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

wrapping my arm around the neck of my cello and a post until I got down there. I studied cello withArthur Knecht. I played in the Hughes Orchestra and the College of Music Junior Orchestra. At this timemusic was my main interest, but I always had an interest in history.Thanksgiving and Christmas were always family gatherings. Usually it would be Aunt Laura’sfamily coming from Bond Hill. We always had turkey and all the trimmings. One of my jobs was to fillthe big fruit bowl for the table centerpiece. Mother always bought kumquats at Christmas and we hadapples, oranges, tangerines, bananas and grapes to put in the huge bowl, then English walnuts and pecansscattered in among the fruit. Nutcrackers and picks were placed around the foot of that bowl. We alwaysmade Waldorf salad which I helped to make and Mother always had me make the dressing for it-a ¼teaspoon of dry mustard, a tablespoon of sugar in a pan, breaking an egg over them and beating overboiling water until the egg started to thicken, then thinning it with cream. Our vegetable was alwaysBrussels sprouts. The family always remarked about mother’s dressing almost green with the amount ofparsley she used in it. Those were wonderful occasions with Aunt Laura and the cousins gathered aroundour table. Mildred, Florence and Freddie were my cousins. Christmas was always a special time for me asI was married on Christmas Eve of 1929.Cedar Avenue had been just a macadam road with no curbs for a long time, but finally they builtcurbs, but the constant build-up of macadam made the street higher than the sidewalks. It was in the 40’sbefore it was finally made a concrete street. We had two Lombardy poplars, one on each side of the lot, sowhen the driveway was built it had to be curved because of the one tree. The beautiful Italian magnolia inthe front yard was planted when I was a very small child-I am sure that it must be much more than eightyyears old today. I always pray that we don’t get a freeze to spoil the blossoms each spring. I wonder noweach winter if I am going to be here to see it bloom the next spring. I love my home here and dread thetime that death will take me from it. (Ruth passed away in 2004).After Mrs. Burke and her daughter and son-in-law, Carrie and Tony Epping, (another daughter wasmarried to Mr. Neuzell) moved to Denver, the house east of ours was bought by the Wuest family. Mr.Wuest had one son, Charles, who lived just south of the Knights of Columbus building on HamiltonAvenue in Northside; another son, Dick, was in the Navy stationed in China-he sent many things homefor his father to sell, the Chinese trinkets I have came from him. Charles’ daughter, Elizabeth Wuest, wasin our 1927 class at Hughes High School. The Wuest family, mother named Julia, lived there for manyyears. Mr. Wuest had a number of grape vines and made wine. He also had a chicken pen at the back ofthe lot-a pet hen named Jerry, whom I used to visit. She would sit beside me on a box in the pen and ‘talk’to me. They had a handicapped son, who had been hit on the head with a baseball, making him speechlessand unable to walk. Mother Julia took care of Edwin for many years. She died several years after theycelebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Mr. Wuest lived there alone until his death. Mother Juliawas a short, roly-poly little woman, with very dark eyes, of whom I was very fond and spent a lot of timewith-she would have me come over to help her bake a cake. There was a daughter, Mrs. Exley, who cameto live with them during an illness-she had a son who became a doctor and a daughter, Virginia.I can’t remember all of the families who lived in that house, but Verne and Zoe Yates were there fora long time-that was after Ralph and I were married. Also Leonard and Harriet Franks were there for along time-we used to spend a lot of time with those two families. The Franks were still there after Ralphdied.To the west in Mr. Biddle’s house I remember best the Friesens, a widowed mother and daughterCatherine-I was still in grade school when they were there-I remember that Catherine made a littlepowder compact for me, with hand painted flowers. Much later Cara Fernbach lived there-y that time Iwas actively searching for Colerain Township history and she helped a lot with that, having lived in theold Charles Cone Inn (which had been in the old town of Crosby) during the 1913 flood. I was interestedin that building because it was opposite Dunlap’s Station site on the Greta Miami River. She told me thatthey had to get out in such a hurry that she left her diamond ring on the mantel and feared that it would belost, but after the flood subsided they found it still on the mantel inches deep in mud.She was very interested in what I was trying to do in preserving Colerain township history andwould go with me on trips out into the township. She told me many things that she remembered about the237