Oglebay Park -- Another Perspective

Oglebay
I have so many great memories of Oglebay Park. I’m not sure you could live in Wheeling and NOT have memories of Oglebay Park. I attended day camp there and I attended sports camp as well. I loved sports camp, except maybe for archery. I just could not get the hang of that bow, and had the bruises on my right arm from the string to show my lack of skill in that sport. I pretty much enjoyed everything else – tennis, golf, horseback riding, canoeing, and swimming.
When not in camp during the summer, I still spent a considerable number of hours at the pool at Oglebay. Were all those trips to the concession stand really made to get food, or were they staged to catch the eye of the caddies in “caddy corner?” I don’t believe that question even warrants an answer!
I remember Oglebay Park in the winter, too. Sled riding on the hills of the golf course, and ice skating on Schenk Lake are activities I fondly recall. How did our parents get us up to the park with all that snow on the ground? The thought never entered my mind before now, since I wasn’t the one who had to worry about getting there and back. I loved the ice skating, but I was always scared to death that I was going to skate to the end of the lake and slide into the drain (or whatever it is called). I even remember skating there at night.
I remember staying in the cabins with a group of girls. I wonder when those cabins were built. They are still there, along with newer cabins at the Speidel golf course (excuse me, that is the Speidel Golf Club). In the last few years, I have made some trips to Wheeling and stayed in the older cabins and the newer cabins.
I still go back to Oglebay Park on every trip I make to Wheeling. I am still awed by its beauty and all that it has to offer to people of all ages. It’s nice to go back and know that in spite of all the changes (do you know that they now have Segway tours?), so much is still the same. May it continue that way for generations to come.

Roller Skating

by Judy Meier Grace

Before Wheeling had the roller rink (by Linsly), with all of its neon lights, we roller skated up and down Poplar, Maple, and and Walnut Avenues. I think it was just a girl thing--I honestly don't remember. First, you had to have the right kind of shoes--Keds (there were no Nikes, etc.) didn't work, because the skates wouldn't attach. The shoes had to have a good sole so that the skates could be tightened over them. Then the ever-important skate key went around the neck on a string, just in case the skates needed to be tightened while "on the road." Sidewalks were divided at 2-3' intervals. Sometimes a section had to be replaced, so the areas were of different textures and colors. Some were cracked, some had shifted. A skater knew her sidewalks and where there was smooth sailing. Most of us had bandaged knees at some time or other. And at 9 Poplar, we were not allowed to skate on Sundays.

Sounds and Smells of Woodsdale

One of the best smells in the whole world was the air after a summer rain storm. It was rare in Woodsdale in the 50's to smell things like families barbequing in the backyard, but other smells were there....especially in the spring and fall. In spring you could smell the earth coming back to life and things blooming. In fall, you could smell mothers and grandmothers canning the smells of summer for a winter day...tomatoes, peaches, beans and more. A man on upper Poplar told me his favorite smell was mothers making applebutter another said it was the smell of the grass after mowing.

Our childhoods in Woodsdale were full of sounds as well. The synagogue cantor, Mr. Rubenstein practicing for Sabbath prayer. Bill Smoot doing an operatic aria. Children taking piano lessons. Mothers calling kids home for dinner. Dogs barking. Girls chanting as they jumped rope. Kids on pogo sticks going boing, boing, boing. The sound of skates on the sidewalk. Vincent the vegetable man's weighing pan swinging in his truck as he came up the street. I can't recall any loud "record players" or radios...best you could do was a transistor in your pocket while washing the family car. And as the steetlights came on, you would hear parents calling their kids home and kids, being kids saying..."just one more game Puleeeeese". In the summer, late at night you could sometimes hear the murmur of people talking on their porches.

Safe and sane....no sirens, shots ringing out, or people being raped or murdered...just the sounds and smells of normalcy. Tell me, what smells and sounds do you remember?

Ban Screaming Children

Last evening as I sat on my back porch reading, the neighbor's boy who is about 4 was playing with a little girl of about the same age. Every few minutes, the girl would let out a blood curdling scream...I have noticed among little girls, that this is the norm...somewhere along the way, someone gave them the notion that that is a "feminine" thing to do. I used to have a family across the street from me that had three girls that screamed constantly....and one was a real tomboy!

In Woodsdale, if a girl had screamed that way while playing, it would have been assumed that she was being murdered and every mother in the area would have come running. As a child, I don't recall even once playing with another girl and having her scream at the top of her lungs....we would have thought that pretty aberrant behavior! And speaking of noise, I can't remember anyone ever telling us we were making too much noise as we played....it was the background music of Woodsdale.

Parents and grandparents....PLEASE teach little girls that it is possible to have fun WITHOUT screaming!!!!

Security!

I don't know about your house, but ours was never locked. I never once saw a door key in all the time we lived in Woodsdale. I guess with so many kids coming and going at all hours, my parents figured "what the heck, why lock it". Since I had never heard of a burglary or break-in in the whole neighborhood, this made sense to me.
But as a result, we used to come downstairs in the morning and often find people sleeping on the couches. Luckily, they were people we knew...usually kids who had gotten into "the spirits' of fun, and were scared to go home. Or sometimes it was friends of one of my siblings from out of town who just needed a place to crash. Whatever the reason, people knew the door was never locked and they were welcome. My mother would always say, "Do your parents know you are here?" and she would naively believe whatever answer she got.
Usually someone in the family could identify the person in question so we just never worried about it. Now everytime I hear one of those public service annoucements about a "safe house" for children needing refuge...I get a mental picture of bodies on the couches. Wasn't it nice to grow up in a neighborhood that was so trusting and crime-free that you could leave doors unlocked?

At The Hop

This is really a footnote to Judy Meier Grace’s article in which she mentioned dance parties in rec-rooms. I knew I had a couple of old pics. I believe these are from 5th and/or 6th grade. I know that it is not 7th grade because Barbara Bailey cut off her pig tails in 7th grade, and I was finally the same height as Pam Taylor. We should try to contact some of these “Woodsdale Kids” to include them all in the blog. It would be fun establish a picture album associated with all the stories.

Here are some memories from a party at Woody Paull’s house and another one at Susie Rogers’. I hope I identified everyone correctly.

Front L-R: Andy Bates (hidden), Barbara Bailey, Randy Smith, Woody Paull, George Doughty, Howdy Meagle, Bobbie Ross(hidden), Jim Byrum, Pam Taylor, Susie Rogers, Nancy Rogers
Back Corner L-R: Peggy Swart and Marsha Montgomery.

L-R: Nancy Rogers & Randy Smith; Jim Byrum & Barbara Bailey; Susie Rogers & Andy Bates; Pam Taylor & Howdy Meagle

Front Row: Susie Rogers, Cathy Franklin, Rod Otto, Jim Ault, Jim Byrum, Barbara Bailey, Andy Bates, Nancy Parker, Sherry Rosen
Second Row: Randy Smith, Peggy Swart, George Doughty, Nancy Rogers, Bobbie Ross, Barbara Weirick, Marsha Montgomery, Mike Clark, Woody Paull
Back Row: Janis Krogel, Howdy Meagle, Pam Taylor, Howard Kelly, Ann Brown, Stanley Powell

Except at Halloween when we got invaded by kids from Bridgeport and East Wheeling, there didn't seem to be a lot of strangers in our neighborhood. If someone new moved in EVERYONE couldn't wait to see what ages their kids were, etc. Though we didn't have any block parties, parents seemed to know each other and everyone was respectful of each other's privacy.

I remember being asked to go over to Rubenstein's to light their stove on the Sabbath as they were Orthodox and unable. Stuart Rubenstein had the biggest comic collection in the area so it was good to stay on his good side. He was afraid to stay alone in the house and used to give one of my sisters his allowance to stay with him when his parents went out. By all reports his only interest was reading every volume of the encyclopedia.

Another memory that popped into my head today was making dolls out of the hollyhocks that grew in the alley...the flowers made a beautiful skirt for a clothespin with a drawn-on face. Also nipping off the ends of the honeysuckle and tasting the nectar was a treat...I liked the smell of it. But I was NOT a fan of pulling wings off lightning bugs and making necklaces and rings....that was too yucky for me....now putting them in a jar with holes in the top and bringing them inside to watch from your bed was a different thing. The sound of cicadas so loud you could hardly hear each other talking on the front porch was weird and if they stopped it was a bad omen.

I learned early that bugs always bite more when there is going to be a big storm. This came in handy one summer when my sister Amy and I were working in a souvenier shop on the boardwalk in Asbury Park. The shop was open on two sides and and the ocean was within 60 ft of us. When the bugs started biting we warned the owner that we were about to have a really big storm and he laughed it off with a comment about "you West Virginia girls don't know anything". A few minutes later a wind storm blew all his souvenier hats down the boardwalk and we were laughing so hard we did not even try to help him retrieve them. Seeing lightning over the ocean is spectacular and I remember how it looked even to this day.

There were secrets in our neighborhood too. Who knew that the popsicle man sold fireworks....not me! What secrets did you learn about Woodsdale only after you moved away or grew up?

The Snake Pit

The following information about Oglebay's Snake Pit was taken from an article that Mr. Porter (of Triadelphia High fame) wrote for the State Teachers' Journal in 1950:
In 1949, 1110 sixth grade students from Ohio County visited the nature center at Oglebay. "The aim of this first hand study was to teach these children what nature is and the advantages of a knowledge of nature; recognition of some of the common amphibians and reptiles of this area; to know at sight the poisonous reptiles and to be prepared to give first aid in case of snake bite; to learn something about the common game and fur-bearing animals, and the economic importance of mammals; to distinguish trees from shrubs and herbs, and to learn the trees of this region."
He went on to write, "The Nature Museum is housed in a semi-circular buiding surrounding a silo that has been converted into a medieval story-telling tower. Designed to acquaint people with the common animals of the area, the museum also serves as a convenient center for the dissemination of nature information."
"Fourteen cages, a turtle pit, a barnyard zoo, and a snake pit serve for the shelters for the animals being exhibited. A wooden railing protects the animals and keeps people a safe distance from the cages."
"Animals common to this part of the state and caged at the museum-zoo are chipmunks, barn owls, bobwhite quail, woodchuck, gray squirrels, red squirrels, raccoons, cottontail rabbits, skunks, gray foxes, two mink , and a fawn."
"Only nonpoisonous snakes are kept in the pit. Among these are the smooth green snake, milk snake, pilot black snake, queen water snake, common water snake, and garter snake."
"Also featured [in the museum] are aquaria, terraria, local insects, a few mammal skins, serveral deer heads, one moose and two elk heads. Common minerals and a vertical section of an oil well showing the geology of this section are also on exhibit."
"Yes, Oglebay museum and zoo are a valuable aid in providing first hand information for classes in nature study and biology."

Who knew? the seemingly heartless, infinitely cynical Mr. Porter had a love of nature?

Another article in the Journal in April 1951 gave survival secrets in what to do when the atomic bomb fell on your school. The comments in parentheses of course, are mine:

1. Try to get shielded (yea, right)
2. Drop Flat on Ground or Floor (this way you have less distance to fall when you die)
3. Bury Your Face in Your Arms (this is so you don't see your teacher becoming hysterical)
4. Don't Rush Outside Right After a Bombing (there won't be anything left to see anyway and you won't be around to see it)
5. Don't Take Chances with Food or Water (if you should survive you will die from eating or drinking!)
6. Don't Start Rumors (like we should do away with all bombs)

At Woodsdale I can remember being taught to hide under desks then later we were taught to line up along the lockers in the upstairs hallways. Glad those days are over, there is nothing like scaring children to the point of nightmares.