Since graduating from Shaw High School in 1958, I have educated myself, married a wonderful wife, raised two great kids, and pursued happiness through a number of interesting hobbies, all of which was supported by a long and checkered career in government, health care and higher education mostly in the Cleveland area.
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| Shaw High School |
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| Shaw High School |
One of my hobbies is Big Band Music as the leader of the Smart Set Band. Click on this link for more information about that:
Smart Set Band
Another of those hobbies is the study of Cleveland area history with an emphasis on the History of East Cleveland. My youth spent in East Cleveland was a wonderful time. And I have been spending a lot of my retirement trying to recapture the spirit of East Cleveland during the time that I lived there from 1940 to 1963. As I write a section of my memoirs, I will post it to this blog.
If anyone wants to comment on my memoirs or has some memories they wish to share, please post a comment.
For more Dreifort family history go to www.dreifort.com
For more Dreifort family history go to www.dreifort.com
Some East Cleveland Images
Here are some images of East Cleveland that should bring back some memories. The first is the old Prospect School before the addition was built to the right of this picture. When I started kindergarten there in 1945, the School included this building and the addition. There were two playgrounds, one between the new building and Euclid Avenue and another to the left of this building. The playground to the left was behind a wooden barracks style building, which faced Shaw Avenue and was Shaw High School's band room. Also on that playground was a wooden shed known as the "paper house". That was used during the wartime paper drives. I will later post my class pictures, which were taken on the stairs of the building in this picture.
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| Prospect School |
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| Shaw High School |
Above is a picture of Shaw High School taken in 1933. This is looking South on Shaw Avenue. My home was on the corner of Shaw and Plymouth just behind where the photographer is standing. This was my view as I went to school from 1945 until we moved to Nela View in 1953. More about that later. Just outside of this picture on the left was the Abel Funeral Home. On the right was a gas station and Karl Brown's Colonial Inn, a fine restaurant.
Copyright 2011 Robert C. Dreifort All rights reserved
Copyright 2011 Robert C. Dreifort All rights reserved
This blog is simply wonderful. You are mentioning things that need to be said. It would be nice if you were connected with various classes of SHS to share this information, for instance, at their reunions. Or, if this website/blog were included in various class reunion programs.
ReplyDeleteThis needs to be connected.
AS
c/o 1977
Shaw Cardinal Marching Band Member AND
Shaw High Rhythm Teens "Rhythmette"
Thank you. I have an East Cleveland contacts list, which includes many of the people I knew at Prospect, Kirk and Shaw. We had our 50th reunion in 2008. I have also make contact with a few of those, who lived in my Shaw and Plymouth neighborhood back in the day. Unfortunately most of those I knew have moved out of the area. I am always eager to meet East Cleveland folks and share memories with them.
DeleteI remember Carl Browns! I attended Shaw, my husband and I both graduated in 1969 (met at Kirk Canteen in 9th grade)..my brother graduated in 1959 and my sister in 1961 (she designed the East Cleveland flag). We lived on Shaw Avenue for a couple of years when we were first married. My husband retired as police captain from ECPD. My mother (and all her siblings) attended Shaw and she graduated in 1940. My father was an Illuminating Engineer at Nela Park and designed much of the wonderful Christmas Lighting...too bad you can no longer drive through the park to see wonderful lighting displays like in the 50's.
ReplyDeleteOur best friend told me about your blog..he is the youngest of the Owen family..from Owen's Plantation on Euclid Ave and Shaw....to this day, our best friends are from EC and we have wonderful class reunions so we can all gather and talk about the "good old days"!
Enjoyed very much reading your blog! Thank you!
It looks as if we share a lot of memories. I moved to Nela View in 1953, when I started eighth grade at Kirk. I had a whole new group of friend and experiences there. A lot of the folks in that neighborhood had Nela Park connections. The Dreiforts had GE connections going back to 1912, when my grandfather and his brothers started working at GE. I recently had an opportunity to tour Nela Park as a part of the 100 year celebration. I hope to write more about the Caledonia neighborhood soon.
DeleteIf your husband was with the ECPD, he may have known a Chief named Murphy. I am pretty sure that was his name. I know that name, because he purchased our house at 1021 Nela View in about 1960. I have been by that house lately and it is one of the best maintained on the street.
DeleteI enjoyed reading your blog and learning about your life on Plymouth Place! My late grandfather, Carl Opitz Jr, and his family lived there during this time. He raised my mother there, along with her older brother Art. Art was born in 1936, played baseball, and passed away in 1950 from Leukemia. Because I knew so little about him, I decided to look online, hoping to find a perhaps map of the area. Much to my surprise I find your map, with stories which are very insightful and now help me to know better an uncle I never met. Thank you so much!
DeleteAngel:
DeleteI remember your family well. They lived on the second floor in the last house on the North side of Plymouth Place. They lived above the Morris family right next the the field, which was our playground. Your uncle Art was four years older than me. He was the first person I knew of about my age who died. That was a shock to me at the time and I still think of Artie. His mom gave me a few of his things; one of which is a book about magic, which I still have. If you would like to talk about the old neighborhood, call me. I am in the phone book.
Robert Dreifort
Very close with the name of the ECPD Chief who purchased that beautiful Nela View home! We were the O'Malleys and many of us still drive by to see the yellow house shine! From what I can tell, she is still in the family who bought her from us! I like to read what you write about "our" house and that amazing attic! Thank you! M. O'Malley
DeleteThanks for your comment and correction. I have spoken with more than one of the O'Malleys who lived in that house on Nela View. I also go past that house and am amazed at how well it has survived. It may actually look better than it did when I lived there. Every time I am in the neighborhood I have considered knocking on the door to congratulate the current owners on the condition of the house. So far I haven't done it. That great attic was the place that I hung out and did my hobbies such as amateur radio. I installed an antenna on the roof with a lead in through the West window. My folks bought the house from a family named Salter. The son of Mr. Salter, who I think was named Stanley, contacted me to share some of his memories.
DeleteThanks for the memories Robert. My school, from which I graduated in 1948, was St. Philomena's and we lived in an apartment building directly across from the old Windermere streetcar barns on Euclid Ave, & Beresford. What a great time to have been a kid! I picked up a coin or two shining the shoes of the streetcar conductors after school and at three cents & free transfer would ride downtown to see my beloved Indians - this in the era of Boudreau, Keltner, Gordon and of course Bill Veeck. I believe this was the year that also sparked my life-long love for the Browns and the arrival of Otto Graham, Dante Lavelli and Lou Groza. You were so right about us kids walking to school in those days and never thought the least of it. Didn't have a dad so trying to build my own soapbox for the Derby was doomed to failure - as was trying to fix my old bicycle with a pair of pliars and constantly skinned knuckles. My best friend in school...mostly Irish kids, was Tommy McGonigle. (Deceased). He and I were rightly regarded by the long-suffering but tolerant nuns as the biggest "cut-ups" in the history of the parish. Entertainment was limited to the Windermeer theater two or three times a week and that meant much exposure to Roy Rogers - and by extension, a longing for the return of traditional values, Thanks again Robert for dusting off a few images long forgotten. Bill Gallagher, Lubbock, Texas
ReplyDeleteBill: Thanks for reading and commenting on my blog. Those were great times and East Cleveland was a great time to grow up. I am probably about 5 years younger than you. However the memories we share are quite similar. It seems as if the Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Browns were at their best when we were young. I was eight years old in 1948. The Indians were the center of my life that year. When the tribe beat the Red Sox in the playoff game, they played the final innings on the PA system at Prospect school. I remember running home yelling "the Indians won the pennant". I clearly remember the 1950 championship game when Lou Groza kicked the game winning field goal. I was lying on the living room floor listening to the game on the radio. I was in despair until Lou kicked that field goal in the final seconds.
DeleteRobert, I am Karl Brown's grandaughter. Lived on Shawview and went to Chambers Elementary
ReplyDeleteLaurie: Thanks for reading my blog. Your grandfather was a big part of East Cleveland history. Not only did he have a great business; but he also was a member of the School Board. I would love to hear some of your memories of East Cleveland and your grandfather. You could comment on this blog or contact me at robert@dreifort.com.
DeleteMy memories don't extend back as far as most of these, but I did attend Prospect Elementary, Kirk Middle School and graduated from Shaw High. Such fun times, such great memories.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading. The East Cleveland experience was similar for those of us living there from the 1930s through the 1960s. Our memories may be slightly different if we lived there in different decades; but the basic community institutions and atmosphere were very stable throughout that period. They were great times.
ReplyDeleteI lived and grew up on Noble Road in East Cleveland. The homes were “doubles” or up and downstairs units with separate entrances. At one point my grandfather lived upstairs, then later my dad’s aunt. It was not considered an affluent neighborhood, but it was super safe and we seldom locked our doors or closed our garage. We knew everyone and everyone was friendly and looked out for one another.
ReplyDeleteOur house was near Elderwood, where we played baseball in the street. There was also an empty field behind the Euclid Avenue stores and between Noble and Rosedale homes which served as a much better place for a baseball game without the traffic interruption.
Attending Christ the King School, we walked to school every day, went home for lunch. Officer MacDonald, known by “Mac”, ensured that children safely crossed Euclid Avenue every day. He was fun and appeared very handsome to me as a young school girl. Sort of a knight in shining armor with his police uniform and cap displaying his badge. He once showed us a class photo pointing out one of his celebrity classmates. Mac’s classmate, Ernie Anderson, became Ghoulardi, Cleveland’s Horror Host.
Every sunny day of summer was spent at Shaw Pool and its playground. From morning until dinner time. The Noble Road gang would ride their bikes and swim all day long. Our bike trip would include a stop at a corner shop and for a few coins we would leave with a slew of penny candy. Sometimes along the journey we would find empty glass soda bottles and return them for extra candy spending money. On Saturdays we would attend the matinees at Shaw Hayden Theater and 50 cents got you into the matinee, plus popcorn and soda. If we had leftover change, we would stop at Mary’s Sweet Shop on our return home.
One cannot mention life in East Cleveland without remembering the annual tradition of driving through Nela Park, the “World’s First Industrial Park” to see the dazzling holiday lights at Christmas time. Nor can one forget Euclid Beach on Lake Shore Boulevard. I loved Euclid Beach with The Thriller, The Flying Turns, Over the Falls, the force of friction ride The Rotor, and Laugh in the Dark with scary Laffing Sal. And of course, worth the trip to the amusement park alone was the Humphrey legendary popcorn balls. If I remember correctly, I saw Gary Lewis and the Playboys at Euclid Beach Park in the early 1960’s.
I lived all over the US and with a long list of various residences, East Cleveland holds very positive memories of neighbors, environment, and experiences. And it will always hold a special place in my heart!
Thanks for sharing your memories. You remember East Cleveland the same way as I and most of my commenters. It was a wonderful place to grow up. I hope my other readers get to read your comment as well.
ReplyDelete