Dear Family,

My sister, Jane, and her best friend, Lois, met that first day at Holy Trinity School in September 1934. A great friendship was born. How great? To me they were like two atomic particles that collided and shot off together in a bright stream of energy.

JANE. SEE JANE. SEE JANE RUN. RUN, JANE, RUN!

This was a sentence from their first primer. Since Jane and Lois already knew how to read it might have disappointed them. But not for long. They knew that the march of words across their minds had just begun.

JANE AND LOIS AND RELIGION

This junior duo also took to the teachings of the Catholic Church with gusto. To them the Mass was better than a picture show. Imagine to yourself how they must have felt in the church when they saw flames dance on candlesticks, blue Holy Smoke waft through the air and heard choir voices that sounded like the Metropolitan Opera chorus. Sure it was theater - live theater!

The scene was enhanced by the lady who played the organ. I think that her name was Pearl Walburg. Her renditions of the old hymns could have converted Frankenstein’s monster had he been a member of the church. I know that many churchgoers thought that she should get some of the collection money.

JANE AND LOIS AND CLASSMATES

I think you have witnessed the following scene. A lone fisherman sits in a little boat out on a lake. Waves roll by and barely move his craft. Then a big wave comes by and gives him a big lift. The same thing occurs in school. Now and then an exceptional class comes along to lift the spirits of the whole institution. True, the competition between Jane and Lois was a positive force in their lives. The added competition from bright classmates made them work even harder. This extra motivation to succeed showed up when clusters of A and A plus began to darken the girls’ report cards.

Who were the crackerjack kids in their class? If I mention Joe Paese I’ll have to mention Tommy Haney and then Jimmy Gardner and then… See what I mean? They were all exceptional, so let me tell you about two of them.

Jimm Faye never had strong legs. Some days it was a struggle for him just to stand for more than a few minutes. Despite the pain he wasn’t afraid to take to any stage to show off his fine comedic talent. He was Jane’s first boyfriend.

Another pupil, Billy Fielding, came from a poor family that lived on Clark Street not far from the school. How poor was the family? Let’s put it this way - Tiny Tim’s family was well off in comparison with Billy’s. I don’t think that people appreciated his talents. Billy danced his way to the bright white lights of Broadway!

JANE AND LOIS AND HOMEWORK

Let’s get back to the girls in question. They were different from most of their peers when the subject was homework. Homework for the latter was a necessary task to perform in order to play. Jane and Lois also loved the carefree life in the great out-of-doors. But play with numbers and concepts came first. Even in the first grade they knew that the greatest adventures are those of the mind.

JANE AND LOIS AND RADIO

In our part of the country by 1940 there was a radio program that pitted smart kids from one school against smart kids from another school. It was Cincinnati’s answer to Chicago’s Quiz Kids. Miss Ruth Lyons was the moderator of the show.

Each team of kids had about four members. There were two prizes - one for the team with the higher score and one for the contestant who had the highest individual score. Jane and Lois’s team barely lost, but my sister fought hard for the individual prize. The whole family plus Uncle Vaughn and Aunt Goldie sat in the studio audience. Mother was nervous. Aunt Goldie told her to calm down since Jane would win. Aunt Goldie was right.

MY TURN

In September of 1937 I, the younger brother of Jane, started school. Much was expected of me since I looked like her. To put it mildly I failed to follow in her footsteps. This same sort of thing happens in the big leagues. A young ball player comes up to the majors and he looks like Jimmy Foxx. Why, he even stands at the plate and swings a bat like Jimmy. But, from his bat come very few hits. In short - he is a flash in the pan. The rookie is sent back to a minor league team.

Pity the poor Sisters of Charity! There was no lower place to send me. My favorite subject in the first grade was modeling figures out of clay. I can still smell and feel that clay in my mind.

At that time Jane and Lois were still getting top grades. Mother invited some of the Sisters of Charity to our house. She showed the Sisters her bookcase packed with many beautiful tomes. She told the Sisters about her life in Kentucky. She described to them how she had learned her ABCs by reading the newspapers that lined the walls of her father’s little house. The Sisters and Mother became friends. They were not of the same religion. Mother explained to them that she had been baptized twice in the mountains of Kentucky but that neither ceremony “took”.

The Sisters and Mother discussed the problems of the day - the Great Depression and the possibility of war. So, you can see how it was. Not that I had an easy time in the first grade. Did you every try to make a little Jimmy Foxx out of clay?

RECESS AT HOLY TRINITY SCHOOL

The school was a huge red-brick structure that resembled the Metropolitan Opera House to Jane and the Ohio State Penitentiary to me. Most of the big blacktop playground lay in front of the school.

During Fall and Springtime recess periods we children watched the big boys (grades seven through ten) play softball. The way they whipped that white softball around the blacktop diamond was beauty in motion. Black-clad priests took turns umpiring the games. They didn’t take any guff off anyone. They were tough but fair.

In the winter the children were in constant motion to stay alive. Jane used to hug the building on a side away from the winds that ran their own races. She said that it gave her warmth. I didn’t know where the “hugging place” was since the winds followed me wherever I ran. The winter recess system was a remarkably good one since it made me feel glad to get back into the building. In the first grade I always played with my new friends, Carl Donisi and Kenny Frye. Carl was so strong that he already looked like a man. But soon my new buddies were gone. At the end of the school year I failed. By some miracle know only to the saints above Carl and Kenny passed to the second grade. You can imagine my joy when I passed the next year and Kenny and Carl failed. That meant that we were all back together.

BILL NETSOS

Bill Netsos ran a grocery store in our neighborhood. He and his wife Alice and daughter Carol lived over the store. One day I went with Father to the big Alber’s Supermarket in town. There he bought a big bag of groceries. On the way back home he stopped the car at the Netsos’ Grocery. In a few minutes he came out of the store with a small bag of groceries. I asked him why he didn’t buy more.

“I can’t buy a lot here,” Father said. “His prices are too high. I have to buy something from Bill since he is my friend.” He then explained that a big store like Alber’s in town could buy groceries from suppliers more cheaply than could Bill Netsos.

I couldn’t understand the system. It seemed to me that a small store should pay a small price. Father said that wasn’t the way things worked in business. Jane agreed with me. In her mind Bill Netsos was not just a small grocer. He was also a god or near-god since he was born in Greece. He was probably a distant relative of Plato and Socrates. She showed me their pictures in a book. But what about the gods’ long lost cousin, Bill Netsos? Why was he just running a little grocery store in Ohio?

JANE AND LOIS AND WORLD WAR II

Starting about 1943 Jane and Lois worked after school - Jane in a bakery and Lois at a drugstore. About this time the two girls started to write essays about the achievements of our servicemen and women. Military clubs sponsored essay contests. Jane and Lois entered the competition and won some prize money. It was ten dollars here and fifteen dollars there. It seemed to me that the two of them were all wound up to write and nothing could stop them. Lois wrote an essay for another girl and the latter entered it into a contest and won. I think that after that happened Lois wrote only for herself.

Making money through writing was a new experience in our family. Father and our uncles worked in factories. Mother sold dresses at the John Ross Store downtown. We sort of held our breath when Jane and Lois started writing in earnest. They showed us that penning their patriotism could be profitable. Isn’t it refreshing when young people prove to others that a solid foundation in English can be a good thing?

WE SELL THE HOUSE

The year 1944 was not far off. Father and Mother decided to sell the house so that we could move into town. That would enable Jane to attend the same high school with Lois.

In December of 1943 my parents sold the house for $5500. A young couple was shown the house and the wife fell in love with the corner cupboard in the dining room. Our neighbor Mr. Brooks had built that corner cupboard in 1938. It certainly looked pretty but I couldn’t understand the feeling of women who came to see it over the years. They simply went crazy over it! For me one corner cupboard was like another. A small kid could sleep on one of its shelves. But, why would anyone want that?

OUR NEIGHBOR, MR. BROOKS

People today might have the idea that just about everyone in the Great Depression was ruined financially. That wasn’t true. Some businessmen changed their tactics and prospered albeit at a lower level of earnings.

Mr. Brooks was a contractor who never gave up to despair. I can still see him in those green work clothes that he wore every day. He kept building things all through the 1930s. He didn’t build many houses, but he constructed a lot of items that went into houses. His tables, bookcases and corner cupboards were first-rate. He did so well that he was able to buy a new Buick car every year. His son, Billy, was two years younger than me. In early 1942 the actor who played the Lone Ranger on radio died in a traffic accident. Billy cried for two days. He stopped crying after I convinced him that the real Lone Ranger was still alive. About a year later Billy’s older brother, Russell, was assigned to a battleship in the Pacific Ocean. Russell Brooks was killed in action. Billy Brooks cried for a week.

THE BIG HOUSE IN TOWN

The Mokry family had to sell the big house on Sutphin Street since Mr. Mokry got a new job in Houston, Texas. The $10,500 price was so steep that my parents had to take out a loan from a bank. The house loomed so high that it appeared to be a mirage. It had about fourteen rooms in all - two houses in one. The roof was slate. The five - car garage sat in the back section of the big lot. The only thing missing in this deal was an army of servants. As the family walked through the rooms we must have looked like a bunch of hillbillies. We got lost in the inner most rooms and almost panicked. Mother came to the rescue. “Keep talking loud, Jane. We’ll try to get where you are!” JANE GOES TO COLLEGE

Jane graduated from the big high school in 1946 as the top pupil and Senior Class Treasurer. She was admitted to Mount Saint Joseph College in Cincinnati. There she studied hard and graduated in 1950 with honors. On 25 June 1950, the day the Korean War commenced, she married Bruce Goldflies. Jane’s former teachers at the Mount were astounded since Bruce was not Catholic. Not only that - he was Jewish. Jane became persona non grata to the nuns.

Starting with the papacy of Pope John XXlll the Church caught up with Jane. In the 1960s the Catholic Church discovered that Jews were real people. The Church also had to realize that Jane was not guilty of anything. In 1950 Jane had simply been PREMATURELY ECUMENICAL.

JANE AT WESTERN COLLEGE

At this Ohio institution she worked as an administrative assistant. She expanded the scope of this work by becoming an unofficial ombudsman for the students. She simply went to bat for them when they had any problems. As you probably guessed about Jane she was a worker par excellence.

At retirement Jane got a standing ovation from the whole college. She was asked what the institution could do for her. Jane said that she would like to have a plaque set up to honor the three Civil Rights workers, Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, who trained at Western College in the summer of 1964 and later that year were murdered by racists in Mississippi. Jane got her wish. The plaque was put in place. In time the racists were brought to Justice.

OOPS!

I forgot to tell you about Lois in her adult life. She married just out of high school and had three children. Despite the fact that she was not a full-time university student she sat in on courses for credit or just for knowledge of the subject. She collected thousands of books of all sizes and ages. She obtained a remarkable education through her reading of these books, her second set of children.

Once Lois had an interesting book she could never let it go. This is known as bonding with books. Little by little the tomes accumulated in her small house. Whenever there was a empty space the books would move into it. On their own!

Let me give you an example that will show you that her library had and still has a rare beauty and a high quality. Years ago I was in search of Malcolm Lowry’s UNDER THE VOLCANO. I searched in vain for this book in two large libraries. Where did I finally locate it? In Lois’s basement!

Through her reading Lois became a fine historian and an expert on art. Several years ago during a tour of Boston’s art museums Lois and a friend, Frank, listened quietly while our guides related to us the stories behind the great pictures. Time after time Lois and Frank corrected them. The guides took this information to heart since they recognized that the two were experts.

I also forgot to tell you that Lois has been working at the Miami University office in Middletown, Ohio for many years. About her just remember this: SHE WAS AND STILL IS HER OWN UNIVERSITY.


Sincerely,
Uncle Billy


© Bill (grvnwll@netscape.net (Bill Garvin)