Answers to Wheeling Questions

1. What was the name of the red-headed man who walked up Wheeling Creek each morning from Benwood to find golf balls at Oglebay and Wheeling Country Club.

Answer: Haney Scary scary man. He felt the woods around Oglebay and Wheeling Country Club were his and would chase you out of there.

2. What do Larry Dezio, Chris Smith and Rick Asmus have in common?

Answer: They black spray-painted “MOOSE” on the Linsly Aviator statue. A judge sentenced them to a weekend at, I believe named, Rooney's Point located out past Triadelphia...a halfway house before heading to Pruntytown. 'Moose' was Linsly's Latin teacher Miss Metzner's nickname.

3. Who was Alma Henderson?

Answer: An old cantankerous whore house madam in Benwood that we used to call and heckle

4. In the early 60's, what was the name of the hamburger place on the corner of National Road and Edgington Lane?

Answer: Purple Cow...hamburgers were 15 cents. Bruce and Tim Bandi, Joe Steger, I and others hung out in the back room. The pinball machine paid off.

5. What was 'Big Bill' Lias real last name?

Answer: George Liaskakos Here's everything you need to know about Big Bill:
http://www.flexassistant.com/images/Lias.pdf

6. In the book, “Captain's Courageous” (1897) what about Wheeling was mentioned?

Answer: Wheeling Stogies...some reference by a character that if he could survive smoking a Wheeling Stogie he could survive anything

7. What was Linsly School called in 1814?

Answer: Linsly Lancastrian Academy founded by Noah Linsly. Interesting bio link:
http://wheeling.weirton.lib.wv.us/history/people/hallfame/1986lins.htm

8. Who was the first coach of the Wheeling Nailers?

Answer: Walrus-mustachioed Doug Sauter. He moved with the Carolina Thunderbirds to Wheeling in 1992. The name was changed to Nailers due to a dispute with a west coast hockey team also nicknamed 'thunderbirds'

9, What was the nickname for Pogues Run Road?

Answer: Nun's Run

10. What football honor was bestowed on Chuck Howley that no other NFL player has received?

Answer: Chuck Howley from Warwood was named Super Bowl MVP for Super
Bowl V, the first time that a defensive player
received the honor and the first time a player
from the losing team won the award.

The Little Kids Table

How many of you had a "little kids table"? Such a table was necessary when the number of children exceeded the number of seats at the main dining table. Of course, high chairs were still allowed at the "big" table out of necessity, but if you could feed yourself, you were assigned to the little kids table.
At the Quinnery there was a constantly revolving number of kids joining or leaving the little kids table...which was a high honor. As the older ones went off to college or elsewhere there was less and less need for the table and eventually it was just a memory.
I loved being at the main table and able to listen in on all of the talk. My father was a Republican and my mother a Democrat so political talk would have been lively...if there had been any..but my mother didn't proffer her opinions. Most of the talk was about school or weekend plans, books, hobbies, etc.
The most important thing one learned at either table was that manners were not just important, they demonstrated who you were. Too bad fewer families feel that way today using conflicting schedules as an excuse for not sitting down together.
Graduating to the big table was as important in our family as an actual school promotion!

"Turkey Day"

Thanksgiving, or as we knew it best way back then, "Turkey Day", was the beginning of the "holiday season". To kids this meant it was about one month left to be good until Christmas.
The center of the day was my grandmother's kitchen, the busiest place in the house. The smells and the sights were only the beginning of the orgy we knew as the Thanksgiving feast. The bird was the center of the meal. No frozen, prepackaged gobbler with Stove Top Dressing. The main course was fresh and wrapped in white butcher's paper. The stuffing was started several days ahead when bread was pulled into small pieces, enough to fill the large roasting pan, and left to dry out. Mouth-watering pumpkin and minced meat pies were baked and cooling on the long kitchen table. While the peeled potatoes were soaking in water ready to be mashed and smothered in giblet gravy. Fresh cranberries were rinsed and soon to be cooked and fashioned into salad and topped with Nanny's home-made pineapple sauce. Then there was the marshmallow-topped yams and Waldorf salad. Yum...even now one salivates thinking of those wonderful meals.
Our windows were tastefully decorated with mimeographed pictures of pilgrims, Indians, and autumn leaves colored with good old Crayolas(basic colors, at that) and the hand-traced turkeys that we had been making at school as we learned about that first Thanksgiving.
Beds were made up for my uncle and aunt from Rainelle, WV and his two little girls who would make the long trip up state (pre-interstate highways). Other family would file in just in time for the football games.
The Christmas parades on TV were exciting, even in black and white and were the only programs my sister and I were interested in that day. Following the parade the living room was
dominated by the guys and football. The women shooed the kids out of the kitchen so they wouldn't be "in-the-way". It was usually warm enough to don coats and mittens and play tag with the cousins or rake huge piles of crunchy leaves and gleefully take turns jumping into them. The smell of wood-burning in fireplaces in the chilly air still brings back to mind those November afternoons.
Finally there was that anticipated call from mom to come in...dinner was ready! This is one time there was no dawdling when you were called for dinner. Walking into that warm kitchen , rosy-cheeked from the cold and the outdoor activity, we were greeted by the delectable odors of the Thanksgiving meal. Baked yeast-raised rolls, percolated coffee, turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie made up the mixture of smells that we nostalgically remember as the "turkey day" meal.
When the family gathered around the table and we bowed our heads in prayer we were truly thankful for the wonderful meal shared with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, and siblings.
Even today as many of the places around the table have long been empty, the thoughts of the holiday center around the good food and loving family. Thanksgiving is a true American celebration. Again whatever neighborhood, be it Woodsdale, Elm Grove, Triadelphia, South Wheeling or more....America in the 50s and 60s...a wonderful place and time to be a "kid". Have a "Happy Turkey Day."

Take me Back to the Sixties

Check out this neat link:

http://objflicks.com/TakeMeBackToTheSixties.htm

interesting and fun remembering

Woodsdale School 4th grade: High School Graduation Year 1962

10 questions about Wheeling

10 Questions about Wheeling:

1. What was the name of the red headed man who walked up Wheeling Creek each morning from Benwood to find golf balls at Oglebay and Wheeling Country Club.

2. What do Larry Dezio, Chris Smith and Rick Asmus have in common?

3. Who was Alma Henderson?

4. In the early 60's, what was the name of the hamburger place on the corner of National Road and Edgington Lane?

5. What was 'Big Bill' Lias real last name?

6. In the book, “Captain's Courageous” (1897) what about Wheeling was mentioned?

7. What was Linsly School called in 1814?

8. Who was the first coach of the Wheeling Nailers?

9. What was the nickname for Pogues Run Road?

10. What football honor was bestowed on Chuck Howley that no other NFL player has received?

John Hershey

Fall's children

Autumn in the Quinn family meant going back to school and playing in the leaves. The latter activity involved raking all the leaves from the maples that lined the street in front of our house into BIG piles and then either sorting them into "rooms' or with the help of a small fence, building a "fort". In the fort, you could get down behind the leaves and jump up to startle passersby as they strolled down the sidewalk...great fun. However, our mother believed that without a doubt the polio epidemic we were experiencing in the 50's was tied to playing in the leaves so was not happy with our antics. Polio was not just another scary childhood disease...it KILLED children or left them cripples. Lining up to get a vaccination when it was finally available paled in comparison to the dreaded "iron lung" that we were shown pictures of.
As for going back to school, we were usually featured in the local paper for having the most kids returning to school in one family. When I think now of what it must have cost my father to buy all those new shoes, coats, school supplies, etc...I can't believe he did it! Funny thing is, in those days children were taught at a very early age not to even ask for fribbles like ipods, cell phones, computers, etc...if you couldn't eat it or wear it...YOU DIDN'T NEED IT! Ahhhhhhhhhh, the good old days.