KENMORE AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
Part 2 (Excerpts from the memoirs of Leon Goodman
as told to Lee McCutchan - Written in 1983)THINGS A YOUNG BOY DID
A favorite pastime was to take the trolley to Akron to the Robinson-Merrill
Pottery Co., just south of the Goodrich plant on Main St. Big plate glass
windows lined the sidewalk and Leon could stand for hours watching the
potters throw the soft mass of clay onto their wheels, set them spinning
and turn out all shapes and sizes of jars, jugs and vases.Published at that time in Akron, in a one-story building across from
Yeager's, was the TIMES-DEMOCRAT. Sam Goodman worked on this
newspaper. He was in charge of distribution.When the trolley-line was extended South on Manchester Rd. to Kenmore,
Leon became the first newspaper carrier in the area. He delivered house
to house and had about 18 customers. The papers sold for one-cent;
except for the "big" edition that was printed on the occasion of Pres.
McKindley's assassination. It was not a "Special Edition", just a lot of
extra pages devoted to the tragedy. These papers sold like "hot-cakes"
for 25 cents each.Bringing in drillers and derrickmen from the oil-fields of Penna., the
Akron Salt Co. began drilling two wells in the big field on the east side
of Manchester Rd. This was a fascinating operation, too, and Leon
spent many an hour at the drill sites, observing all that was going on.
(The Akron Salt Co. later became The Colonial Salt Co.)Down Manchester Rd., just before you got to Elder's place, (before Elder
built the bookstore), was Grady's Park and Summer Casino. Here
traveling shows, itinerant entertainers and vaudeville acts performed in
the summer time. The performance Leon best remembers was a trapeze
act, "The Flying Laurentz's". The Laurentzs consisted of two boys and
two girls who had trained and "practiced their flip-flops" in a haymow
on a farm out on Copley Rd.(Perhaps the reason this sticks so vividly in Leon's mind is the fact that
this was "the first time he had ever seen anybody in tights.")Leon also remembers spending time watching the boats on the Canal
and the horses that plod the towpaths at a mandated speed of "not more
than five miles per hour". Movement along the Canal was usually uneventful,
except when two boats met, going in opposite directions. This created
quite a problem, for in most cases the Canal was not wide enough to
allow them to pass.Some of the boats were pulled by a team of horses, others used only one.
To shorten the distance around a large swampy area on the south end
of Summit Lake, a floating bridge had been built to serve as the towpath.
All the horses were leery of walking this bridge no matter how many times
they had been across it, and it took a very good and alert driver to keep
them moving and from bolting.THE BIG PARTY
One evening when Leon was about thirteen, his father came home from
work as excited as Leon had ever seen him. There was going to be a big
party held in downtown Akron that night. He talked constantly all through
supper about all the "fun" there was going to be and finally persuaded
his wife to let Leon go back down with him to join in. Downtown they went.It was only later that Mattie learned the "party" was to be a "lynching party".
Leon said he had never before, or after, seen his mother so upset. "She
flew into a rage - mad as a wet hen - and didn't speak to Sam for almost
a week after that".But, the lynching didn't take place.
The Akron police had in their custody a young negro lad, accused of
assaulting a young white girl, Twila Mass. Some of the townspeople
decided to assure "justice would be done", and planned a charge on the
police station. The Akron Police stood their ground, the prisoner was
spirited out of the area and the mission failed.The "avengers" determined to get some satisfaction, set fire to the City
Hall and dumped Akron's Police Wagon into the Canal at the locksite
behind Quaker Oats.The "wagon" was the pride of the Akron Police Dept. It was an electric-
powered vehicle, the first in the Country made especially for police work.JOINING THE WORK FORCE
Soon after Leon graduated from high school, the School Board was
notified that Mud Lake District School No. 12 would be in need for a new
teacher in the Fall. Leon had no interest in becoming a teacher, but he
had a cousin who did.Sam Goodman invited his nephew to accompany him to the next Board
meeting and Sam placed his name in nomination. Leon went along for the
want of something better to do.Sam assured his nephew that with his influence behind him, he would
be sure to get the job.Sam had not reckoned with Mr. Terwilliger.
Mr. Terwilliger stood up, his voice booming, nominated "LEON GOODMAN".
Before Leon could gather his senses and object, the Board had voted
and Leon was the new teacher.Leon convinced his father, he really did not want the job. Sam advised
to wait a while, then go to the Superintendent and resign.Leon waited two days and then made the trip to North Hill, where the
Supt. lived. From the litter of papers and handbills on the porch, it was
evident the Supt. was not home and hadn't been for a while. A neighbor
informed Leon the man he wanted to see was in Mexico on vacation.The day before school was to start, Leon again made the trip to North
Hill. He met with the Supt., but was told it was too late to resign and that
he would be expected to start classes at the school the next morning.When Leon arrived to start his first day, the Supt. was there ahead of
him, his horse tied out in back. The Supt. unlocked the door, gave him
the keys and then stayed the morning to help him get started.So "a green, inexperienced, eighteen year old" became the reluctant
teacher of grades one through eight in a one-room school house,
charged with the education of forty pupils.He stayed three years. Then,
INDUSTRY BECKONED
O. C. Barber originally founded his Diamond Match Company in Akron,
locating in a building at the corner of Falor Avenue and the Canal.Shortly thereafter Mr. Barber and Akron's tax department had a difference
of opinion; an altercation followed and Mr. Barber moved his match factory
to Barberton.When Mr. Barber vacated the building on the Canal, a new company
moved into the premises, The Diamond Rubber Company, and Leon
was offered a job.Leon, "young, strong and ambitious and still not in love with teaching,"
resigned his school and went with the new challenge."Besides, it paid more!"
In conjunction with his new job, among other things, Leon learned to
splice inner-tubes."Pneumatic tires, at that time, were not all that reliable.
After Leon had been with Diamond Rubber for a couple of years, the plant
Supt. M. A. Flinn asked if he would be interested in moving with him to
Boston. A job was open in a plant that made "carriage rubber" and it paid
$5.00 more a week.Leon was willing to go most anywhere for that almost unheard of salary.
And so, Leon Goodman left the Kenmore area. Various jobs with various
rubber plants carried him to numerous cities, covering most of the eastern
half of the United States.Before Leon left, Kenmore Blvd. had been laid out and opened up and
Huffman's store had been built on the N. E. corner of the Blvd. and Manchester
Rd.......there were still no paved streets in Kenmnore......Kenmore High School
had been built in the heart of a big wooded area, his brother Robert, graduating
from there several years later......Bill Sour's girls were all grown-up and married.
(In Leon's words, Bill Sours was the "vulgarly rich" land-owner in the area. Bill
owned all the land along Manchester Rd. from Witner Lane down to and all
along in back of the railroad tracks, half-way to Portage Trail. (Portage Trail
being the original Indian Path that led into Barberton, as marked by "The Indian"
at Wooster Rd. & Norton Ave.)......as the Sours girls married, their father gave
each of them a piece of land along Manchester Rd., building a house for them
on it. These were the homes of the Wagners, the Bissells, the Bachtels, the
Falors and the Waters. (All names still prevalent in Kenmore.)Writer's Note: All names, dates and locations may not be entirely
correct. The above is as was related to me direct from the memories
of Mr. Leon Goodman and have not been researched for exact
accuracy. I apologize for any errors this article may contain.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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