A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

sandwich. (Can you imagine today’s youngsters wanting that?) Sometimes we had soup or bread andjelly. Mother would give me ‘grandma’s tea’-half tea and half milk. Occasionally, if Mother had to godowntown, I would be allowed to go over to Cozy Corner (located in the house at the southeast corner ofLlanfair and Dave) where they served soup and a sandwich to the school children.Mother had bought a piano and had Miss Brown, my first grade teacher, gave me lessons. I tooklessons from her for several years, then mother decided to send me to the College of Music (then locatednext to Music Hall). That was when I started riding the street cars by myself. I went to the College ofMusic on Saturdays and had lessons for several years with Irene Carter. After I started to Hughes HighSchool I had lessons with Isle Huebner.Thinking back to the early days of my childhood, I am remembering what life was like. At thebeginning of my memories there were only horse drawn wagons to serve the customers. A regularmorning event was the arrival of the ice wagon-the driver would chip out a block, carry it in with histongs and place it in the old oak ice chest for mother. I still have the old ice pick in a kitchen drawer.Another morning caller would be the milk man. I think we used to get our milk from Steiner, who had adairy farm on North Bend Road a short distance east of Argus-his pastures ran down to the edge ofCataract Woods, where Lou and I used to play and we could see his cows. A butcher wagon used to comeby, but I don’t remember who had it. Another family mother used to get vegetables from was the Bauers,whose farm was up on the east side of Hamilton Pike north of New Burlington. They came once a weekwith vegetables and I think cottage cheese which Mrs. Bauer used to make. We were invited to visit themon the farm and I remember one Sunday being there when they made home-made peach ice cream, thefirst peach ice cream I ever tasted.During World War I feelings were high and even reached the children. Lou’s parents were fromGermany and she had a pro-German attitude which nearly wrecked our friendship for awhile. At this timenearby German Road became Daly Road as it remains today. My parents bought War Bonds and even atschool the war effort was stressed. I was in the fourth grade when we were taught how to pick oakumapart and knot squares to be put together to make blankets. I remember a big parade that all the schoolstook party in-the girls wore white dresses and wore a sort of headdress with a red cross pinned on it. I canremember being downtown in it and marching down Sycamore Street. Our next door neighbor, LeonardWesthoff, Gertrude’s older brother, was sent into the Army-he looked handsome in his uniform. He wassent to Camp Sherman near Chillicothe, and we used to drive up on a Sunday to visit him. We werehearing stories of German atrocities-one about Edith Cavell, as nurse, as I remember. We didn’t have onethe scary blackouts which became so common during WW II. War never seemed to get so close to us inthe First World War.College Hill was beginning to grow. More stores were built along the Avenue and houses werespringing up north of North Bend Road. Earlier we used to have to go down to Cumminsville to see amovie at the Liberty or the Park. I think it was about this time that the Hollywood was built. There was anice cream shop in the store to the left of the lobby, which we patronized after a movie. I think it was aboutthis time that the bank building was built at the corner of Cedar where the chestnut grove had been. Wenow had our own swimming pool at Town Hall and didn’t have to go down to Cumminsville playground.There were also the tennis courts at Town Hall. It lost its importance after we were annexed to Cincinnati.I remember that there was a Building and Loan office in it for a time. We nearly lost it-our SamuelHannaford building-as the city wanted to tear it down. Thank goodness they didn’t succeed!In the fall of 1923 I started to Hughes High School and sadly watched our old school building beingtorn down. I think it was several years before the present building was completed. Students were taken toMt. Airy School at that time. I took the music course and was excused a bell early to go home to practicepiano. I went into the orchestra and Mr. Kratz started me on cello. After my afternoon practice sessions Iwould start my walks around the hill to relax. Shortly thereafter I began cello lessons as well as piano atthe College of Music. For awhile we were able to ride the traction for a nickel until the street car companystopped them from picking up passengers below North Bend Road. My cello and I used to board thetraction and ride down to the terminal on Spring Grove Avenue across from the end of Spring GroveCemetery. There a bus waited to take us downtown. Lots of times I had to stand and I remember236