Memories – LILLIAN'S CUPBOARD

My Radio Days – 1930s-40s

By the time I was born in 1932, radio was available, but not to people like my family who had no money for frivolous things, sometimes barely enough for necessities like food. My father was always fascinated with radio and by the time we had moved to a one room flat in 1935 and he had a job with the WPA, making enough to feed his family, he started building crystal sets. As he progressed in the WPA, going from the lowliest laborer to time-keeper, we came up in the world and moved to a two-room flat and had a pretty nice radio. I can remember one playing while we sat at the kitchen table in the morning. I liked the jingle that four young guys sang (lyrics the way I remember them):

    Shine your shoes and you’ll wear a smile
   Shine your shoes and you’ll be in style
   The sun shines east and the sun shines west
   But Griffin polish shines the best.
   Some folks are not particular
   How they look around their feet,
   But if they wore shoes upon their heads,
   They’d make sure their shoes looked neat.
   So, keep your shoes shining all the time,
   All the time, it’s the time to shine
   When you hear this familiar chime (ding, dong, ding)
   It’s time to shine.

Forty years later, I found out it was the young Williams brothers singing the jingle, including the youngest, Andy Williams, who would become one of my favorite singers in the 1960s.

We listened to the Farm Hour, with reports on grain futures and cattle sales, along with weather reports. The broadcast came from a model-farm type operation and they always talked to the farmer about what he was going to do that day on the farm and sometimes to his wife about her cooking and housekeeping tips.

Mother kept the radio on all day while she did her housework, favoring the country music of Mother Maybelle and the Carter Family, Cowboy Copas, and Mac Wiseman, learning songs that she later sang to us. The sadder the ballad, the better, as far as Mother was concerned. She never complained, never cried, always had a pleasant smile on her face, but she loved the most doleful, tragic ballads where people died and roses twined around their tombstones.

My father liked sports broadcasts – baseball, football and the boxing matches. I can still hear the tinny sound of the announcer from Madison Square Gardens in New York, announcing the name of Joe Louis and his unlucky opponent. We all listened to the news broadcasts and shows like Jack Benny, Fibber McGee and Molly, and Lux Radio Theater.

Lillian and Shirley - 1940 — Lillian and Shirley – 1940

Just before World War II, we could afford to move to a four-room apartment and my father managed to get a wonderful radio that had a green eye that vibrated and pulsed with each sound coming out of it. The radio was glorious and my little sister and I loved to watch the magic eye do its gyrations. It was on this radio that we heard the news on a wintry Sunday that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and we were now in the middle of World War II. Throughout the war and for several years afterwards, the radio continued to be the major form of information and entertainment in American homes. Our family gathered in the living room around the radio, everybody doing something besides just listening – my parents reading, my sister and I lying on the floor with puzzles or coloring books or paper dolls.

On Saturday nights, we usually listened to a barn dance show, probably the precursor of Grand Ole Opry, and heard someone “calling Rattler from the barn – Huyh, Rattler, Huyh, Huyh” and some guy saying, “I’m going back to the wagon, folks – these shoes is killing me”.

Shirley and Lillian - 1943 — Shirley and Lillian – 1943

I can remember sitting in the kitchen with the radio playing Fred Allen while we ate a supper of leftovers from a big Sunday dinner – fried chicken, potato pancakes made from the mashed potatoes, the remaining meringue-covered chocolate or coconut cream pie.

Of course, we loved The Shadow – “Who knows what evil lurks in the thoughts of man — The Shadow knows!”; Bull Drummond; Your Hit Parade and the latest song by Frank Sinatra (a young, skinny kid at that time); The Lone Ranger and Tonto; Little Orphan Annie and Jack Armstrong and so many others. We always wound up each New Year’s Eve listening to Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians.

Radio was so important to us until one day in 1946 when figures appeared on a tiny screen in my father’s workshop as he built our first television set and radio was never a very big deal again.

The Pawn Shop Christmas Watch

In 1950, I started working as a secretary for Procter & Gamble in their downtown corporate offices. I worked in the very interesting TV and Radio Advertising Department when television was becoming more and more popular. I loved the job, the beautiful old Gwynne Building where P&G was located then, and being in downtown Cincinnati every day.

Long before Pawn Stars was popular on TV, there were several small pawn shops in downtown Cincinnati. Although my parents never went to pawn shops, one of my aunts was a steady customer. She was always in trouble financially, yet each Christmas we were amazed to see the gorgeous gifts she received. I remember one year she showed off an enormous dresser set with elaborate brushes, mirror, manicure tools – all in a satin lined chest. We only saw it once because it was immediately pawned and not redeemed. That’s what happened to all of her elaborate gifts.

This was the first Christmas that I was out of high school, working for the grand sum of $30/week and paying $10 board. I felt I was flush with money and wanted to get my mother something really special. Mother had never owned a wrist watch in her life and I thought this would be the best gift I could give her. I don’t know why I didn’t go to one of the big department stores in town, but for some reason I chose to go to a pawn shop to buy her watch. I had never been inside this kind of store before but the gentleman was very nice to me and sold me a lovely watch for, as I recall, $15. I could hardly wait until Christmas Eve to surprise Mother.

The watch in this picture is the way I remember the pawn shop watch

I haven’t been in a pawn shop since that first visit, but I have a soft place in my heart for the little store tucked away on Vine Street in downtown Cincinnati in 1950 where I bought a special Christmas gift for my mother.

Television on Gotham Place – 1940s

My sister, Shirley, and I are standing in our front yard in 1949. I was a junior at Withrow High School and Shirley was in the 8th grade at Highlands (Cincinnati). Mother made our “Dottie Mack”* dresses

The first time I ever heard the word “television” was during World War II when my father showed me an article in one of his radio magazines about this new invention which would change the world after the war was over. I was interested (anything my father showed me was interesting), but I didn’t hold out too much hope for it – a lot of things were promised “after the war”.

Then one day in 1945, the war was over and within a year, my father was in the workshop he had built on the back end of the porch of our little red brick house on Gotham Place, fiddling around with trying to make a television set. He had always been interested in radios and my image of him throughout the 1930s-40s was of him reading a radio hobbyist’s magazine. He had made small radios and was a HAM operator during the war. One hot Saturday afternoon in 1946, we were called to the workshop to see a screen about 5×5 inches and on it was the rather faint image of two men wrestling. It was the first time my father had been able to access one of the few local broadcasts.

My father and mother standing in front of the back porch where my father had his workshop

I understand there were kits available around that time to build a primitive TV set, but my father built his from parts he accumulated as he could afford them. He continued to work and finally built his own set – very rough – all of the innards showed and the small screen just sat there without any kind of cabinet, but it was magnificent because there was a moving, talking picture on it. We were among the first residences in Cincinnati to own a television set. He eventually put a huge magnifying glass in front of the tiny screen to make the picture bigger and on Saturday nights he drug out his masterpiece to set in the front yard of the red brick where the folks on Gotham Place could bring their folding chairs and sit clustered around, watching wrestling. By the following summer, most of the families had their own TV sets.

My sister and I are standing in front of the gate where my father would set up the TV set for the neighbors

The most popular show at the beginning was wrestling and little by little other programs were added, although the day was far from being fully scheduled. When an actual live broadcast wasn’t on the screen, there was a kaleidoscope test pattern so people could adjust and readjust their sets to hopefully get it right before a real show came on. I also remember some kind of an Indian head image with rays going out from it to help with getting the sets adjusted. My father ran for the set every time any kind of image was being broadcast and fooled with it continually.

Eventually, we bought a small TV set with a 7-inch screen which required a humongous aerial on the roof and a lot of adjusting with that, but aesthetically the little cabinet looked a lot better in our living room. There were still problems with “snow” – a hazy snowstorm that appeared over the picture; getting “out of synch” – the screen rolling around and around; the adjusting of the black and white screen; the logistics of getting everybody in a position to see the tiny screen – but there were never any serious complaints (except from my father who had to fix everything) since everybody was just enraptured by the sight of that screen and the wonder of it.

A television set similar to the one we owned — A television set similar to the one we bought

Programming continued to improve. In 1947, the first Cincinnati Reds baseball game was televised and for the first time in my life, I skipped school to come home and watch the afternoon broadcast. I had taken the streetcar to Withrow High School but got off and got on another one coming back home so I could see that game. It was a little disappointing. I guess I had thought even on the small screen there would be close-ups such as there were in newsreels, but they apparently only had a couple of cameras in the stands and we got nothing but long shots. This was before the zoom lens that at least brought home plate into focus, but I was still glad I got to see that piece of history.

Sporting events were always big on television, and lots of local shows – Midwestern Hayride; cooking shows, Ruth Lyons (a show for housewives by a Cincinnati legend), news broadcasts, comedy shows, Bride & Groom with local star Bob Braun singing “Oh, Promise Me”, etc. A favorite was Paul Dixon’s Make-Believe Bandstand with pantomiming to music by Paul, Dottie Mack and Bob Braun. Dottie Mack was a young, pretty model who was an expert at pantomiming and had a gorgeous wardrobe. For Christmas in 1948, Mother made my sister and me matching outfits based on one of Dottie’s – black faille skirt and tie, white blouse and rhinestone pin. (*See picture, above)

Eventually, we got feeds from the networks with big time broadcasts like Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coco, live theater, Ed Sullivan’s show, soap operas and variety shows. My father usually scoffed at the variety shows, saying they were just a bunch of vaudeville acts – and he was right, but most of us had never seen a vaudeville act and we thought they were wonderful: Milton Berle, Burns & Allen, Ed Wynn, and scores of animal, juggling and miscellaneous circus acts.

In a few short years after the war had ended, television was truly the marvel my father had said it would be.

I'm standing with my mother and sister at the back porch where my father built his workshop and first TV set — I’m standing with my mother and sister at the back porch where my father built his workshop and our first TV set

Click pictures to enlarge.

Looking Back on my 81st Birthday

Lillian at age one - 1933 — Lillian at age one – 1933

As I celebrate my 81st birthday, I look back on some notes I made in 1983 – 30 years have passed, unbelievable!

Tomorrow I’ll be 51 years old. Life for 50 years has been at times joyful, frustrating, exasperating, full of hope, full of despair, happy and peaceful, exciting, full of promise, loving, surprising (sometimes amazing), full of achievement and fulfillment, always holding the idea that I didn’t know what wonderful things were yet to come.

I think of other years in the “1” category – when I was 11 and in the 6th grade – the girls at school somehow found out my birthday was coming up and when I went to school on that day, each of them had brought me a little gift. I don’t think any of the gifts were new – just things they had found at home. I remember a Grimm’s fairytale book, a picture of the Sacred Heart – little things. I was completely surprised and it was especially nice since that was my last year at that school.

Lillian at age 11 - 1943 — Lillian at age 11 – 1943

At 21, it was a very special birthday because I was expecting my first baby. Grandma gave me my last winter coat as she had promised for every year until I was an adult. She also gave me a camera which I was able to use for years while the kids were little.

Lillian at age 21 - 1953 — Lillian at age 21 – 1953

At 31, we were in our own home in Oakley and the three oldest kids were 3, 7 and 10. I remember that particular year counting off all the many reasons I was so much better off at 31 than I had been at 30…maybe trying to rationalize for being over 30.

At 41, it would have been the first year we had our dog, May, on my birthday and that was the year my three-year-old youngest daughter made a birthday cake for me with her brother’s help and it seems to me that May got part of it.

So, now we’re at 51 and looking ahead. L – September 29, 1983

In the 30 years that have passed, I lost my husband, mother and sister, but I have my four children, a daughter-in-law and son-in-law, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. One son lives with his family in St. Louis, but two of the children and their families live in the area and my oldest daughter has come back to live with me.

Of course, May, the dog, has been gone for awhile, but in the passing years there were several dogs plus a couple of cats – and now, we have little Addie to keep us company.

Addie and friend - 2013 — Addie and friend – 2013

I’m happy and grateful that I have reached the age of 81 and still look forward to good things yet to come.

Summertime Memories from 1964

: Jackson, Newsie, Dad and Bar

Throughout the years while I was raising my four kids (beginning in 1954), I kept a journal where I periodically made notes about holidays, school, vacations, etc. As an occasion arises where I think one of my journal entries would be pertinent, I’m going to post it just as I wrote or typed it back in the day (except for an explanatory note or correction of a typo).

The children will be known here by the nicknames their grandfather used when they were toddlers: The oldest daughter will be Newsie (because she was as good as a newspaper for finding out the latest happenings), the oldest son is Bar (because he called Grandpa’s truck Bar and Grandpa called him Bar), the youngest son is Jackson, and the youngest daughter is Shanty (as in Shanty-Boat).

Summertime and the living is pretty hectic most of the time. The days are filled with sounds of kids out playing – riding squeaky bicycles, fighting over possession of the sand pile, hitting baseballs off the garage roof, playing “mudders and fadders”, slamming screen doors, protesting the boys’ teasing.

The days are filled with the sights of wet bathing suits, soggy footmarks on the floor, barefooted and bare-chested boys, tan and healthy looking faces, dust two inches thick in the backyard and grass two inches long in the front, blooming petunias and marigolds, a veritable forest in the back hollow with lush trees, squirrels, birds, chipmunks and a family of raccoons.

The days are filled with the smells of summer – the harsh chlorine smell of a carful of wet kids coming home from the pool, the smoky fragrance of wieners and hamburgers on the grill, the smell that permeates the neighborhood when someone bakes a cake, the fresh fragrance in the air after the grass has been mown.

Summer is filled with knothole games and the undefeated Sweeneys in their green and white uniforms, the much defeated Reds whose progress is followed avidly on TV and transistor, the harness horses at the night races and soon at the fairs, the neighborhood pools swarming with kids, the parks filled with families and picnic baskets, the roads overflowing with people and paraphernalia.

Life is hectic, true, and fun and as the song says, “lazy, hazy and crazy”! L – July 11, 1964

Here’s a 1963 version of Nat King Cole singing about the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.

Note: It would be 6 more years before Shanty came along to join us in our summer fun.

Click picture to enlarge. The colored pictures are from a home movie and not of the best quality.

Summer on East Court Street in the 1940s

Shirley and Lillian - in our WAC uniforms — Shirley and Lillian – in our WAC uniforms

Summer on East Court Street (downtown Cincinnati) in the early 1940’s was hot and devoid of trees and shade, but my little sister and I were happy there and grateful to have a nice big third-floor apartment next door to my favorite aunt, Mabel, and her kids. We didn’t have a yard to play in – rather a big flat-top roof with plenty of space, provided you didn’t get too near the edge. To visit my aunt, we would climb out of our kitchen window onto the roof, walk a few feet to the portion that connected with my aunt’s apartment, jump down and go in her kitchen window. It was very convenient and much faster and safer than going down three flights of stairs and onto a busy city street.

Aunt Mabel and cousin Buddy. Vine Street going into Over-the-Rhine in the distance

Aunt Mabel and cousin Carol on the roof. Central Parkway is in right hand background.

One summer my sister and I had a large wooden box on the roof and Mother let us plant radish seeds. We were fascinated, especially when we got an invasion of caterpillars and we spent one entire day watching, picking up, putting down furry black and yellow caterpillars. That night we both dreamed we had fuzzy critters crawling all over us and I don’t recall ever bothering with the “container” garden again.

There was no swimming pool nearby, but sometimes Mother let us go out in a summer shower and splash around in the puddles on the city pavement. My mother dreamed of the day we would be able to move from the inner city. She was a small town girl and told us endless stories of how she ran all around Morrow (Ohio) when she was a child, how she played in the cemetery, knew everybody in town, went wherever she wanted while her widowed mother worked in a munitions factory during the day. She used to draw pictures for us of the house we would have some day with trees, grass and a picket fence running all around the house and “kids running around the picket fence”, but it was during World War II and housing was scarce. (We did move to a little brick house with a picket fence and a rose trellis in 1943).

One year, a daughter of my father’s boss at Dayton Acme invited us to go swimming at a pool at Guilford School near Lytle Park in another part of downtown Cincinnati. Mother made us red and while polka-dot swim suits and we were so excited, although after I got there I really didn’t care for the confusion and noise of a very public pool. I preferred splashing around in the puddles on the sidewalk in front of 20 East Court Street during summer showers.

Sister Shirley, cousin Dixie, Lillian in front of Scotti's Restaurant on East Court St. — Sister Shirley, cousin Dixie, Lillian in front of Scotti’s Restaurant on East Court St.

Cousin Bill and Fried Mush

My father’s favorite cousin was Bill, ten years his senior and completely opposite from my diminutive, quiet, handsome, intelligent father. Bill was bawdy, boisterous, tall and husky with a loud, hearty laugh – a loveable rascal.
We have a picture ca 1920 of Bill in a nice suit, neat and clean-shaven…

…but I remember him only in scruffy clothes with mud-caked brogans. He was a blacksmith by trade and followed the county fair trotting circuit to shoe the horses. Back in the 1960s, I took my three young children to the Owensville (Clermont County, Ohio) Fair and stopped in a trailer parked on the fairgrounds to visit Bill and his family. Inside the small trailer, 4 or 5 little kids were seated at a table and Bill’s wife, Mary, was at the wood-burning stove frying mush in a big cast iron skillet. She would slice the mush, throw it into the hot grease, flip it and then put it on one of the kids’ plates. For the 15 or 20 minutes we were there, she never stopped flipping and serving slices of hot mush – there was always an empty plate and a hungry child yelling for more. I’m also a lover of fried mush and so, in memory of Bill and his wife, here is how I make it.

CORN MEAL MUSH

Servings: 6
Print

4 cups water, divided
1 cup corn meal
1 tsp. salt
Butter for frying

Bring 3 cups of water to a boil. Combine the remaining 1 cup of water with the corn meal and salt; slowly pour this mixture into the boiling water, stirring constantly. Cook until thickened, stirring frequently. Cover; continue cooking over low heat for 5 minutes. Stir and pour into an oiled 9-inch loaf pan. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Invert mush loaf onto a flat surface….

…and cut into twelve ½-inch slices.

Heat a skillet over medium high heat and add about 2 teaspoons of butter. Fry the mush slices on one side …

…then turn and brown on the other side.

Serve with butter and syrup, although I prefer it the way Mary fixed it – just fried golden brown without syrup.

Makes 6 servings of 2 slices each

Mush will keep well in the refrigerator for about a week.

Mendets – The 1930s-40s Way to Repair Pots and Pans

I recently posted something about a 1940s era junkman who visited my neighborhood and how my mother always looked for old pots and pans which she would repair with little pieces of metal. My daughter found this card of Mendets on eBay and bought it for me. This is exactly what my mother used, except sometimes she bought them in a small box.

Mendets were patented in the early 1900s and the dress/hairstyle of the lady on the card makes me think this might be from the 1930s. The back of the card has instructions as well as suggesting some other uses such as repairing a hot water bottle, using on campfire utensils and even shows a lady perched precariously on a ladder repairing a gutter (“Saved the cost of a tinsmith”).

Until World War II was over, I believe every pot, pan and kettle in our kitchen had a Mendet or two helping to give a bit more life.

Click on photos to enlarge.

An Old Time Picker – The Ragman

The popularity of American Pickers on TV reminded me of the “rag pickers” of the 1930-40s era in Cincinnati. There was the occasional horse-drawn cart that rumbled through the streets of our small working-class East End neighborhood with a picker shouting in a sing-song style, “Any rags or old iron”. They were the pickers looking to buy; in our neighborhood we also had a picker who wanted to sell. On hot summer afternoons, a big grey 1930s Packard would turn from Eastern Avenue and make its way down the slope on Gotham Place toward the river bank.

My sister in front of our house with the beautiful pink tea roses. Gotham Place is shown in the background

A tall older man with a day’s growth of beard would maneuver the car to a clear spot in the large area outside our little red brick house and set up shop. The car doors would be opened and from every house on the narrow street women and children would hurry out the door. Mothers would call out, “The Ragman is here” and everybody would gather around the car to see what treasures might be available that day.

The Ragman drove a very raggedy version of this car

I never learned what the man’s real name was, but he made his rounds of the better homes in Hyde Park, Indian Hill, Mt. Lookout, Mt. Washington, etc., to pick up castoffs which he sold at very low prices on his various stops throughout the East End. Customers would pick up an item and ask, “How much?” The Ragman would think a second or two and give a reasonable price which we could take or leave. There was a constant stream of questions and answers going back and forth between customer and seller.

Daddy, Mother, Lillian and Shirley - pictured in the big area in front of our house where the Ragman used to park — Daddy, Mother, Lillian and Shirley – pictured in the big area in front of our house where the Ragman used to park

There was something for everybody – pots and pans, dishes, glassware, clothes, toys, and my favorite – movie magazines. For a nickel I could buy 3 or 4 slightly outdated publications and read all about Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Lon McAllister and all the other “stars of the silver screen”. There might also be an occasional Seventeen magazine which was interesting for a pre-teenager to read to get news of the latest styles of clothes and tips on dating.

My mother tended to pick up old pots and pans which could be made new again with her addition of little round metal pieces that she always had on hand to patch worn-out utensils. My little sister might buy a small doll or toy. One year she bought a doll’s china tea set with a teapot and creamer that had pouring spouts shaped like elephants’ trunks. I had been irritable with her when I came home from school that day and Mother said, “Oh, be patient with her. She worked all afternoon cleaning up a special gift for your birthday.” It truly was a special gift – I wish I still had it.

My sister and I in our Victory Garden. In the background is the Cincinnati Water Works

These were the early to mid-1940s World War II days before television and shopping malls. It was a wonderful treat to be able to do some shopping almost in our front yard on the banks of the Ohio River on a clear blue summer day.

Is it any wonder that my favorite stores now are antique malls and thrift shops?

Click on photos to enlarge.

April 16, 1964 – A Journal Memory

The children will be known here by the nicknames their grandfather used when they were toddlers: The oldest daughter will be Newsie (because she was as good as a newspaper for finding out the latest happenings), the oldest son is Bar (because he called Grandpa’s truck Bar and Grandpa called him Bar), the youngest son is Jackson, and the youngest daughter is Shanty (as in Shanty-Boat).

“Jackson saw a plump robin on the front lawn today and with the confidence of childhood announced: ‘There’s a robin. It’s spring!’ And I’ll have to agree with him that the miracle of spring has come to Maple Drive. The sky is a pale clear blue, serving well as the background for tender green buds and leaflets appearing on so many of the trees. Each lawn is the fresh green of spring and the gorgeous color compensates for the bare patches of earth. Daffodils, dandelions and violets are blooming, and the tulips are budding. The leaves of the iris are straight and sure and reassuring. The temperature is 80 degrees this afternoon and the kids are wearing shorts and crop-tops, and Bar and his friend Danny are tossing a baseball. Our dog Penny ran with great glee over newly-seeded lawns and through flower beds, and dug a foot-deep hole in the dusty patch beside the back porch. Newsie and her friend Rosanne came in with nosegays of violets, dandelions and large leaves, picked in the hollow and carefully placed in a yellow plastic cup on the refrigerator.”

Precious memories of a spring almost 50 years ago.