CINCINNATI, OHIO

The Ohio River

After the visit to mother’s cousins in Centerville, Maryland, and the Easter egg roll at the White House in Washington, D.C., the school year had ended and my mother, Charles, and I were on the train again back to Ohio and Cincinnati.

The only thing I remember about this train trip is the huge wheels on the engine as it entered the station and the great puffs of steam and the loud noise it made as it thundered past us. We were standing there right near the tracks. My father met us in Cincinnati. I probably slept most of the trip and my brother, Charles, teased me about missing the famous Horse Shoe Bend in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Cincinnati is a beautiful city across the Ohio River from Kentucky and not too far from the Indiana state line.

Just for fun I asked a friend this question, “If you fly to Cincinnati, what state are you in when you arrive?” If their answer is Ohio, you say, “Wrong, Kentucky.” Downtown Cincinnati is on the Ohio River. The Cincinnati airport is across the river in Covington, Kentucky.

My father had a Masters degree in social services from Indiana University. He decided to settle in Cincinnati as a social worker.

To try to bring out the essence of my life from 2^nd grade through 12 years old would only connect the dots of school life year after year. There was life after school, family life, social life, mental and physical changes, risks taken or avoided, fun times, happy times, and sad times. I will just record interesting and relevant things of interest and connect them with my age or grade, or place.

Cincinnati, Ohio, is a most interesting city, just across the river from Kentucky, a former slave state. At age 6, I was not aware or interested in that aspect of my beginnings there. I was fascinated with the great hills and valleys, the large zoo with lions, tigers, elephants, zebras, birds and more. My brother, Mossell, would take me to see the ice-skating dancers with music by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Most of the suburban communities are on hills, Walnut Hills, Price Hill, College Hill, and others. There were cable cars. Big cables moved the cars. The line was called the Zoo-Eden. At the top of the big hill was Eden Park, and at the end of the line was the zoo. Of course, I was too young to be aware of all of these interesting things at age six, until later.

Our first night or maybe the first few days in the city were in downtown in a room or small apartment. I remember a big goose would chase me every time I would go out the back door. It never did catch me. We settled in a house at l974 North Main Street in Mount Auburn. Our street ended at the top of what was called “The City Steps.” From the cement steps leading down to Maine Street in downtown Cincinnati, I could see the whole downtown from there. There were several hundred steps. I don’t remember going all the way down or coming up.

There were other ways – thank goodness.

Here are a few unconnected things I remember. I think my mother convinced the school that because of my experience in Washington the year before, a daily visitor with the first grade class, I could manage in the second grade in spite of my age. In the playground, my buddy Louis somehow had learned the phrase “holy ghost” fixed in his mind. The two of us with our arms locked round each of our shoulders, were skipping around the outer area of the playground, shouting the words “holy ghost.” It was fun. When I got home, I told my mother about the fun. I don’t remember exactly what my father said, But I got the message.

Times must have been hard then, one day, my friend Louis had two slices of white bread for his lunch pressed together with nothing in between. Not funny.

My buddy, Clinton, and I would go near Jackson Hill and pick dandelion greens and sell them in the neighborhood for ten cents a bushel. We would each have five cents and buy a large chocolate candy bar.

We were out playing about a block from the house and I happened to feel a bump on my lower jaw. I told my brother, Charles, I doubt if he was playing with my group because he was two years older, but he took me by the hand and rushed me back to the house. My father took a look and said “Oh, that’s just a wisdom tooth coming in.”

My brother, Frank, was about twelve or thirteen at that time, and living with my grandparents at Wilberforce. He was probably visiting us at the time. He was in the kitchen heating a kettle of water, being a teenager. he somehow swung the kettle around and some of the scalding water landed on my left arm. I remember things at age three, but I don’t remember that painful experience, but I carried the burn marks for many years.

I had my tonsils and adenoids removed that year at Christ Hospital. (My wife was born in that hospital) that same year, June 16, 1921. All I remember is the awful buzzing sound during the recovery from the ether they gave me

Mr. and Mrs. Frey lived a few doors away from us and their daughter at age eighteen, married a young man, Doy Robins. About the same time we were leaving Mt. Auburn to live in Walnut Hills. We bought a house there at 1311 Myrtle Avenue and the newlyweds rented our 2^nd floor.