Kenneth H Johnson

Joe,  Please add me to your Powerpoint distribution list:  kenjsea@aol.com.  Thank you,  -- Ken Johnson

Alan M Cohen

Please add me too.   Amcohen1@swbell.net

William K Dickey

Joe, you may add me to the list.  Sorry to be away and miss it.  Bill Dickey email:  wkdickey@yahoo.com 

Paige Fields (Hoebel)

Joe,

Please add me to your list also.  paige.hoebel@me.com

You have provided an ogoing facinting and comprehensive glimpse into our outstanding community.

My parents owned a corner lot in Beachwood which was sold to buy the corner lots in Shaker.  The lots were chosen because they were filled with trees.  Ofcourse the trees were elms and all had to be removed.  Later the corner lot was sold to Rosemay Spicuzza and George Beck who was a partner in Ernst & Ernst. My memory may not be 100% as I was too young, but our family home was built by a man named Miller.  If I remember correctly he had been shot in the head during WWII.  Another vague memory is that I believe Armand Guggenheim was our realtor.  He was terribly handsome and I had a huge crush on him.  I was maybe 6 or 7????  I used to hang on him and I remember my parents being very apologetic as they wrestled me away from him.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at our 55th reunion.  Reading all the entries is helping us get to know our classmates as they are today.  So many very bright and articulate classmates!

Paige Fields Hoebel

Patricia Ann Richards (Armstrong)

Dear Joe, please include me as well...<prich71686@aol.com>.  Look forward to learning more about that very unique suburb where I had some memorable times - most of them good.    Thanks, in advance...Patty Richards Armstrong.

Arthur Charles Scott

Joe, add me also.  ascotteotu@yahoo.com

Art Scott

John A Hrones, Jr.

Joe - please add me to your list --- John Hrones  -- jhrones@aol.com

Joseph G Blake

Thanks to all . I have added your names. Please do not be afraid to add yours.

Paige, where were the corner lots in Shaker? Corner lots can be quite interesting because many are not right angles to permit the streets that curve to intersections that converge three streets.

This is notable in Malvern and Fernway where three streets come together like we see at Avalon and VanAken which joins with Daleford and VanAken or Malvern at Eaton, Torrington and Courtland. The streets in those districts on a map look like Gothic Es interconnected. It was always easy to get lost in Shaker if you did not live there. IN some ways that was deliberate prevent through traffic and chnnel traffic to main arteries namely- Shaker, South Woodland, Vanaken and Chagrin. It also made Fernway to Warrington and South Park as alternative routes to  Shaker Square or downtown to avoid the lights on  Van Aken and Shaker.

We ate at Stouffer's at least once a month on the weekends and often went Fernway to Warrington to the Square. Sorry if you lived there.

I am told this AM that 32 are registered so far. Better call now if you can. The limit is 40 unless they know in advance and can arrange alternative location.

Thanks to all.  

James R Krause

Two things, both Ken LaVetterr who stayed and I who got out of Florida made it through Irma OK. Second add me to the distribution jrkrause @tampabay.rr.com

Christine Adler (Phillips)

Hi Joe, and all...I'll be sorry to miss your presentation on Sept 24th. My whole family is coming to Cleveland on the 26th, from California. We are going to hold a memorial reception on the 28th for my mom, Debby Burton Adler, who passed away at age 96, on the 4th of July. 

My sisters and I have been reminiscing about our childhood home, across the driveway from your house, on the corner of Daleford, Avalon, and Van Aken. What a neighborhood group we had! Anyway, I'd love to receive a copy of your presentation. I think my dad, also 96 and still forging ahead, would enjoy seeing it. My email is: mokava@ca.rr.com. And, by the way, I've enjoyed reading your daughter Meredith's articles in the LA Times!

Joseph G Blake

Chris

I have added your name. Thanks for your kind comments about Meredith's column in the LA Times. You may have read her husband as well. His name is Ari Berman who has tow books out there and writes a column for Mother Jones. He was previously with the Nation.

I have to laugh because their outlook is more notably liberal than mine but these days everything is up for big change. I am still instinctively more conservative like my father. But these days what those terms mean is in flux.

Thanks for the update.

Joe

Joseph G Blake

I am adding this link about an interview with Mrs. Adler about her father Harold Burton, Mayor of Cleveland, US Senator and Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court.

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/12/harold_burton_cleveland_mayor.html

I still recall meeting Mrs Burton in kindergarten at Fernway. She was well known then for wearing two earings on one ear. 

Again Chris I have nothing but fond memories of your mother.

Alaina Weisman (Zachary)

Joseph! I'm in:  alaina.zachary@gmail.com

I so appreciate this work and the converstion it has engendered.  Apropos of nothing, I wrote an article for the Shaker Historical Society about domestics, based upon being raised and educated in Shaker.  Just one opinion but it shaped my ethics for all time.

William A Sokol

Please add me, wsokol@gmail.com. Thanks. Bill Sokol

Cheryl Kushner (Lane)

Joe,

Please add me to your list lanes7456@aol.com.

I want to know about the "atypical" homes from Menlo, where I grew up, to Chelton, where my father-in-law lived.

His father, Abraham Levine or Lewine, built their house. My father-in-law graduated from Shaker, too! His name was Meyer Levine or Lewine. It was later changed to Myron Lane.

Thank you so much!

Cheryl Kushner Lane

Lauren Brahms (Resnik)

Joe,

Pls add me to your list:   rresnik1@roadrunner.com

Thanks!

Robert A Davis

Joe,

Please add my email to your list;  radavis1046@sbcglobal.net

A Special recognition to another classmate Stewart Flate.  Stu has reached literary success,

having written and had published a book entitled:   

ALONG THE WAY: L'Chaim to Life  reflections about growing up in the Moreland and Lomond neighborhoods.

He splits his time between Michigan and Florida. Congratulations Stu

Special belated Birthday Best Wishes of good Health to Pablo (Paul Wasserman)  Living somewhere on the Beaches of Rio De Janerio. 

Bob Davis

Amy Kopperman (Wertheim)

My grandfather built his house on Larchmont before the Van Sweringen's started developing. My mother had many fond memories of riding the trails in a much less developed Shaker. They lived across from the Canoe Club on one of the Lakes.

I grew up on Fernway.

Please add my email: akwertheim@yahoo.com 

Amy Wertheim

Joseph G Blake

Fear not I will add you to the list. I am 90% finished.

Right now explaining what went wrong.

I am envious of "Pablo". Rio and it's beaches are amazing. Very very laid back. Nothing like Shaker Heights of old- gracious, orderly and very polite.

Spent two weeks there 20 years ago.

Bob Davis, does he live there full time?

Lauren Shiffman (Serwitz)

At the risk of sounding repetitive, please add me to your list Joe.

My parents built our home on South Woodland between Belvoir and Green Roads.  The property backed up to Canterbury Country Club where my brother and I gleefully trespassed, often recovering lost golf balls, or simply because we knew that we weren't allowed to go there because we were Jewish.) This must have had an impact on me as my career was spent as a Country Club manager- tsk, tsk.

Our house was situated next door to a farmhouse and our deep lot had been the orchard, which my parents preserved when building.  Our yard was filled with quince, apple and "sugar plum" trees. We watched as many new homes sprouted going north toward Green Rd. and further, circa 1957, (homes of many classmates) but the farmhouse remaind

Robert A Davis

Joe,

Pablo lives there most of the time.  He has not had the best of health issues of late. 

He called me today regarding his favorite Baseball *Beisbol" team.  They speak Portugese in Rio.

He also travels to Mexico occasionally.  I'm certain he is a little "homesick" at this time.

bob

Joseph G Blake

Alaina 

You mentioned the article you wrote for the historical society.

This summer they did an exhibit about upstairs/downstairs Shaker Heights and using the 1940 census seemed to have the name of every live in servant of the day. I saw the census card for my parents that year and it noted the name of a maid/ nanny who lived with them. She was gone when I was born in 45. The lady who did  cleaning and laundry them came in 2 or 3 times a week. The war changed the supply of help and you paid more.

Our neighbors used to have a full time cook before the war. After the war they went out to dinner every night for the next 30 years. Stouffer's loved them.

Wages were higher and the racial mix changed. There were more blacks now as domestics than before the war.

This reflected the mass migration that began from the South in the 30s to the North. The depression ruined the life if tenant farmers who were mostly black.

In those days there was an agency called the Phyllis Wheatley Society which specialized in placing young black girls looking for work with "good" families. It seems almost beyond quaint today but the goal was to stop them from being abused or worse since many had limited education.

I know that we had several who came thru that agency and the one worked for my mother for 15 or more years until I graduated from college. 

 The economics of the rapid then was two traffic. The help arrived on the outbound cars while the employer took the rapid downtown.  This pattern reversed in the evening. A good employer would always pay the help car fare in addition to wages to cover the cost of the rapid, bus or street car. The Kinsman street car line stopped at a turn around at the Shaker city line.

Joseph G Blake

Lauren

I do recall the farm house and orchard you mentioned.

I used to pass it daily in the summers while being driven to Hawken School Day Camp.

We were picked up in a Hawken Schhol car by one of the counselors all of whom were school teachers.

Both Bill and Steve Joseph and Richard Silver were campers like me in the mid 50s. We even wore uniforms which were gray with red letters. The shorts had red stripes and the caps had a red brim with big red H.

I know a totally different world to now.

At lunch we were corrected for any table manner shortcomings. Yes it was served family style with plate and  knife and fork. Imagine that today. Emily Post would be proud.

We also did the usual summer play of baseball, archery, swimming, and various crafts.

I think the summer of 6 weeks was 300 dollars.

Phyllis Hammer (Gubanc)

Please add me to the list as well. I lived on Chagrin Blvd. in the Lomond School district. I remember Bordonaro's Grocery not far from where we lived. My email is pgubanc@att.net

Alaina Weisman (Zachary)

Joe, thanks so much for your response and commentary.  I just closed in a production of Driving Miss Daisy, set in Atlanta, ca 1948.  The domestic that lived with us for some years (and her sister who worked in the SHHS school system REPAIRING SWIM SUITS) were from Atlanta and influenced our suburban lives in many ways, not the least of which was introducing us to grits!!!!   Rehearsing the production gave me uncomfortable moments: Daisy is accused of being prejudiced, which she wasn't in her mind.  She did accept as normal some of the conventions we'd find horrifying today.  I had to face my prejudices.  We all have them.  

One of the heartfelt aspects of engaging domestics in my family and our larger family, is that we took responsibility for their well being long after they retired from that life.  We continued to support and visit them (Annie Martin worked for us) until they passed.  There was tremendous respect for what they did and in my family in particular, Annie was a stern taskmaster.  Not quite latch key kids, Annie was there when we got home from school.  My dad had had a major heart attack when I was in 5th grade and when he went back to work, my mother went too.  To be with him.

We all have such compelling stories and I appreciate all of them.