilege to choose the grave of a relative to honor. That gave it a much more warm and personal meaning and appreciation of our ancestors who were willing to risk their lives for our precious country. So as I come to the end of this trip down “Memory Lane” in early Syracuse, I think I’ve solved my mystery. Growing up in Syracuse just “plaiirsfxriled” me for liking big strange cities. I’m still too much in love with Syracuse!

3