Abstract
Marlo Honeberger shares her experiences growing up in the Tremont neighborhood. Born in 1947, Honeberger discusses her family's background and the vibrant community life that shaped her childhood. She reflects on her education, local social activities, and the influence of neighborhood organizations and churches. The narrative also addresses the changes in the area during the 1960s and 1970s, including the impact of urban renewal and demographic shifts. Honeberger's account provides insights into the evolving cultural landscape of Tremont during the latter half of the 20th century.
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Interviewee
Honeberger, Marlo (interviewee)
Project
Tremont History Project
Date
2003
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
12 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Marlo Honeberger interview, 2003" (2003). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 223057.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1385
Transcript
LeTrina Jackson [00:00:01] Okay, I’m gonna ask you these questions. What is your name?
Marlo Honeberger [00:00:07] Marlo Honeberger. M A R L O, H O N E B E R G E R.
LeTrina Jackson [00:00:18] What are some of your early childhood memories of the neighborhood?
Marlo Honeberger [00:00:25] Playing tennis at Clark Field. Swimming at Lincoln Park. Going to the Greek fest church at St. Ignatius. Watching them film the Deer Hunter down our hill. Let’s see. Watching them film the One with the Bee begins Christmas Story.
LeTrina Jackson [00:00:55] And when did your parents move to Tremont?
Marlo Honeberger [00:01:00] We’ve lived in Tremont our whole life. I mean, I’ve been there. My parents lived there for 30, I bet you 30 years before I come along. So, I mean, that’s where we grew up at.
LeTrina Jackson [00:01:12] Okay. Do you know why they picked that area to move in?
Marlo Honeberger [00:01:15] No.
LeTrina Jackson [00:01:17] Did your parents speak a different language from you?
Marlo Honeberger [00:01:20] Polish.
LeTrina Jackson [00:01:23] Did you do. Did you speak Polish?
Marlo Honeberger [00:01:26] No. No.
LeTrina Jackson [00:01:30] Okay. Where did your parents work?
Marlo Honeberger [00:01:34] My father worked at Van Dorn over on east side. My mother was a homemaker.
LeTrina Jackson [00:01:45] Where did you work at on your first job?
Marlo Honeberger [00:01:50] Edgewater Park. The concession stands.
LeTrina Jackson [00:01:58] Where did you go to grade school?
Marlo Honeberger [00:02:00] Bureau Elementary.
LeTrina Jackson [00:02:04] And where did you play as a child in the neighborhood?
Marlo Honeberger [00:02:07] Tremont Fields, Clark Fields or Lincoln Park or the neighborhood.
LeTrina Jackson [00:02:17] Did any of your neighbors work with you at the Edgewater Park?
Marlo Honeberger [00:02:20] No.
LeTrina Jackson [00:02:22] Okay. Where did you as a teenager go on dates?
Marlo Honeberger [00:02:33] See, now, we wasn’t allowed to date. There’s always chaperones. We went, like, rollerskating at USA over at Denison. The movies. Edgewater. [laughs] I mean, just places in the neighborhood.
LeTrina Jackson [00:02:52] Where did you or your parents go grocery shopping? Was it anywhere in the neighborhood?
Marlo Honeberger [00:02:58] Yeah, always on Clark. It used to be called. See, when we was growing up, it was Kroger’s. Then it was Pick ’N Pay. Then it was Fine. Well, Fine is Tops, you know, always on Clark.
LeTrina Jackson [00:03:11] Okay.
Marlo Honeberger [00:03:12] Or any. The West Side Market over on the 25th.
LeTrina Jackson [00:03:18] Did you attend church as a child? And if you did, where?
Marlo Honeberger [00:03:22] St. Augustine’s right there on West 14th Street.
LeTrina Jackson [00:03:26] Okay. Did you go to church with any of your neighbors?
Marlo Honeberger [00:03:30] All neighbors. A lot of the neighbors in the area would go to church there.
LeTrina Jackson [00:03:38] What language was the mass in?
Marlo Honeberger [00:03:41] It’s in English.
LeTrina Jackson [00:03:48] What were some of the social places in the neighborhood? Or what places did your parents visit?
Marlo Honeberger [00:03:55] Oh, let’s see. They visited the bars you had. Let’s see, back then it was called majors on 14. You had a lot of the Polish clubs down on the post. Down on. I think it was West 7th or West 11th. You had the Ukrainian Hall. They had stuff going on there. Different halls in the neighborhood or they did things with like bowling alley, different things like that.
LeTrina Jackson [00:04:29] Okay.
Marlo Honeberger [00:04:29] With their friends. We were always at babysitters though.
LeTrina Jackson [00:04:33] Okay. Do you remember anything about the Cleveland school busing?
Marlo Honeberger [00:04:39] Yes. I was in the first set of busing. I would have attended Lincoln Junior. First day of school, they called us all into the auditorium. Plus all we was going to the east side and we was bused to Empire Junior High over off of Parmalee. And I was bused my junior, my junior high year, my senior high and come back to our regular- We was able to go to our regular high schools.
LeTrina Jackson [00:05:05] What was our regular high school?
Marlo Honeberger [00:05:07] Lincoln.
LeTrina Jackson [00:05:13] Do you remember when they tried to close the Tremont Elementary School?
Marlo Honeberger [00:05:17] Oh yeah, Cimperrman had that stopped last year.
LeTrina Jackson [00:05:22] Are you married?
Marlo Honeberger [00:05:23] Yes.
LeTrina Jackson [00:05:25] Did you marry someone from the neighborhood?
Marlo Honeberger [00:05:27] No. [laughs] No, he’s from around town.
LeTrina Jackson [00:05:32] And where did you get married?
Marlo Honeberger [00:05:34] In Lorain, Ohio. We got married from where he’s at.
LeTrina Jackson [00:05:40] Oh, okay. Do you have any memories about the housing project that-
Marlo Honeberger [00:05:45] In the Valley?
LeTrina Jackson [00:05:47] In the Valley.
Marlo Honeberger [00:05:48] Yeah. That’s where we went to get our immunizations at. SO that kind of sticks out in your memory. They had a little free clinic there and you would go down and that’s where we got our shots done, like our well checks. And I had some friends that lived down there.
LeTrina Jackson [00:06:06] Okay. And do you remember about the construction of the Innerbelt project?
Marlo Honeberger [00:06:14] No. I remember the I-76 [176] coming through and this was never here. It used to stop right there. 14th.
LeTrina Jackson [00:06:26] Can you describe what it was like when some of the other bridges were out, like the Abbey Bridge? Was that already there when you-
Marlo Honeberger [00:06:33] Yeah, the Abbey Bridge was closed for a while. When they closed the Clark Avenue Bridge, when they opened the Harvard-Denison. That was a real big adjustment because we lived right there by the Clark Avenue Bridge. We knew how to get right over the harbor. Then when they closed it, it was like, oh man, big long drive. We used to walk across that avenue. When you’re a teenager, you stop, see very big holes and it’s like, oh, this is why they closed it.
LeTrina Jackson [00:07:01] Okay. And in your opinion, how has the neighborhood changed through the years?
Marlo Honeberger [00:07:11] Through the years, A lot of the diversity of the neighborhood. The older people have left. We’ve got a lot of the. Like they’re putting up those new condos down in Tremont now. You know, a lot of the nicer older homes are gone and they’re putting up these hundred thousand dollar condos with no yard. You know, a lot of the older people have sold out and moved away. A lot of. I know my mom’s friends and my friends now live out of Tremont. They live in like the suburbs now. You have a lot more restaurants down there where before there wasn’t that many. You have a lot of art galleries. I mean, every from 14th all the way down to stars weather. I think there’s like four or five galleries now. And a lot of the businesses have changed. Now they’re talking about putting that inner belt through and getting rid of everything on 14th, which I think is totally ridiculous because you got five churches right there that would affected.
LeTrina Jackson [00:08:15] Okay, so.
Marlo Honeberger [00:08:16] But it’s, it seems like it’s getting more yuppier.
LeTrina Jackson [00:08:21] That’s what I was going to ask you. I wanted to know, do you feel that, like, the changes are kind of like out of reach to the common people?
Marlo Honeberger [00:08:28] It is, it’s. It’s more for the people, you know, the more wealthy you can stay. I mean, these condos that they’re putting up down there, the people that live down there are all low to income, you know, moderate income. And now you’re putting up $120,000 condo that, you know, people with children aren’t going to move into. So you’ve got. A lot of the churches have changed where, you know, your parishioners and philosophy, like Cantius. They used to have the high school there for Central. Central’s closed now because the enrollment. Now they’re all the way over on the east side. There’s a lot that’s just- It seems like it’s just going businesses now.
LeTrina Jackson [00:09:10] Do you still attend the church?
Marlo Honeberger [00:09:12] Oh, yes, my kids. Yeah, my daughter just made her first communion last year. Really? So I still go there.
LeTrina Jackson [00:09:20] A lot of your friends still live in the neighborhood that you grew up with?
Marlo Honeberger [00:09:23] Yeah, a lot of my friends still live or they still come around.
LeTrina Jackson [00:09:26] Okay.
Marlo Honeberger [00:09:26] They, they don’t live. They come back, you know.
LeTrina Jackson [00:09:29] Okay. And I think I asked you this. Did you attend Tremont School?
Marlo Honeberger [00:09:36] No, it was [inaudible]. My kids go to OLA/St. Joseph Center, right on the corner of 14th and Starkweather there. It’s the only school in the Catholic Diocese for handicapped children.
LeTrina Jackson [00:09:53] Okay. And how do you think the school has changed throughout the years?
Marlo Honeberger [00:09:58] The school. Well, now they don’t have busing. I don’t know. To me, Cleveland Public just has went downhill. I mean, they don’t care. You see kids, when I went to school, if you got caught out on the street, you got picked up and took back to school anytime of the day. Now you can drive by and you see kids everywhere, they don’t go to school. I Mean, I guess that’s anywhere.
LeTrina Jackson [00:10:25] Yeah.
Marlo Honeberger [00:10:29] Cleveland, you know, their enrollment’s declined. You hear about it every day on the TV. My kids attend Catholic school because that’s what I chose. I chose Catholic school over a regular school option where if I have to pay tuition, I’ll pay tuition. That way I know they’re getting an education. Where when she was going, they had her going to Kentucky, my oldest one, the only thing she learned was that to get beat on. It was, you know, 17 kids and one teacher. I mean, when you have kids that are DH and handicapped, we need more specialized services, which Cleveland don’t offer. They will just throw ’em all in one room with one teacher. And, you know, you can’t blame the teacher.
LeTrina Jackson [00:11:07] Right. Right. Now, how many kids do you have?
Marlo Honeberger [00:11:11] Two. I have- I have two of my own and one adopted, so, three.
LeTrina Jackson [00:11:16] Both of them attend OLA?
Marlo Honeberger [00:11:17] Oh, yes.
LeTrina Jackson [00:11:18] Okay. I guess. So you- Do you think that your kids will remain in the neighborhood?
Marlo Honeberger [00:11:30] Oh, yeah. They’ll probably be there with their mother. Yeah. I’ve left and we’ve come back. We’ve moved down, come right back, so. But mostly the people like I know grew up in the neighborhood, they’re still there. I still have family that has family that their kids are raising family there.
LeTrina Jackson [00:11:50] Your parents has passed away?
Marlo Honeberger [00:11:52] Yes, both of them.
LeTrina Jackson [00:11:53] Okay.
Marlo Honeberger [00:11:53] Yeah. And my brother, he lives not too far. He lives- He doesn’t live in Tremont anymore. What. You know, what they consider the south side.
LeTrina Jackson [00:12:02] Okay.
Marlo Honeberger [00:12:03] So.
LeTrina Jackson [00:12:04] Okay.
Marlo Honeberger [00:12:04] But, yeah, there’s a lot of us go down there.
LeTrina Jackson [00:12:08] Okay. I think this concludes our interview.
Marlo Honeberger [00:12:11] Thank you.
LeTrina Jackson [00:12:11] Thank you.
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