Joseph G Blake

Thanks Patty for the kind words. I also recall what a great voice you have. 

I love listening to Kate Smith for its reminders of a less complicated time in some ways albeit the late 30s the USA was facing serious threats overseas and the USA was not ready for it. God Bless America will always be a stirring hit. 

In re coal chutes, we had one for exactly two months. In 1930 my father was greatly focused on the rapid slide into depression in the country and he was building a house to please my mother. He decided not to buy what was called an automatic fireman as part of the coal furnace. The device essentially fed a constant flow of coal from the coal chute to the furnace and kept it stoked.We should call that a short term economy.

The reality was that he was always away 50% of the time on business to keep the show on the road. Hence he was not there to stoke the furnace every day and shovel coal. The list was very long of what he never did nor her sons and my mother always knew who did.

So in January 1931 it was one of the coldest winters on record. The furnace would burn out and my mother and the nanny were both clueless about how to stoke it. My nother would call her younger brother who lived in Cleveland near University Circle. He would drive out to the house, get the fire going and then go home. Again it would go out etc. 

One day my father called home and said, "How is everything?" Mother said "great". He asked "How is the furnace?" She replied, "Never better." He asked, "That is terrific." She said, "Yes I called the gas company and had the furnace converted today." He never said a word and they lived happily together for the next 53 years. 

There is an adage that says, "Happy wife, happy home." He had that down. 

IN re non homogenized milk with the cream on the top. My mother's preferecne for simplicity meanrt that she went 100% homogenized early on. But we had two neighbors who got the pasterized milk Dana has so accurately described. In both instances, they had a cat and were adults. I think the cat got the cream and some was saved for coffee. My parents drank tea and that was a classic tea making ritual that Patty probably knows well living in London. I won't repeat it. Ok tea making was complicated and therefore so much for simplicity. I think homogenized in the early days may have cost more by a few pennies. 

We had a laundry chute that had doors on each floor. It went down to the basement where there was an enclosed container above the washing machine. On Monday the clothes than would be unlioaded and sorted by type. Then on Tuesday all the shirts had to be ironed. Remember way back when there were no wrinkle free shirts etc. So Carrie ironed at least 15 shirts on Tuesday. That would have included starch. But my father was in the clothing business and the shirts had to be perfect. Carrie was a star wiith an iron albeit sometimes she cleaned the toilets with a mix of ammonia and clorox. Fortunatley she did not kill herself or us with that but the toilets were very clean.

Our chute was lined with metal and sometimes a sheet would get caught on a nail or loose corner. You had to get a broom and reach up to dislodge or go upstairs and see if you could reach down and dislodge it.It was useful to have long arms.

Times have changed but I always had shirts done at the laundry. Thosands of dollars later I am still appreciative of how good a job Carrie did. I also hate the feel of wrinkle free shirts for a long time. That is now resolved. But I do not need to wear dress shirts very often.

Alan M Cohen

Alan M Cohen

Don Ladanyi (Ladanyi)

A "milk box" was an outdoor container that the milk companies would provide if a customer did not have a "milk chute." Usually the boxes were placed on an accessible front or side porch and were almost always well insulated with a lid on the top also. A "milk hole" probably refers to someone's mouth much like a "pie hole" does. LOL!

Joseph G Blake

Alan

Alan Always good to hear from you. Still in Texas? Beto ot Ted going to be your next Senator? 

The area around Byron was one of the last areas to be incorprated into the Van Sweringen empire in the late 20s. The land bound by Warrensville, Shaker Blvd, Green Road and South Woodland was owned by a holdout who wanted a higher price. He finally sold in the late 20s which means there are only a few houses built there prior to 1930. You can see them on Sydenham Road and check the building cards and see the permit dates in 1929 and 1930. Hence most of the houses are post war and in some ways they  look more like a sub development with more similarity than older sections of Shaker. 

Of course by 1955 the Vans were dead and the sale of property not sunject to their management albeit the city was still led by their proteges. In fairness their track record is more complex than is sometimes preceived. Its very clear that prominent Jewish buyers bought lots and built homes in Shaker in the 1920s. The obviouls example would be the Horowitz mansion on Parkland and the Salmon Halle mansion ( the largest residence in Shkaer Heights) overlooking Horsheshoe (Upper) Lake. Likewise Charles Colman who was a prominet Jewish architect designed 26 properties in Shaker between 1920 and 1960. These were mostly in the 20s and 30s for Jewish clients. By 1940 10% of the students in Shaker schools were Jewish. 

But its also very clear that the Vans never sought any major Jewish institution or offered them a prominent home in Shaker. The major Jewish institutions like Temple on the Heights, Park Synagogue, Oakwood Club or Hebrew Academy were all in Cleveland Heights. This development naturally followed the movement of Jewish comminities ftom Glenville in Cleveland to the Heights. Of course when the Rockefellers sought to develop their former estate Forest Hill in the 20s they tried to stop the construction of Temple on the Heights and have it relocated. It did not happen. 

The Vans reflected the preceived prejudices of the Portestant establishment of the day. That was a restricted world. Samuel Halle who was married to a gentile was a member of the CAC but not the Union Club.His chiren later married prominent members of the elite. That was the reality of the day. But at the end of the day there was the reality. When dealing with the Van Sweringen Compnay before the war the color of your money got you a lot and a home unless you were black. The Vans sought to faciltiate the movement of elite instutions like University School or Hathaway Brown to get the customer they preferred and went out of their way to assist the building of Plymouth Church and First Baptist Church on Fairmount. 

There are many stories of individual owners who refused to sell to certain buyers. And there are some areas of the city in the post war era that tried to stir Jews away. I refer to so called poets corners areas east of Warrensville. The question of balck buyers was very clear. No and hell no prior to 1960. In the mid 20s a black MD bought a house on Huntington in a resale. The community responded by forming a group called the Shaker Protection Socirty of which Newton D Baker, a former mayor of Cleveland and Secretary of War and parner in the Baker Hostetler and Patterson was a leading member.

The Vans response was as follows: they bought out the MD and then redeeded almost all the property in the city to inlcude the VanSweringen consent that requred the company to approve the resale of any house in Shaker or the approval of the 5 adjacent property owners. It did not include any specific exclusion of specifc groups and therefore survived well into the 1980s. 

Dana Shepard (Treister)

Joe~

Love these trips down memory lane!

 Back to now - regarding your memory of your father having his shirts laundered at home - my long-time housekeeper still Teresa launders all of my husband Michael's shirts at home.  He, too, will not wear "no iron" shirts, and he, too, does not like the way any laundry does them.   Teresa is almost MY age, and when/if she ever retires - fingers crossed I will be able to FIND another housekeeper who knows how to iron men's French-cuff dress shirts - which is what Michael wears almost daily -- whether he needs to be dressed that way or not!  (That's what happens when you marry a University School boy from the back in the day...)

;    )

DANA

Alan M Cohen

Thanks Joe,

There were two of the homes built before the mid 1950s on Holmwood and one at the top of Rye Rd in addition to the ones you noted on Sydenham.

We lived for a few years while growing up  in the Fernway area in a duplex at the corner of Elmsmere and Daleford

I remember Miss Blue.  I cannot remember the names of our kindergarten or first grade teachers. 

I do not remember if I posted before that our house on Fontenay was next to one of the Nickle Plate RR relatives, long gone rr by the time we moved there.  Their driveway drain had a problem which when excavated contained an old Shaker well.  It was once one of the Shaker farms living community.  Did not last that long when I looked it up.  

Amy Kopperman (Wertheim)

Other teachers at Fernway: Miss Start, Miss MacIntire, and Miss Finch, the principle.

Joseph G Blake

Alan  Miss or Mrs Fox taught kindergarten and I can see your house at Elsmere and Daleford. It was brick and frame and across the street from Barbara Perlman. Robb Forward then lived on Elsmere.

Dana  Your husband and I must be clones. Pray that talented lady never retires. I am worse. My daughter in law served a meal when we first met her parents on paper plates. I was in shock for a week. What makes this very odd is that I served in the Marines and lived in jungles and ate peanut butter to survive in Vietnam. Never missed the finery at home but that encounter was on normal turf. Hence I suppose my reversion to custom.

Judi Bachman (Holtze)

Quite a trip down memory lane.  Don’t remember coal,shutes, milk boxes ( altho i sort of recall bottles on the porch stairs..but only in summer as mymother parked her nash rambler there in the winter,  actually moved the stairs. no laundry shute.  We lived in a 2family house until i was 12, corner of Sherrington and Glencarin.  One entrance on each street. It burned down when we were juniors in high school. The new house had none of,those things,  My mother never shopped at Heinens.  She had a real,dislike of them altho I have no,idea why.  So lots of “new”experiences for me reading these. 

Thank you for mentioning my grandfather! 

Alan M Cohen

Joseph G Blake

Alan 

Jeff lived on Avalon inthe early 50s and then moved elsewhere in Shaker later. 

I was talking to someone today who used to live on Fontenay and mentioned their neighbor was a Burnet. You mentioned your house on Fontenay was once owned by a Nuckel Plate family. What was the address and I will check with my friend. He is Bob McEwen who was from Shaker and in our class but went away to shcol for the last tow years of High school. 

Thanks

Joe

Alan M Cohen

We lived at 2935 Fontenay.  Then Donnems address was 2945. The Burnets lived two doors down from us.  

 My wife reminded me that the men's long house from the Shaker settlement was on our lot and a creek, now underground ran through our lot.  There is a plaque in the middle of the street on Fontenay commemorating the settlement

Joseph G Blake

Alan

Sorry I have taken so long to reply.

If you or others are interested you can go to this link and get the building card for your home at 2935 Fontenay.

http://shakerbuildings.com/search.php

Under Key word enter the street address. If the house is still standing it will be in the records. In the last decade or so some houses have been taken down largely because the house was badly neglected and not worth the cost of restoring it relative to the estiated FMV. The value of properties fluctuated widely between 2008 and 2013. In general prices have come back to where they were in 2005. The number of houses leveled is around 125 and many of these were south of Van Aken.

The builder of the house is sometimes also the original owner. Prior to 1930 many times a builder would buy several lots and then build houses for speculative resale. The houses are not the same like you might find in development. The builder had to submit an architectural plan to the Van Sweringen Company for approval, 

The cost estimate is for the house but does not include the cost of the lot. 

A few times the address of a house may have changed over the years for various reasons. You can also search by architect which is quite interesting. George Burrows worked for over 40 years in Shaker and is credited with more than 920 structures. These homes can be listed under various names Burrows used for his business. Sometimes he used his own name, his name with a partner or the name of his firm etc. 

The architect who designed our house worked as Nichold and Fritsche until 1935. Bill Fritsche left Cleveland to help found Technicolor Inc in California and his partner Nichols worked thereafter for many years as a solo practicioneer. Bill realized that there was a not a lot of money to be made designing houses for the well off during a depression.

Dana Shepard (Treister)

Joe~

The building card for my childhood home (building permit issued 1929) lists:

Owner: Cann, N. D.
Builder: Cann, N. D.
Architect: Wefel, W. J.

I searced for info about either names when you first led me to this exciting source of historical info, and again upon reading your post today - but I find NOTHING about either. Just curious if either name is familiar to you, as a preeminent Shaker Heights historian.

DANA

Betsy Dennis (Frank)

I am just catching up on this fascinating discussion. When I was in sixth grade my parents were looking for a new house. I thought Forest Hills would be great, but alas no Jews allowed so we ended up on Gridley, just down the block from Judi Bachman's house. In our old house we had a milk box and coal chute. The house on Gridley had a milk box that also served as a mail box.  Joe, your historical skills are wonderful! Betsy

Joseph G Blake

Dear Betsy aand Dana 

Thanks for your kind words. I apologize for delay in answering your questions in re WJ Wefel. I was in Boston for the holidays and did not have access to my laptop to do some research.

In re WJ Wefel his name was Walther J Wefel Jr. There are 15 buildings designed by WJ Wefel or related names like Wefel and Wefel. Most of them are noted as WJ Wefel or Walther Wefel.

Of note is that he was the architect for Grace Lutheran Church in Cleveland Heights. 

https://www.clevelandheights.com/DocumentCenter/View/187/Landmark-Brochure-PDF

See item 8 on page 19. The narrative notes he also worked in Church of the Saviour on Lee Road albeit John W.C. Corbusier was the principal architect who also designed the Salmon Halle mansion overlooking Horseshoe Lake. Its also the largest private residence in Shaker. 

More on Grace Lutheran Church

http://www.heightsobserver.org/read/2016/09/01/grace-lutheran-church

Nelson D Cann built 16 houses in Shaker in the 1920s with various architects. He built another house with Wefel. Wefel apparently opend an office in the Unon Building circa 1922. 

Forest Hill is alwyas mentioned as still restricted in the 1950s. Its singular not Hills or plural. As most of you know it was the summer home of the Rockefeller Family until 1917 when the house burned down. In the mid 1920s John D Jr decided it should be developed for single family homes and as a project it was given to his sons to do. 

By the time this was underway Cleveland Heights was much more welcoming than Shaker Heights to major Jewish institutions. Temple on the Heights (circa 1926) was underway not far from the Forest Hill development.Likewise, Oakwood Country Club opened on Warrensville Center Road in 1905. It was the first major Jewish institution to be based in the city. Of course Hebrew Academy was built in Cleveland Heights in 1943 and Park Synagogue in 1942. 

It is said John D Jr tried to get the Temple relocated but he did not succeed.He offered a sum to the Temple to do so but then Rabbi Rosnthal was not interested.  In 1927 the Vans instituted the 1927 deeds in Shaker Heigts to control resale of property. This included the so called Van Sweringen consent that reserved to the company the right to approve all subsequent resales of property.  This happened when a property on Huntington was sold in a  resale to a black doctor and the community was aroused. The Vans bought out the black owner and redeeded around 90% of the city at the time with the consent feature. Likewise a group called the Shaker Protective Society was set up. Its goal was to ensure blacks did not buy in Shaker and among its founders was Newton D Baker, former Mayor of Cleveland, ex Secretary of War under Wilson duing WW1 and partner in Baker Hostetler and Patterson. I mention this only to establish how acceptable these attitudes were among the Protestant elite. 

I mention this because Forest Hill included this feature as well. The Rockefellers copied the Vans. I recall as a child hearing some friends of my parents who lived there say with some pride that they would never have Jewish or black neighbors in Forest Hill. The Van Sweringen consent while based in a wish to control who could buy a house in a resale and therefore could be discriminatory in effect was never challenged legally because the deed does not refer to any group as being exlcuded. I appreciate that there were individuals and other ways used to direct people away and that is a story in itself. In 1948 the Supreme Court ruled in Shelley Vs Kraemer that restrcitve covenants that exlcuded people based on race or religion were not legally enforeable. But the Van Sweringen consent made no such restriction despite that being a possible outcome.

The relatioship between the Vans and the Jewish community is more complicated. The Vans never offered or invited a major Jewish instiution to locate in Shaker. The Vans proactively sought the location of US, Hathaway Brown and Laurel schools to the city. They helped the location of Plymouth Church and First Baptst Church to locate in Shaker. 

The company was happy to sell land to Jewish buyers witness the Halle Mansion on Horseshoe Lake or  the Horwitz Mansion on Parkland built in the 1920s. The commericial realities necessiated that they sell and pay down their debt. Charles Colman was the grandfather of Dick Halle and Judy Bachman Holtze in our class. He was Jewish and designed 26 residences in Shaker for a largely Jewish clientele between 1922 and 1960.Colman was also the on site architect for Park Synagogue in Clevelnad Heights.  By 1940 around 10% of the school enrollment was Jewish. 

The leading decorator in Cleveland in the era of the Vans was Louis Rorimer. He was Jweish and he or his firm Rorimer Brooks did the interior design work for every major Van Sweringen project or residence( this would include the Country Club in Pepper Pike, the Greenbriar Suite at the Terminal, Roundwood Manor at Daisy Hill, the Moreland Courts and many more). The firm was used by all the establishment of the day. His son James later was the director of Meropolitan Musem in NYC and is the inspiration for the movie Monument Men. In 1922 GGG Peckham built his home at 15700 South Park. The interior was designed and completely furnished by Rorimer Brooks. All the furniture was made in their work shops. The house remained largley unchnaged for the next 60 plus years. In the late 1980s his daughter Phyllis sold the house complete with all the furniture. The then buyer was greatly attracted to buy the house not only for its prime location but also the furniture. Sadly the house is there but the furniture is gone.

The Vans thought only in terms of the commerical realities of their time which were huge given the scale of their operations in real estate and railroads. But that is another story for next summer when I plan to give a talk during the week of 55th reunion. 

Betsy Dennis (Frank)

Thanks Joe for your thorough history. So much to learn about our hometown. Do you know the Jewish enrollment during our time at Shaker? I do know the schools were closed on the High Holy Days. Thanks, Betsy

Dana Shepard (Treister)

Joe~

Happy Thanksgiving!  Doesn't my family look JUST like Norman Rockwell -- except the picture was taken BEFORE we had loaded our plates?!

Once AGAIN thanks for sharing your wealth of information about our home town - which I have shared with a few other non Class of 64 Shaker friends and relatives!  Fascinating to know a bit more about the architect of the only home (now sadly demolished...) I knew until I left for college.

Like Betsy, now I have ANOTHER follow-up question: 

Now that I know about the architect, do you happen to know anything about the 1929 owner and builder of record "N. D. Cann"?

Thanks!

DANA

Joseph G Blake

Betsy

In re your question about school enrollmment in the 1960s, I referred to a paper written by  Marian Morton. a professor at JCU. Its titled:Deferring Dreams: Racial and Religious Covenants in Shaker Heights, Cleveland Heights and East Cleveland 1925-1970.

She notes the following data:

"The Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland estimated that Jewsh children constituted 9.3% of Shaker's school population in 1944,16 percent in 1951, and 18.4 percent in 1968. The federation also estimated that there were 14,700 Jews  in Shaker Heights in 1970, slightly more than 40% of Shaker's population."

1970 is the population peak for Shaker. It has since lost about 1/3 of its population ( 37,000 versus 28,000). A factor in that has been the decline in family size since then. 

A comment about school population in Shaker would be the relatively large number of children now and in the 1960s that attend private or parochial schools. Shaker still has three private schools (US lower school, HB and Laurel) based there and is served by two Catholic parochial schools ( Gesu and St. Dominic).Likewise, there are upper schools for US and Hawken outside the city and of course various Catholic high schools like Gilmour and St Ignatius that Shaker families might select then and now.  Hence the actuall enrollment in the public schools might have been less gentile  than the whole community.  In the 1960s that would still be true. If the JCF data above is correct, then Shaker had a larger total Jewish population (40%) circa 1968 than Jewish school age population (18.4%). This may reflect a larger number of older Jewish adults who lived in apartments or smaller families.

The same source for Cleveland Heights Jewish school population  for comparison is as follows: 33.6% in 1944, 47.3% in 1951 and 19.8% in 1968. The JCF reports there was a large inlfux of Orthodox Jews in the 1940s. Hebrew Academy opened there in the 40s and there was substantial migration from Glenville in those years as well. 

There was in our time in school a difference in the various elementary school districts in terms of religious mix. Lomond was relativley more Jewish than Malvern for example which may reflect factors including informal discrimination. Some of you have noted previously facing or hearing about problems buying homes east of South Woodland in the 1950s which has to be reflected in the school population mix. 

I have always had a feeling that about 1/3 of school children attended private or parochial schools in our day. Using that assumption one might estimate  that the high school was about 1/3 Jewish. But to be accurate the JCF data may need some closer analysis of the sources to answer why the school age population is 18.4% versus 40% of the total population in the late 60s. 

Anyone who would like a copy of Professor Morton's paper please let me have you email and I will send it  to you. Mine is jblake9147@aol.com. Its worth a look and is 7 pages. Discusses the Forest Hill story in some detail.

Hope this helps.

Joseph G Blake

Dear Dana

In re ND Cann you probably saw that I wrote this.

Nelson D Cann built 16 houses in Shaker in the 1920s with various architects. He built another house with Wefel. 

I found that ND Cann in 1915 (City Directory) lived at 1431 E 94th St. I checked the address and the house now as then was a large two family home possibly like your home on Avalon. Its a classic Cleveland upper and down porch house. Cleveland is unique in having a two family design where bth the first and secnd floor tenant have a big open porch. The area then was comfortably middle class and not far from Martin Luther King Dr ( then Liberty Blvd with the cultural gardens). Its close to both Wade Park, then a very fashionable area and the Hough district. 

I hope that helps some. 

Joseph G Blake

Dana

One more thought about Cann would be he built 16 house in Shaker and often shows himself as builder. This suggests to things. That he built houses on speculation but none after 1930. He may have also built some and rented them as an investment. Some builders did do that when they could not sell. In his career Chester Lowe desinged 178 houses in Shaker. Of these ten were built in Fernway by JE Owings in the late 1920s. Some of these I know Owings did not sell right away and rented them. Its called commercial risk. 1927 was the peak year for building permits- 438 residences. So builders buying several lots and building homes was good for the Vans. But these houses are always very unique. The Lowe houses have some similarity but are never identical and of course built in the various districts of Shaker and vary considerably in size. 

Dana Shepard (Treister)

Joe~

Thanks for the additonal info on the "builder" of my childhood home.  Now I am curious as to who the other owners were between c. 1930 when Mr Cann probably put the new house on the market,  and 1946 when my parents bought.

My mother sold the house in 1974 and moved to an apartment complex in Beachwood.  She was a meticulous record-keeper, and it was I and only I who went through ALL the filing drawers after she died almost 19 yrs ago.  Who knows?  I might even have that info in one of the folders I saved - although I suspect at that time I was way more focused on financial records, medical history records, and personal papers, than in 1946 real estate transactions!

I've added your details to my own 3674 Avalon Road history file~

DANA

Betsy Dennis (Frank)

Joe, Also Jewish population is moving further east as evidenced by how synagogues have moved east. 

Joseph G Blake

Betsy

Yes very true. In re the synagogues one can follow the movement eastward of the major ones like The Temple, Temple on the Heights and Park Synagogue. Interestingly, Moreland had two small Orthodox synagogues 50 years ago which moved eastward long ago. There are still three in Cleveland Heights includng the original Park Synagogue. Park reflects your comment. They refer to the old one on Mayfield as Park Synagogue Main and the one in Pepper Pike as East. 

In a conversation I had witht the mayor last year he noted that that city was less Jewish today but then most of the inner ring of suburbs that are contiguous to Cleveland have smaller and different populations than 50 years. He gave me that data. Shaker has seen the smallest decline in residents. Cleveland has lost 2/3 of its population. Shaker is about 1/3 down. Sadly Cleveland is no longer used in the designation of the area as a major Metropolitan area. The region has grown outward to the adjacent counties because both Cleveland and Cuyahoga County are smaller by populaton. 

Joe