Abstract

Kim Michalec and David Brewer are relatives of the Tonkin Family. The Tonkins lived in the area that are now Howe Meadow and owned parts of the Beaver Marsh in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Burl Tonkin owned an autoshop and salvage yard specializing in Volkswagens in the Beaver Marsh area. In this oral history, they discuss the layout of their family houses, Burl's business, and the park's process of reallocating their family members.

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Interviewee

Michalec, Kim (interviewee); Brewer, David (interviewee)

Interviewer

Rosser, Arrye (interviewer); Schnack, Erich (participant)

Project

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Date

3-23-2023

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

88 minutes

Transcript

Arrye Rosser [00:00:00] Hello there. This is Ranger Ari Rosser. I’m here at Stone Cottage on the Hines Hill campus at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It is March 23rd of 2023. I’m going to be doing an oral history with David Brewer and his daughter, Kim Michalec. And Eric Schnack is our technical person. So we’re just going to jump in a little bit, and David and Kim are going to be talking about the Tonkin family history in the southern part of Cuyahoga Valley. This is the area that we now talk about as Howe Meadow, where the family homes were, and the Beaver Marsh area, where the family business was. So let’s get started. And if I could just ask each one of you to just tell us your full name and when and where you’re born.

Kim Michalec [00:01:00] My name is Kimberly Michalec, and I was born in June 1957 in Akron, Ohio.

David Brewer [00:01:10] My name is David Brewer, and I was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1935.

Arrye Rosser [00:01:20] Great. And could you tell us about- Map out the Tonkin family of who all was living there at the Howe Meadow, what we call How Meadow area. Who are the family members and how is everybody related?

David Brewer [00:01:37] Okay. My wife is Shirley Tonkin, the granddaughter of Russell and Ursul Tonkin, which originally bought the farm in 1936. And she grew up down in the valley. And I was living up on Yellow Creek and Sand Run Road with my parents. Then we both went to school at Bath School. And I met her on the school bus years ago, 1950, ’49, actually. And I went off to the service in ’53, and she was a little younger than me. And then she- As the time went by, she got married and it didn’t work out for a year. And she had my daughter Kim, which is here with me now, and we adopted her, I did, and she took my name and so on. So then we lived in Cuyahoga Falls for about six years. And then my wife’s granddad, which owned a farm, he offered to give her an acre of ground and we could build a house down there. So we went into the process of getting it all set up, and we ended up building a house down there. Well, her dad had already had a house there, and he built him and his wife in 1942. It had a small house there, which my wife Shirley grew up in. And then when he come out of the service, him and his brother Burl started the Tonkin’s Garage on Riverview Road. And then to get back to when me and my wife finally got down there in ’64, he took the little house and we moved it over in front of the barn, over behind the old farmhouse, and her uncle Warren, which was Percy and Burl’s younger brother, they built that house, or moved it over there, and they added on to it later on, made a two story out of it back in the late ’60s and so on. But to make the story to where the whole family was, there, me and my wife, we built our house in ’64 on the north side of the barn. And before that, in 1960, I think it was Percy’s cousin Kenny Skidmore came up from West Virginia, and uncle, or his uncle Russell, which was the old folks, he got an acre and he built a house. So we had- We had Percy Tonkin living down there, Kenny Skidmore, me and my wife David and Shirley Brewer and Uncle Warren, which moved the little house over by the barn, which Percy moved, lived in Ridgely. And he- They moved it because he built another house on the same location. So then he was, I guess it was west of the old farmhouse. So we had Russell and Ursul Tonkin living in the old house. Younger brother Warren lived in the house north of there and then out towards the road. Percy had a house along the railroad tracks and next to him was Kenny Skidmore, which was a cousin. And me and my wife built a house behind Percy and Kenny, just north of the old barn. So we had actually five family members living right in that area at one time. That was in the ’60s and up till ’78, ’79 and ’80 when the park bought us all out.

Arrye Rosser [00:05:48] Yeah, so there was five homes, but they kind of came at different times as the family expanded. Yeah, I would love it, a little bit later, if you guys sketch it out for what your memory was. I think that would be really fantastic too.

Kim Michalec [00:06:06] And we gave some pictures to Erich, a couple of those houses.

Arrye Rosser [00:06:11] So.

David Brewer [00:06:11] And I had more pictures, but we had so many pictures at our house that we just couldn’t go through them all. We probably could have found more.

Kim Michalec [00:06:19] Yeah, we might be able.

David Brewer [00:06:20] The house I built, no one Percy had and so on.

Arrye Rosser [00:06:25] Do you know how the Tonkin family came to live in that area?

David Brewer [00:06:33] What drew the first family members, Russell and Ursul Tonkin, they came up from West Virginia and they lived in the Akron area and he worked at Firestone Tire and Rubber. Well, then he bought that property out there, which I, as I remember, they said it was 85 acres on both sides of Riverview Road. And that was in 1936 is when they first moved out there. And then their son Percy, which is My father in law, they lived in Akron, North Hill, and then they moved out and built that little house in ’42. And then shortly after that, he got drafted into the service during the Second World War. And Burl was already in a year ahead of him. So that’s where it all started with us, how we knew about everything. And what we know is just hearsay that we’ve heard the old folks talk about since they’ve been there.

Arrye Rosser [00:07:38] I’ve heard about the sort of migration of people from Appalachia to come and work in the rubber industry. What was he doing at Firestone, do you know?

David Brewer [00:07:52] Well, I think he was in a machine shop. He was where he worked with the machines.

Kim Michalec [00:07:57] Something. A machinist.

David Brewer [00:07:59] Machinist or something at Firestone.

Kim Michalec [00:08:02] But he also did farming as well. When he, you know, when they first went there, he did farm that land as well as being an employee at Firestone.

Arrye Rosser [00:08:15] Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot, too. Where people seem to have a day job and then they were farmers on the side. So let me ask. I’ll ask you about both. Let me go back to the Firestone. Do you have any idea of, like, how he ended up - you’re in West Virginia and all of a sudden you want to move to Akron - did you ever hear any stories about how he got recruited to go to Firestone or were other people.

David Brewer [00:08:38] No, it was just like in. Even in my family, some of my mother’s brothers, they come back up and in the Akron area, and it’s in the ’20s, actually, and everybody came up here because that’s when there was work and all the rubber factories was really going big, and they come up here and lived, and then they kind of scattered around to the outskirts and they ended up buying the farm on Riverview Road. And that’s the way people did back in those days.

Kim Michalec [00:09:12] Because they were from between Sutton, West Virginia, and Heaters. Isn’t that right?

David Brewer [00:09:15] They’re in Buchanan.

Kim Michalec [00:09:20] Buchanan, I think in there, too.

David Brewer [00:09:22] Yeah. 

Kim Michalec [00:09:23] So it was that general vicinity.

Arrye Rosser [00:09:25] What part of West Virginia is that?

David Brewer [00:09:28] That’d be kind of northeast of Charleston, I believe, [crosstalk] about 80 miles or something like that.

Arrye Rosser [00:09:36] Yeah.

Kim Michalec [00:09:37] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:09:40] Not too far. Kind of down in the New- Not quite as far as the New River gorge, but that direction.

David Brewer [00:09:46] Yeah, it was towards that way down- Yeah, like-

Arrye Rosser [00:09:51] And tell me about. You described a bit about the house that you had. Tell me about the old house, like the first house that was there. What do you remember about that?

David Brewer [00:10:06] Yeah, that’s the old farmhouse over- It was just a little bit southeast of the barn. They had a circle driveway which went around front of the barn over by their house, which was the old farm farmhouse. And it was probably built back in the 1800s sometime. I don’t know just when, but it was old. Of course, they done a few little things to it, put some different windows in it and things, but it was still just mostly like an old original farmhouse, really.

Arrye Rosser [00:10:38] Was that the Howe house? Like, what did the Howes live in that house?

David Brewer [00:10:43] No, I think the Howes was south of that house, but in what I’ve heard them talk about that farm that they bought in ’36, that there was a family named Boughton that owned that land in there before. Now, I’ve heard them talk about it, but I really don’t know that much about that family.

Arrye Rosser [00:11:07] And I’m trying to think, is it Boughton or Broughton? But Hazel is somebody-

Kim Michalec [00:11:11] It’s Hazel Boughton.

David Brewer [00:11:13] Is it Boughton? [crosstalk] Hazel was married to Jack Broughton, and they live down there where Szalay’s are.

Kim Michalec [00:11:22] Okay.

David Brewer [00:11:23] And he worked at the gas company where I did.

Kim Michalec [00:11:25] Well, but if we’re talking about Betty Steed’s relatives, which is how, you know-

David Brewer [00:11:30] And there’s-

Kim Michalec [00:11:30] There’s that Boughton, in fact, that one book that I brought you to look at, you’ll see that name is mentioned in there.

Arrye Rosser [00:11:37] Yeah.

David Brewer [00:11:38] They called it Boughton, but then that Jack was Broughton Broughton was spelled a little different, I think. Yeah. So I don’t know if they was relatives or not.

Arrye Rosser [00:11:47] Sometimes those Valley names- Yeah, everyone’s related to one.

Kim Michalec [00:11:51] True.

Arrye Rosser [00:11:51] Well, describe the family property. Just give me kind of that overall look of the things that were on the west side of the railroad tracks, what we call Palmetto now and then, what it looked like back in the day on the east side.

David Brewer [00:12:08] Well, to me, on the west side, where the house is, it seems to me like there was like, What was it, 55 or 60 acres on that side of the road. And then down across the road where the Tonkin garage was built, I think they had close to 20 acres on that side. And he sold a little piece off north on that side to people by the name of Montgomery. And that was kind of up on the hill on the north side of where the garage was. And then on the river on the west side where they lived up on top of the hill north, there was a man that his name was George Gray. And he worked at Firestone, and he sold a piece of land to him because they knew each other. And he built a house up there by Indigo, just south of Indigo Lake, where Paul Wilson had that all dug out for a gravel pit back in there. That’s what made Indigo Lake. So that’s about what he had, say, 60 acres on one side and 25 on the other. I don’t know just exactly how much it was, but the biggest part was on the west side.

Arrye Rosser [00:13:36] And how far over did it go? I mean, I’ve looked at some of the property maps over time, but it’s not quite as far as the old trail school, where that is yet. It’s kind of the footprint of the field.

David Brewer [00:13:49] Yeah. Where the hill come down back there, their property kind of ended there. And actually, actually the Northampton zoning line came up on the west side of the tracks from clear down to Bath Road. And they was- His property ended like the end of Northampton Township on the other side of his property, where Oak Trail School was, that was a Bath Township. So Shirley, my wife, she actually lived in Northampton, where I did up on Yellow Creek and Sand Run. But she went to Bath School and I went to Northampton School, but which Northampton didn’t have a high school. When I went to high school, I had to go to Bath, and that’s where we kind of joined up as kids knowing each other.

Kim Michalec [00:14:43] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:14:44] What did you call the community back in that time? Like, I’ve heard people talk about it as Ira, kind of in an earlier generation than your generation.

David Brewer [00:14:55] Yeah. Right there at the crossroads at the Ira road. They called that Ira because that little post office around the corner called Ira Post office. That was ira, what they called a crossroads. Then on down the road where the church and Hamilton Store, that’s Everett. That was the next, just a mile and a half or two miles down the road.

Kim Michalec [00:15:16] And then Peninsula was beyond that.

David Brewer [00:15:17] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:15:18] What did you guys- Where you lived? What did you think you belonged in? Like, what was the identity? Because you’re like, in a little bit of the middle zone.

Kim Michalec [00:15:27] We always referred to it as Peninsula, when I was growing up.

David Brewer [00:15:31] Yeah, because we got our mail- [crosstalk]

Kim Michalec [00:15:35] Mail through Peninsula Post Office. 

David Brewer [00:15:37] After we moved down there. But when they moved down there and in ’36, they probably got their meal at Ira.

Kim Michalec [00:15:44] It was Ira, yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:15:45] Yeah. So the post office, that’s correct because I’ve heard that the mail, I think, was there right at the split of Yellow Creek and Ira Road. There was an orchard there, and they used to- You got your mail there, and then-

Kim Michalec [00:16:02] There was like a little building, like a garage.

David Brewer [00:16:05] Yeah. Up on the hill there. They had an orchard where the other. I think their name was Heinz, wasn’t it? Heinz Orchard. 

Kim Michalec [00:16:12] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:16:13] Yeah. So in your early memories, kind of, who were the neighbors that were kind of around you? And was the land field kind of things like in agriculture at that time or-

Kim Michalec [00:16:30] It was agricultural but really with everybody’s houses, everybody mowed. It was very- It was really well manicured.

David Brewer [00:16:37] Yeah.

Kim Michalec [00:16:37] And then there was some garden space by the great-grandparents on each side of their house and in between on the driveway. But it was agricultural away from the homes. But all- Everybody mowed and kept- It was very nice.

Arrye Rosser [00:16:52] Yeah. In the access into the property there’s like a surface road that I think is without the Tonkin name on it. And that’s how you got in and out?

Kim Michalec [00:17:02] That’s how you got in and out.

David Brewer [00:17:03] Yeah. So you went up over the railroad track, you went straight back to the barn. Then the road curved around front of the old house and came back over to where you went over the railroad track.

Kim Michalec [00:17:14] To the railroad track. So that was the Tonkin Circle.

David Brewer [00:17:16] And so on. And when me and my wife built the house behind my father-in-law and Kenny, they was on Riverview Road on the west side of the tracks but they had frontage. So when we moved back there we didn’t have no frontage, so I had to get another acre of ground that on the other side of Kenny’s and George Gray’s house so we’d have some frontage from the property line when we had our title fixed over. So then they named that Tonkin Drive around through there. That’s how that Tonkin Drive came about. [crosstalk] They named it after the designated name. It was just a driveway just to have an address for Peninsula so we could get our mail.

Arrye Rosser [00:18:03] It’s fascinating. And the area that I would consider like on the other side of the barn from where like the house is, it seems like now there’s a lot of trees that may have been trees of your era.

David Brewer [00:18:15] On the north side of the barn, there’s probably some trees there. Probably some that I planted.

Kim Michalec [00:18:19] You planted those.

David Brewer [00:18:20] Yeah.

Kim Michalec [00:18:20] For sure. Yeah.

David Brewer [00:18:21] I could point them out, the ones that I planted.

Arrye Rosser [00:18:24] We need a field trip for sure. [crosstalk] Go stomp around. I’d love to do that. And the area that’s now the big mowed grass area, what did that look like at the time.

David Brewer [00:18:37] Well, that was just a cornfield. [crosstalk] And originally when they moved down there in ’36, they had some cows and they had a few milk cows down there beside the cows that they had because they had a milk house there back years ago when they come around, pick up farmers milk in the cans and so on. So I think they did sell milk for a while down. But it wasn’t too long, I don’t think.

Kim Michalec [00:19:06] And they had a chicken coop back there, but it was a big field. Mom used to be, when she was little, because she grew up there, she would run back there because she liked the animals. You know.

Arrye Rosser [00:19:19] When you guys talk about the farm, was the sort of farm operation all there in that side of the west side of the family’s property?

David Brewer [00:19:30] Yeah, mostly on that side. But like I say, when they first moved down there where the beaver pond is now, actually, they drained that off. He did have corn in there, but that was before I moved down there and so on. So that had to be in the late ’30s, early ’40s.

Arrye Rosser [00:19:49] And what do you remember about- I’ll get back to asking more questions about that. But we’re also quite curious about the- I thought it was like Gray’s Quarry, if I got the name right, but what is now Indigo Lake, the quarry operation. What do you remember about the family and the property and what that looked like?

David Brewer [00:20:09] That was up on where George Gray was up on the hill and he had I forget how many acres up there. And he kind of- He just kind of like a Firestone guy, just tinkered around farming and work, too, until they, until they retired. You know, they was George and Pap-Pap, the old man. It was born back in the 1890s, so they retired probably in the early ’60s or somewhere, and they used four. But Indigo Lake, I don’t know who had that property there, but Paul Wilson had had the gravel bank behind the trailer park.

Kim Michalec [00:20:47] Wilson Sand and Gravel Company.

David Brewer [00:20:48] Wilson Sand and Gravel. Then he went over across the road over there, and I don’t know, the land, there was part of the land beyond George’s that they was renting. He took part- I don’t know if he leased it or how they did it, but he took part in George’s and they dug down, took all the gravel out, and that’s what made Indigo Lake.

Arrye Rosser [00:21:09] Yep.

David Brewer [00:21:09] And that was after we moved down there in the ’60s, so that had to be in the ’60s.

Kim Michalec [00:21:14] Yeah. Because I remember when that was being done. 

David Brewer [00:21:16] Going into the ’70s.

Kim Michalec [00:21:19] They were quarrying that out.

Arrye Rosser [00:21:22] That’s really interesting. So I did not realize that the business started on the east side of the road over - let me just back up so I understand it - more where the trailer.

Kim Michalec [00:21:32] His original- Yes, Paul’s original place was back behind-

David Brewer [00:21:36] Behind the trailer park back in there.

Kim Michalec [00:21:38] There was a road that went back there next to one of the houses.

David Brewer [00:21:42] Yeah, there was trailer park. You know where the trailer park is?

Arrye Rosser [00:21:45] There’s still a service road there.

David Brewer [00:21:47] Yeah, that was his road going back to the gravel bank-

Kim Michalec [00:21:51] Took you back there. 

David Brewer [00:21:52] And he had a big process back there, and they used- They needed water for the gravel to run their ground- So he pumped water out of the Cuyahoga River and the canal back in there.

Kim Michalec [00:22:05] In fact, Mom worked with Paul. I mean, they were. They were friends, you know, family friends. Mom worked there for a while.

David Brewer [00:22:13] Yeah. Because Paul Wilson lived over on Oak Hill Road, just north of the Hale Farm.

Kim Michalec [00:22:19] Uh huh. Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:22:20] I think, actually now I’ve seen on the maps, and I associated that gravel pit- Oh, I might be getting my gravel pits mixed up, but I think I may have associated with Akron-Peninsula Road and not understood that the access came in the other side.

David Brewer [00:22:38] Yeah, off of Riverview. Because they couldn’t get across the river from Peninsula Road.

Arrye Rosser [00:22:43] Yeah. And so this is all like you would go back kind of a long, longish kind of a road?

Kim Michalec [00:22:52] Yeah. And it was back there a little bit.

Arrye Rosser [00:22:54] Was the quarrying close to the river? 

David Brewer [00:22:58] You mean the Peninsula quarry?

Arrye Rosser [00:23:02] The gravel-

Kim Michalec [00:23:02] The gravel pit where Paul was, was he- [crosstalk] Yeah. There were probably places where it was closed.

David Brewer [00:23:07] Yeah, probably.

Arrye Rosser [00:23:10] Was it on the east side of the canal?

David Brewer [00:23:13] Yeah, east side of the canal and the river, [crosstalk] because that’s where he used to get his water for the operation of the hoppers and all that where he run the gravel through.

Arrye Rosser [00:23:25] And about what timeframe was that when he was over in that section?

David Brewer [00:23:29] Well, he was over there, I know, in ’65 when my company- When I was on [inaudible], I went down there and worked two weeks with him, and that was in ’65.

Kim Michalec [00:23:39] Right. So he was there before that.

David Brewer [00:23:40] So he was there before that. [crosstalk] So I don’t know how many years. And then from ’65 after that into the ’70s is when he was on the west side of the Riverview Road.

Kim Michalec [00:23:53] Yeah.

David Brewer [00:23:55] So.

Arrye Rosser [00:23:56] Yeah. Do you remember what it looked like before they started quarrying there on the west side by your property?

David Brewer [00:24:03] It was on the west side? Yeah, it was just George’s. He had some farmland up there. It was more or less level. And I don’t know if part of Szalay’s Farm, part of that or what. I don’t know. 

Kim Michalec [00:24:13] I don’t know either. But I mean, it was just- I mean, he created the really big hill from doing all of the excavation.

David Brewer [00:24:22] Oh, the hill was still there. 

Kim Michalec [00:24:24] I mean, the hill to George’s was there, but the rest of that whole- He changed the topography by creating that Indigo Lake.

Arrye Rosser [00:24:31] So, yeah, the bluff kind of looked- [crosstalk]

Kim Michalec [00:24:35] Right, right, right. Some of that was there, but the rest of it was created.

David Brewer [00:24:40] The south part was already the hill there. 

Arrye Rosser [00:24:43] Where was his house relative to- So now we have the access road is coming in where the train station that’s been rebuilt and it’s kind of- There’s a connector trail that runs to Hale Farm on the north side of what’s the old pit. Where was the house relative to all that?

Kim Michalec [00:25:03] Paul Wilson’s house? He was over on Oak Hill.

David Brewer [00:25:06] He lived on Oak Hill Road.

Arrye Rosser [00:25:09] Mr. Gray then.

David Brewer [00:25:10] Oh, yeah, he was south of Indigo Lake up on the hill. Just, in fact my property one way was right back to his property.

Arrye Rosser [00:25:20] How did he get in there?

Kim Michalec [00:25:21] Well, there was a little driveway that ran along the railroad tracks, and it went around the bend and then it went up the hill.

David Brewer [00:25:29] Went up around the hill [crosstalk] and his house was up on the hill. And that was part of the property. My wife’s granddad sold him part of that property to build his house up there.

Arrye Rosser [00:25:41] Yeah, there’s kind of access to the Sunoco- The Sunoco’s got something going on.

Kim Michalec [00:25:47] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:25:47] Between Howe Meadow and the Indigo Lake.

Kim Michalec [00:25:49] Yes. Because when we walk from Indigo Lake around that way, there’s all that stuff. And that was- Then you walk into his property.

David Brewer [00:25:56] Yeah, there’s a pipeline went right through there. [crosstalk] The Sunoco pipeline was right through part of the property we had and George- 

Kim Michalec [00:26:04] And George Gray’s. Yeah, yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:26:06] And you were saying- So who was doing the- George Grey owned the land, but he was leasing it to- Give me that one.

David Brewer [00:26:18] We don’t know if he leased it to Paul to dig the gravel out or- We don’t really know the, you know, the financial part, if they give him money for it or he leased it or he just let him use it. We don’t know that part of it.

Arrye Rosser [00:26:37] And was- And he lived on the Oak Hill section that’s north of Hale Farm, but south of the Everett Covered Bridge. Somewhere in that?

David Brewer [00:26:46] Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:26:47] Okay. Oh, wow!

David Brewer [00:26:49] He had a house back there they built back in the ’50s.

Kim Michalec [00:26:53] In fact, didn’t they go with the- They kept the house and didn’t sell the house to the Valley, but obviously they lived there? Isn’t that what they chose to do?

David Brewer [00:27:04] I think until-

Kim Michalec [00:27:05] They had like a 20-year lease or whatever- 

David Brewer [00:27:08] Until it run out. [crosstalk] Then they left. Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:27:12] Yeah. And maybe let’s jump over and ask about like the neighbors that were on the east side and the Montgomery’s, the ones that- I’ve seen them, that tract of land. The land tracts are kind of confusing.

David Brewer [00:27:30] I know, if you got a map to see where the property lines were. But Russell Tonkin sold Montgomery’s a piece of land north of the garage in the beaver swamp up on the hill there. And I don’t know how much he sold off there to him. And they did. I don’t think they built a house there. That’s where Eric had the trailer up there. Rented- The mailman out of Peninsula had a trailer up on the hill there back in the ’60s after we moved out there. And he lived up there, but I think he just rented that off of Montgomery’s. They didn’t have a house up there, I think. But then the Mitchells and stuff, where the trailer park used to be and so on, which was neighbors to my wife, she went to school with them, they had property up there, the Mitchells. And then they sold off some property and you know, Cradlebaughs and Andrews and some other people lived up on that hill.

Kim Michalec [00:28:28] Uh huh.

Arrye Rosser [00:28:29] That’s kind of the bump in the road that you go off between your family’s property and the trailer-

David Brewer [00:28:36] Down to the trailer park. [crosstalk]

Arrye Rosser [00:28:39] Yeah. And there’s still homes back up up in that.

David Brewer [00:28:42] Yeah, [crosstalk] they called it Mitchell Drive because Mitchell’s owned that originally.

Arrye Rosser [00:28:47] And how far south do you remember sort of your family land being? I know there was like a cluster, there was homes where I would say is the access, the parking lot for Ira Trailhead. That’s where you park a car if you’re walking to Beaver Marsh. That’s sort of south of the lot.

David Brewer [00:29:05] Yeah, that was- Howes lived there where that parking lot was. Like I was telling her, I don’t know if that was Dick Howe or Glenn Howe or one of the Howes, because there they had a girl and a boy. The boy was about my wife’s age. And she was born in ’38. And Jean Howe was like- She was like a year two older than me, which she must have been born like in 1933. They lived there. Then I don’t know when they ended up leaving, and they tore that house down. I don’t know if it was after the park bought it and they made that parking lot in there or what. But then there was an old house north of there which they tore down. They used to call it a grist mill, I think. That was south of the Burl’s garage. And my wife’s uncle lived there for a while. Her aunt lived there for a while. And then there was some people by the name of Dotson- [crosstalk] 

Kim Michalec [00:30:06] Dotson, that I went to school with. 

David Brewer [00:30:08] That lived there. [laughs] And it kind of was a rental type house but I don’t know who owned it. Must have been owned some by somebody of the Howes, [crosstalk] the Howe family somewhere.

Arrye Rosser [00:30:18] I never heard of a gristmill there.

David Brewer [00:30:20] Yeah, it was- I don’t know what’s a gristmill? Where they grind flour and stuff. [crosstalk] And it was kind of the- The back of it was kind of to the canal, you know, where the canal come back towards the parking lot. There was an old house there, and they tore it down, too, after the park got in there.

Arrye Rosser [00:30:40] I think that’s got to be getting into the Carter’s farm operation. That’s about maybe-

David Brewer [00:30:48] Yeah, I’ve heard of the Carters, but I don’t remember where they lived or anything. Maybe they was over on the Peninsula Road side, were they? Or on the Riverview Road side.

Arrye Rosser [00:30:57] There’s a lot of Carters, so it gets confusing because there’s a lot of places that get Carter this Carter, that- There was kind of Carter, and they were also part of the store that was there on Everett Road, coming off of the village of Everett. But then they were related. But then there was a house, if I understand it right, right by what kids call Pancake Lock, you know, north of the parking lot for Ira, south of the boardwalk area now. And then there was a second house that was just almost immediately south of the boardwalk area. Now there’s old, like evergreen trees that are back in there.

Kim Michalec [00:31:37] Okay.

Arrye Rosser [00:31:38] And that was where the son lived, Darwin, if I get my logistics right.

David Brewer [00:31:42] It could be. 

Arrye Rosser [00:31:44] Yeah, it’s on the- I think it’s all on the east side of the canal was their property. [crosstalk] So I think you guys maybe are talking about between the road and the canal. The landowners were there.

David Brewer [00:31:57] I think I’ve heard them talk about the Carters, but I really didn’t know, you know, get in my mind who they were or where they lived or anything. But I know it was a name down in that area.

Arrye Rosser [00:32:09] Well, describe like the east side of the road, kind of. What did the landscape look like and what did you know about it over in the older times maybe before you kind of what we now think of it as being underwater. What was it like?

David Brewer [00:32:25] Yeah, when we moved down there to say the ’60s and ’70s, it was a little bit of water in there and it was like a wetlands or something, but it wasn’t, you know, a lot of water song because, like I said, they raised corn back in there before in the late ’30s and early ’40s. So I would say 15, 20 years later, it kind of went back to a little bit of water back in there, but it wasn’t a whole lot.

Kim Michalec [00:32:55] Because the garage was there and then Uncle Burl had that, hate to say it, but the junkyard for all of the VWs and they, they weren’t- It wasn’t wet up there, but as you went back farther it got more damp.

David Brewer [00:33:09] Yeah. So in other words, if this was Riverview Road to garage was in a little piece like this where he had his garage, it was a little higher than what was back in there. [crosstalk] Because if you went on back in there, walking back, you’d probably get in like swampy area, maybe up to your knee or your ankles or something. But then later on the park got it, they plugged everything up so nothing drained out. And it really-

Kim Michalec [00:33:34] Well, I remember one time because I was telling Erich that uncle, my Uncle Burl was, loved animals, huge animal lover. And one time he had a couple baby muskrats which were really mean. But he had to have gotten them back in that area because my Uncle Burl only went from the garage to the house. [laughs] He didn’t really go very far. That was kind of his life. He just was like right in that area.

David Brewer [00:34:03] Like a little hermit. [laughs]

Kim Michalec [00:34:04] He kind of was, yeah. And I remember being so interested in these little baby muskrats, but they were really mean. So he had to have gotten them from back in there.

David Brewer [00:34:16] Back towards the canal area.

Kim Michalec [00:34:17] Yeah. Where it was swampy.

Arrye Rosser [00:34:19] So the area that is right by the road, you can still kind of see that, it’s still pretty dry.

Kim Michalec [00:34:27] You can. Yes.

Arrye Rosser [00:34:28] And then- So the landscape perhaps is still pretty similar? It’s just-

Kim Michalec [00:34:35] I think so. I think it’s just-

David Brewer [00:34:37] Yeah, I don’t think anything. I don’t think they’ve changed the landscape. [crosstalk] Where they got rid of the junkyard and the barn or the building and all that just grew back up. But it, it like you say it was around like it. But it tapered off to the back of that. That’s why there was more wet back in there.

Kim Michalec [00:34:55] I mean in the trees and stuff. You know, there were still trees.

David Brewer [00:34:58] Yeah, scrub trees.

Kim Michalec [00:35:00] Scrub trees on the sides and stuff. But really we can stand there and look towards Riverview Road from the walking and we can see exactly- We knew, you know, where everything was.

Arrye Rosser [00:35:12] And when you think of the land getting wet, was that on the east side or in what we would think of as behind the business or on the north side, kind of if you were facing the business on the left on the Montgomery side, or was it all of it?

David Brewer [00:35:31] It was kind of all of it around that area that’s raised up a little bit where the garage was and so on so it was all kind of low there. It come off of that hill where Montgomery was down to it. So probably originally it was all wet in there even before our folks ever moved down there, any of the ones we’re related to.

Arrye Rosser [00:35:52] How do you remember what the canal was like at that time? Because as I understand it, the beavers moved in first at the Oxbow area, which is down by what the parking lot is. That was the first documented lodge that was there. But I think they made their first dam in the canal, perhaps north of the boardwalk area. So I’ve always had a lot of questions, kind of like, now we have a big boardwalk going over that, was it- Did you guys go back in and mess around in the canal?

David Brewer [00:36:31] I tell you the truth, I lived down there when me and my wife built the house down there. Of course, I lived south down by Bath Road, but I’d never been back in there all the time I lived there for 13 years.

Kim Michalec [00:36:44] And I think when I was a kid, my sister and we had a cousin down there and I mean, we might have- We might have gone back there a couple times, but I can’t really tell you anything special about it.

David Brewer [00:36:57] It was even kind of growed up back up in there [crosstalk] and swampy area a little bit.

Kim Michalec [00:37:03] It was. Yeah. And it was kind of one of those things that, I mean, it really wasn’t like a very good place to explore. It was hard to get to.

Arrye Rosser [00:37:10] Yeah, that’s what I’m picturing in my mind. It was wet.

Kim Michalec [00:37:14] Wet and overgrown and, you know, and you know, just not something that-

Arrye Rosser [00:37:21] Do you remember anything about the plants and everything? Like, were there flowers or is there anything- [inaudible]

David Brewer [00:37:27] All I can remember looking back there was like it was lily pads. Lily pads like there are now.

Kim Michalec [00:37:33] Yeah.

David Brewer [00:37:33] Only there wasn’t as high. There was more.

Kim Michalec [00:37:35] They were living low. Yeah. But there were wildflowers that would grow back in that area. Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:37:41] And is that like kind of in the footprint of what is now the big wet area?

David Brewer [00:37:48] Kind of, yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:37:49] Where, do you remember?

Kim Michalec [00:37:52] Where the bridge, where the walking path is now. You know, I- We don’t really- I don’t remember what was on the opposite side, you know, but towards the garage. That was just all just a bunch of overgrown nothing.

David Brewer [00:38:08] Yeah, a little bit of swamp- [crosstalk] Swampy area. But it wasn’t very deep.

Kim Michalec [00:38:13] Nobody ever- made 

Arrye Rosser [00:38:14] Shrubby? 

Kim Michalec [00:38:15] Yeah, probably. Nobody ever mowed it. Nobody ever took the brush hog to it or anything. It just kind of- Just kind of stayed.

David Brewer [00:38:24] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:38:26] And you were describing some things that the family had done to the land to kind of drain it. Can you talk about that in more detail?

David Brewer [00:38:36] The only thing I remember saying that they drained that area where the garage, which is the swamp now, which was probably years ago, was like it is now, but they drained that over into the canal so they could plant, you know, plow it up back in there and plant things back in there. And the way I understand it, that Pap-Pap, when he went first down there in ’36 to the early ’40s, he raised corn over in there where the beaver swamp is now.

Arrye Rosser [00:39:09] What did they do to drain it? Were they just digging a ditch?

David Brewer [00:39:13] All they did is I guess they had an opening back to the canal. I was never back in there, but they said it was kind of blocked up. And then I don’t know if they went back in there or had somebody do it and maybe dug a little ditch to let that drain over into the canal area area so they could get in there with their farm equipment and plow it up and stuff.

Arrye Rosser [00:39:35] And this is Russell.

David Brewer [00:39:36] Russell.

Arrye Rosser [00:39:37] Russell, yeah, Russell.

Kim Michalec [00:39:39] We call him Pap-Pap, but it was Russell. Russell and Ursul. 

David Brewer [00:39:40] Russell and Ursul Tonkin. Pap-Pap and Bobbie’s one. Shirley that’s her grandmother.

Arrye Rosser [00:39:50] I’m just blown away hearing about how wet it was because we just had heard it a little different. But that makes sense to me. I think it’s really cool, actually. Was the towpath what we think of, you know, the raised area where the mules went, was that something that people would go- And I know in other parts of the old canal lands, you know, people almost used it like a road.

Kim Michalec [00:40:20] Sure.

Arrye Rosser [00:40:21] But I wondered how wet it was.

David Brewer [00:40:24] I really don’t know because I was never back in there where the canal was and the river.

Kim Michalec [00:40:27] And the times that we went back as kids, I just remember it just being a mucky kind of overgrown, nothing special. In fact, I mean, it- I don’t even know if I could tell you that that’s what the canal, the towpath looked like, because it was so overgrown.

Arrye Rosser [00:40:50] Yeah, well, it may not- I don’t know how much it looked like the path.

Kim Michalec [00:40:55] The exposed part. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:40:59] How far back do you think your memories are going of what this was like? Is it ’60s?

David Brewer [00:41:08] Yeah.

Kim Michalec [00:41:09] Oh, definitely. 

Arrye Rosser [00:41:10] Yeah. How far are you remembering back farther than that?

David Brewer [00:41:14] Well, I, I, me and my wife built a house down there in ’64. But, you know, of course, I’ve been down Riverview Road as kids riding our bicycles and different things, but we was never back over in there where the canal was and so on. All we knew is down along Riverview Road from Ira Road to Bath Road where you seen the cement parts along there. Of course that was all tore up, you know, along there. But from Ira Road north it heads more over towards the river and then down to Peninsula. And I was never back in that area, even as a kid.

Arrye Rosser [00:41:52] Yeah, I guess why would you go, in some way?

David Brewer [00:41:53] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:41:55] Yeah. Well, thank you very much for sort of sharing that. Tell me a little bit more about- Let’s talk more about the family business. Tell me a bit about Burl though. Just paint a picture of what he was- It seems like he was a character.

David Brewer [00:42:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just went around with a shirt off most of the time and he had a little white helmet on. I don’t know if it even said- [crosstalk] He had a big knife on, always on his belt like on about that long and a chain. And he hung on there with these big wallet in his back pocket. Now he’s had boots on, blue jeans.

Kim Michalec [00:42:34] Yeah, he wore blue jeans. But he was his own- Never married, never had children.

David Brewer [00:42:39] And he just lived up there at the old farmhouse- [ 

Kim Michalec [00:42:43] With this parents.

David Brewer [00:42:44] And half the time and we down there, he had a little lean-to in the back of the garage. He just stayed down there at night. Sleep down there and everything. [laughs]

Kim Michalec [00:42:52] Yeah, loved animals. I mean he had a dog. He always had a dog, a cat, whatever. And yeah, he just- He just was his own- He drove. He had a pickup truck for a while. Used to take my sister and me and our cousin. Sometimes he’d take us swimming.

David Brewer [00:43:10] He had a motorcycle one time, an old motor- [crosstalk] And he used to go down to Old Portage, the beer joint down there, and have a few beers and hey, he just lived from there to Old Portage more or less and Peninsula. [laughs]

Kim Michalec [00:43:24] And he knew, he knew- I mean everybody knew him. People would come to the garage and hang out, just hang out. I mean not necessarily- Sometimes to have their car fixed, but a lot of times just to hang out.

Arrye Rosser [00:43:38] And I’ve seen photos of the business, but not from all angles. Like, can you describe the building and the setup there?

David Brewer [00:43:47] Yeah, see, they had an old block building area at first and it burnt down. And when was it? [crosstalk] Right after we moved down there, say ’65 or ’66 and so on. So they took all the- Maybe that’s where some of those cement block came from. And I made the leech. Well out from the barn.

Kim Michalec [00:44:08] Wouldn’t be surprised. [laughs]

David Brewer [00:44:09] No, no, that was- That was after we had built. So anyhow, then they built. They put a new building up there. But it was like a metal building and had- It was big enough. They had garage door when I was- On both sides or was it one side?

Kim Michalec [00:44:25] It was just the one side. But then they also had a pit on the one end of the thing on the outside that they could- [crosstalk]

David Brewer [00:44:33] Drive up on there. And then they walked- 

Kim Michalec [00:44:34] Underneath. 

David Brewer [00:44:35] But that was there with the- 

Kim Michalec [00:44:38] Service. And there were gas station pumps, two of them, in the front. Sinclair.

David Brewer [00:44:42] Yeah. I don’t know when- They took them out even before we moved down there.

Kim Michalec [00:44:46] And then he had the- There was a man door that took you into the actual garage itself. And it was a mess. And then he had that junkyard. I mean, it was a mess

David Brewer [00:44:55] Inside the building looked like a junkyard too, because he had parts everywhere.

Kim Michalec [00:45:01] Yeah.

David Brewer [00:45:02] Just laying around, you know.

Arrye Rosser [00:45:05] Yeah. We’ve always struggled a little bit with like whether to call it a junkyard because we didn’t want to be saying-

Kim Michalec [00:45:11] I mean, it really was not a junkyard, but it became that, I think.

David Brewer [00:45:15] We called it- We called it Burl’s Junkyard. [laughs]

Kim Michalec [00:45:17] Yeah. It’s a graveyard for VWs. I mean. Yeah.

David Brewer [00:45:20] Even though he was related to us, we still called it Burl’s Junkyard. [laughs]

Arrye Rosser [00:45:25] Yeah.

David Brewer [00:45:26] Because if he’s working on Volkswagens or helping somebody always had old Volkswagen, he’d go out there. But if he didn’t have the parts in the building, he’d go out and look in the outside and see if there was anything in the cars, you know.

Kim Michalec [00:45:39] Yeah.

David Brewer [00:45:39] That he needed.

Arrye Rosser [00:45:41] So he was basically- It was his parts. That was his inventory.

David Brewer [00:45:46] Yeah, [crosstalk] it really was his outside inventory. Yeah.

Kim Michalec [00:45:49] It’s not like it was a thrive- I mean, maybe when they had their gas pumps and stuff, it was a little-

David Brewer [00:45:55] And I understand when he went down to Hocking Hills and bought that property, he put up a building down there too. And they- He- I don’t know if they took the engines out of a lot of those old Volkswagens. [crosstalk] When he moved down there, he had the government haul a lot of that stuff down there for him. And he had engines all over the floor down there when me and Shirley went down there to see him one time. [inaudible] And he- Of course, he was in his 60s. He ended up dying when he was 65. About- They moved down there in ’81. He must have died in ’85 or ’86, somewhere around there.

Kim Michalec [00:46:32] Yeah. But yeah, he moved a lot of that stuff. [laughs]

David Brewer [00:46:36] We used to say, why did you bring all this stuff clear down here? You’ll never use it. You know?

Arrye Rosser [00:46:42] You solved the mystery that I have been wondering about for a really long time is where, if there was all this junk, where’d the junk go? And I thought maybe the government had a contractor that came in and cleared it out.

David Brewer [00:46:57] They may have on some of it.

Kim Michalec [00:46:59] Might have on some but he did take a lot of stuff with him.

Arrye Rosser [00:47:01] And the government paid for it as well?

David Brewer [00:47:03] Yeah. [crosstalk] Like a moving expense.

Arrye Rosser [00:47:06] Oh, fascinating. So did the business move when he moved, or he’d just take his stuff and that was the end?

Kim Michalec [00:47:16] Whatever [laughs] little bit of business there was.

David Brewer [00:47:18] They just come in-

Kim Michalec [00:47:19] Yeah.

David Brewer [00:47:20] See we moved in ’78, and my father-in-law Percy, they moved in ’79. And he really didn’t want to leave down there. He’s talking about, you know, getting the-

Kim Michalec [00:47:34] The thing where you stay. Yeah, the lease.

David Brewer [00:47:36] Lease or whatever. But then he seen that me and my wife, we said, well, we’re not going to stay here. We want to but you know, we might as well just get out of here. We was only in our early 40s then and so on and so we left. He decided, well, we’re going to leave too. So we went out to north of Wadsworth and they went over to Copley. And then a couple years after that they negotiated with Burl and Grandma because Russell was already passed away.

Kim Michalec [00:48:08] Right.

David Brewer [00:48:08] And then with the farm and then with Burl’s garage stuff- 

Kim Michalec [00:48:15] Whatever little bit of value that would have been for him, you know.

David Brewer [00:48:18] So when he-

Kim Michalec [00:48:19] I mean it wasn’t like it was a real super-viable business.

David Brewer [00:48:22] Yeah. When he left he wanted to go somewhere where he had some acreage. So he got with some like it’s telling him a realtor south of here. And they found him 20 acres down there by Hocking Hills. And that’s where they ended up. He took his mom and went down there.

Arrye Rosser [00:48:38] So the- And he was in business with his brother?

David Brewer [00:48:43] Yeah. 

Kim Michalec [00:48:44] Mom’s dad.

David Brewer [00:48:45] My wife’s dad.

Kim Michalec [00:48:46] When they first got out of the war. It was World War II.

Arrye Rosser [00:48:49] Tell me just a little bit about just how the business got started. What do you remember, or had heard about it?

David Brewer [00:48:56] Yeah. That was a year before I moved out. And my parents moved out there on Yellow Creek Road, so that had to be in ’46, and they just worked on cars between the two of them and I guess they made this garage. They built it themselves. 

Kim Michalec [00:49:17] They built it themselves. 

David Brewer [00:49:18] And laid up some blocks for the end. And they had a roof they put over it and some trusses and so on. They had their own garage until-

Kim Michalec [00:49:24] And really Grandpa- You said Grandpa was the better of the two mechanically at that time, Percy. And then they had the gas station.

David Brewer [00:49:31] Right.

Kim Michalec [00:49:32] The two pumps. And they had it for- You figured like ten years, maybe?

David Brewer [00:49:38] Yeah, ’46 to, I would say, because he was building cars, the one Shirley drove around in ’53 or so. So I think he might- They must have split up about ’55. So it must have been about 10, 11 years or 9 or 10 years. And then from then on, Burl just had it himself, more or less, just tinkering around down there.

Arrye Rosser [00:50:04] Mm hm. So it was kind of more of an active business right after the war?

David Brewer [00:50:09] Yeah, they kind of went together on it. But my father in law, Percy, he was the better of the mechanics and he’s- Burl could do things, but he was the better. But so they did it again and like I was telling him, they kind of didn’t get along that good and it wasn’t making that much money and so on. And he had worked at Goodrich before, I think even before he went into service, and so on. So he went back to Goodrich and he got a job back there and he built hoses for, like fire hoses and different kind of, called it the hose room, at Goodrich. Till he got it- He hurt his neck or something down there. So he left there and he was off here. And then he ended up- Went up to the top trucking companies in Richfield and he ended up working for trucking companies. Well, in between there he worked for Wilson’s Sand and Gravel for about a year. [crosstalk] I’m gonna have to go to the restroom.

Arrye Rosser [00:51:06] That’s okay. We could take a little break real quick. [recording stops and resumes] Recap what you were just saying about putting the picture of Burl and going and hanging out in the garage.

Kim Michalec [00:51:14] Okay. Uncle Burl was a very unique individual. He was the kind of person, he would pull his own teeth, but he was very friendly, loved animals and. But I don’t think his business had much to do with making money. I think it was basically something for him to piddle around at. He did make a little bit of money, I’m sure. But there were always, always people at the garage. And I would go down there after school. I loved to go down there because it was an absolute- It was a disaster down there. You never knew what you were going to find in the junk area. You go in the front door of the building and it was just piles of things and it smelled like oil. And it was- It was a fabulous place. But it was the biggest mess you’ve ever seen. But there were always people. Always people. There was- And then he had a little place in the very, very back. I think he had a little stove or something for wood. He heated it back there and it was just this little lean-to and he had like a- I mean, literally, it was like- I don’t even know if it was a cot, like from-

David Brewer [00:52:11] It was something like this when it was a car seat out of a back car or something he used back here and he’d sleep back there.

Kim Michalec [00:52:18] Yeah, he’d smoke and, you know, and that was his bed. He’d sit on it and sleep on it. And he always had a ratty dog. And that was Uncle Burl.

David Brewer [00:52:27] He was like a hermit. 

Kim Michalec [00:52:29] He was. He was very different, but everybody loved him.

Arrye Rosser [00:52:32] What was his- Do you know anything about his service during the war? Where did he serve?

David Brewer [00:52:38] He was in the Army. Like I told him, he caught malaria over there or something. He had scars all over his back from, I don’t know, sores or whatever and so on. But they said he had malaria when he’s over- And he was in New Guinea somewhere and- 

Kim Michalec [00:52:55] He was a scout.

David Brewer [00:52:56] And, yeah, that’s all I know is he’s over New Guinea somewhere in the Army.

Kim Michalec [00:53:00] Yeah. So.

Arrye Rosser [00:53:00] He was in World War II in the Pacific.

David Brewer [00:53:06] So he must have. He must have got drafted in ’42 because he- He wasn’t married, so on. And Percy, he got drafted in ’44, like I was telling him. That’s my wife’s dad. So he was a couple years older than Burl. So they got the single guys first and then they got into the married guys with kids. I remember my dad had- I’m the youngest of four and my dad said that they even got- He was like 36 back in the ’40s. They even got where they was going- But since he had four kids and so on, they. He didn’t have to go. But they was getting up to where they was needing men. They had to get into families that had kids and so on, back in the ’40s in that war.

Arrye Rosser [00:54:01] Tell me a bit more about Burl and the animals. How old do you think he got the muskrats? And how did that-

Kim Michalec [00:54:08] Well, you know, he had no fear of animals.

Arrye Rosser [00:54:11] He had dogs-

David Brewer [00:54:12] Must’ve got them when they was babies.

Kim Michalec [00:54:15] When they were babies, and I never knew how he acquired those muskrats. I think there were three of them. And he put them in a bird cage that summer and they were, they were nasty things, but I didn’t care. I mean, they were- They were pretty wicked. But, you know, he raised them, fed him, fed them, whatever kept them going and then he let them go. And one time I had baby possums that my dad brought home. So this is where I do believe some of this I got from Uncle Burl. And my grandpa was - and my mom - big animal lovers. But when I got these baby possums. And we were just out of school that summer, and he brought this little tiny box home from the gas company who was working. It was lunchtime. And he said, if you tell me what’s in here, you can have it. And it was squeaking, but- So I went down the list. You know, I always wanted a groundhog. Always wanted- So finally I said possums. And so there were 14 little tiny baby possums in this box.

David Brewer [00:55:15] Yeah, I was out on Howell Road and out in Tallmadge, and me and this buddy of mine was driving in the truck. We were driving. We seen this animal on the road and it been run over. And we just laying there and we went around it kind of looked like it was something moving around there with it. So we stopped, went back and here all the babies come out of the pouch or something was there. So the mother was dead. A car hit it and so on, so I put them in a box and I took them home and give them to her. [laughs]

Kim Michalec [00:55:44] Oh, it was the best summer. That was the best summer. So he raised them. But then it got to be fall. Then it’s gonna- And dad built this really long cage. I think it was a rabbit cage or something, but that’s what they lived in. Well, then it got to be where it was going to be coming cold weather. And I remember him saying, you’re going to have to let those things go.

David Brewer [00:56:02] They was getting bigger.

Kim Michalec [00:56:04] They were getting bigger. And so I took them. We had a wagon. You put that on the wagon. And I hauled the wagon down to the garage. And he had a fenced area for the junkyard. And he had a junkyard dog. Remember that dog? It was really a mean dog. 

David Brewer [00:56:21] You from this area? Oh, I thought.

Arrye Rosser [00:56:22] But I’ve been here 30 years, so it’s adding up.

David Brewer [00:56:25] You remember- 

Arrye Rosser [00:56:26] My adult life. 

David Brewer [00:56:27] Yeah. Remember Birdsell, the first? Oh, you probably know. You probably heard of him.

Arrye Rosser [00:56:30] I’ve always been here during the Debo era.

David Brewer [00:56:34] The first guy took over in a park. His name was Birdsell. And he’s buried over there. Ira Cemetery there by the Hale Farm, the way I understood it. And then there was a guy named Jack Blanton. He’s the one who negotiated with us to sell our property. And Reader was the guy’s name. I forget what his first name was, Bob Reader or something like that. Those are the two guys that we dealt with.

Kim Michalec [00:56:58] Negotiated. Yeah.

David Brewer [00:57:00] Buy our property. And that was in the ’70s.

Kim Michalec [00:57:03] Yeah. Okay. So what did people do for a living? So my great-grandfather was a Firestone employee and then retired and did the farming.

David Brewer [00:57:13] And George was the same.

Kim Michalec [00:57:14] And then George was the same. He was Firestone and retired, and he had his little farm area there. Grandpa, which was Percy.

David Brewer [00:57:22] He worked at the garage.

Kim Michalec [00:57:26] Goodrich.

David Brewer [00:57:26] And then the gravel pit and then the trucking company. 

Kim Michalec [00:57:30] Ultimately at the trucking company, Specter Freight, and retired from there. And then you worked at East Ohio Gas your whole time. And Kenny. Where did Kenny-

David Brewer [00:57:40] He worked at Air Maze up in towards Cleveland or Macedonia or somewhere up in there.

Kim Michalec [00:57:46] And then the ladies, they just did whatever. I mean no, no- My mom worked.

David Brewer [00:57:51] My wife worked. She worked on Paul Wilson at the gravel pit for a while. And she worked at the trucking company some too.

Kim Michalec [00:57:59] But everybody else was a stay-at-home.

Arrye Rosser [00:58:00] Yeah. What did your mom do at the gravel pit?

Kim Michalec [00:58:04] She did their books and took care of, like, all of the- When they would come through with their loads, the weighing and the tariffs and all the things, all the paperwork.

David Brewer [00:58:12] Yeah, they had a weight where the trucks would drive up there and they’d weigh them, you know, for how much gravel they had on it.

Kim Michalec [00:58:18] Right. Yeah. She did all the bookkeeping.

Arrye Rosser [00:58:20] Sorry if I’m like, losing a little bit. So this is the. What was the business called? We call it-

Kim Michalec [00:58:25] Paul- Wasn’t it Paul Wilson’s Sand and Gravel?

David Brewer [00:58:29] Yeah.

Kim Michalec [00:58:29] Yeah. Wilson’s Sand and Gravel. 

David Brewer [00:58:29] Wilson’s Sand and Gravel.

Kim Michalec [00:58:32] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [00:58:32] I think we’ve given it maybe the wrong name, so that’s always good to ask. But this is what is now Indigo Lake.

Kim Michalec [00:58:40] Yes, yes.

David Brewer [00:58:41] On the west side. And he had the gravel pit on the other side behind the trailer park.

Arrye Rosser [00:58:47] So Gray owned the land, but he wasn’t operating the business.

David Brewer [00:58:50] Right.

Arrye Rosser [00:58:51] And your mom worked there. During what time frame was your mom working there?

David Brewer [00:58:56] She was there in, before we moved down there even, so it had to be, say, from ’63 to ’70 or somewhere in that area. She worked there for quite a while.

Kim Michalec [00:59:10] Quite a while, yeah.

David Brewer [00:59:10] But she worked at trucking companies before that when we was up in the falls.

Arrye Rosser [00:59:15] Yeah.

Kim Michalec [00:59:15] So she at least worked there for, like, probably seven years, maybe. Maybe a little more.

Arrye Rosser [00:59:23] Absolutely interesting. What were the women’s personalities like? I hate to kind of lose track of who are those? It feels like Burl’s mom was a key person. 

Kim Michalec [00:59:41] She was very good with plants, gardening. She was really good with taking care of the farm animals, the chickens, and she wasn’t a very good housekeeper, but she was good about all that. She was a pretty good cook. You know, she- But she just kind of tended to what the family things were supposed to be about. She was always outside. She was an outside person.

David Brewer [01:00:05] Her and Pap-Pap knew each other from down at Sutton and I guess they got married down there. They always said something about Ursul was the oldest and she had a sister, Bliss and Georgie, and a brother, Bailey. He stayed down there and farmed. But the story was that Bliss and Georgie would always be in doing the housework and Ursul to be out with her dad in the farm. [laughs]

Kim Michalec [01:00:30] She was an outdoor person. 

David Brewer [01:00:31] Taking care of the cows and everything else. She didn’t like housework.

Kim Michalec [01:00:34] No, she did not. So that was her. And then-

David Brewer [01:00:37] That was the story about her.

Kim Michalec [01:00:39] My grandma, Grandma Alma, she stayed- She was a stay-at-home wife.

David Brewer [01:00:45] That was Percy’s wife and my mother-in-law.

Kim Michalec [01:00:47] And she had flowers and she liked to- She liked to do some cooking a little bit. She liked to sew. I mean-

David Brewer [01:00:55] Yeah. [crosstalk] Yeah, she sewed a lot. Made all of Shirley’s clothes.

Kim Michalec [01:01:00] When she was little, but she was a meticulous housekeeper. Just kept herself busy with things like that. Just a really good wife.

Arrye Rosser [01:01:08] Did everybody get along? It sounds like it was quite like a family enclave.

Kim Michalec [01:01:13] It was, it was.

David Brewer [01:01:14] But there was few feuds here and there, like in every family, you know.

Kim Michalec [01:01:18] You know, your acreage is just a part.

David Brewer [01:01:21] What was at that time, Burl? He come up from the garage and he had a gun.

Kim Michalec [01:01:26] He was gonna kill Warren.

David Brewer [01:01:27] Oh, Warren. It was the younger brother, something that got- They got into it. [laughs] 

Kim Michalec [01:01:33] Because I was telling Erich that my grandmother, my great-grandmother kept diaries. And so the first diary that we have of hers was in 1940. And she was very, very really pretty religious about keeping a diary. Well, then there was a period that we didn’t have any, kind of in the like ’50s. And then it started back up in the ’60s all the way through ’76, I think was the last one.

David Brewer [01:01:56] That’s when the negotiations and everything started.

Kim Michalec [01:01:59] She was getting old then and she didn’t diary as much, but I mean, she was really good about what was the weather like that day and who put the onion sets out and who plowed this or who did that- 

David Brewer [01:02:12] And daily chores. 

Kim Michalec [01:02:13] All the things that her day consisted of. And the laundry. There was always a laundry day, which was the old way of doing the laundry. And the wind dried it so fast. I mean, it was all that kind of stuff. 

David Brewer [01:02:23] She hung them out. 

Kim Michalec [01:02:24] You know, just- Oh yeah. Just like-

Arrye Rosser [01:02:26] We’d love to see those, I’m sure.

Kim Michalec [01:02:28] Oh, would you?

Arrye Rosser [01:02:28] Oh, yeah. It’s funny because some of the older diaries that I’ve heard about, too, they’re of an earlier generation, like from Peninsula. They’re kind of the same thing, you know, was- It was pretty basic of what just was going on.

Kim Michalec [01:02:44] Repeat of the same day. Yeah. And I told my dad, I said, well, reading her writing at times was a little bit of a challenge, but their days were just- They were really busy days, according to what she would write, but yet very interested in political things as well.

David Brewer [01:03:02] Yeah. She must have read the paper and watched TV when TV came out. [crosstalk] And she write everything down about political stuff.

Kim Michalec [01:03:09] A lot of political things. When something big would happen. Of course, when the boys were in, her boys were in the war, she had a lot of entries about that.

Arrye Rosser [01:03:19] It must have been terrifying. Let me ask you about, pivot over to like a landscape question, just to circle back to some things I hadn’t asked about before. We’ve been researching the Cuyahoga River’s history, and so I’m always curious about descriptions of what the river was like at various parts along the river. So do you have memories of- I mean, you were real close to the sewage treatment plant. What do you remember about your stretch of the Cuyahoga? What came to mind?

David Brewer [01:03:52] The only thing I can remember of it is it just runs about like it did today. But, you know, in the spring, a few times it was clear- It got up high. It was clear over Riverview Road there, south of Ira Road a couple times they had to kind of block the road off. They couldn’t get through there.

Kim Michalec [01:04:08] Yep. Yep.

David Brewer [01:04:09] And I don’t know, probably times I say it probably only got up to the road maybe two or three times, but the one time it went clear over, clear over the road, they had to block the road off. But that was kind of unusual, you know.

Arrye Rosser [01:04:24] Do you have a sense of about when that was?

David Brewer [01:04:27] That had- That had to be- That was before we was married, had to be in the ’50s sometime.

Arrye Rosser [01:04:36] Do you remember anything about like the. Was the river- Do people talk about it being dirty or smelly? Like, did you have the sense of being near the sewage plant?

David Brewer [01:04:46] Well, there was a- [crosstalk] There was a rumor that the sewage plant today was dumping sewage into the Cuyahoga River and so on.

Kim Michalec [01:04:54] Yeah. As far as like an odor, I mean-

David Brewer [01:04:57] And I remember, I remember old guy I worked with, he lived up off of Cuyahoga Street out of Akron, which was way up around past Old Portage, around the gorge that went clear into Akron. And some of those people, that they was like suing the city of Akron because of the smell and stuff. [crosstalk] And he told me the city of Akron actually gave him some checks at different times a year to compensate him. But that didn’t last too long.

Kim Michalec [01:05:30] We didn’t really- I don’t really remember it smelling-

David Brewer [01:05:33] I don’t either. They was kind of cleaning it up better-

Kim Michalec [01:05:35] By the time-

David Brewer [01:05:36] This was probably back in the ’40s when that happened.

Kim Michalec [01:05:39] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [01:05:40] Yeah. Well, I mean, I lived at the- I was starting my park career here at Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center, which is on Oak Hill, kind of above Everett, and I lived on that property back before the center even opened for a little while, and I could remember the smell even up there on the hill. So it’s interesting how things kind of change.

Kim Michalec [01:06:04] Because that was one of the things being in the valley, depending on where you were. Because when Blossom Music Center opened, if it was a really still- Depending on the time of night and the kind, the way that the air- You could hear a concert like it was in our backyard, then there was other times you couldn’t hear it at all. So I think that’s what I remember of odors. Just didn’t really-

Arrye Rosser [01:06:30] I remember Blossom, too. Like, when we were there, it was almost like they were in your backyard.

Kim Michalec [01:06:34] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [01:06:34] It was crazy. It was- Yeah. Certain conditions seemed to bring it on. Sometimes I heard in Peninsula, it might be because the river was kind of in everybody’s business, and it was so narrow there, that people were always telling their kids to stay out of the river. I don’t know if you remember any of that kind of-

David Brewer [01:06:54] Yeah, it was because they talked about the thing being that they was dumping sewage in it and so on. You know, you probably heard the story up in Cleveland. The Cuyahoga River caught on fire even. So up there in that area they was probably dumping oil and stuff in it from some of the factories up there. And then before going into Lake Erie, you know.

Arrye Rosser [01:07:16] Do you have any other kind of memories of other kinds of wildlife that were around in the area? Deer, the herons? Some of the animals that-

Kim Michalec [01:07:28] Well, now, herons. We don’t- I don’t remember herons.

David Brewer [01:07:31] Yeah. Down there on Bath Road, not when we was down there, but they had a rookery right down there on Bath Road.

Kim Michalec [01:07:36] They came more after we were-

David Brewer [01:07:37] Yeah, that was- That was way, way after us after we left there.

Kim Michalec [01:07:42] Yeah. I mean, you really didn’t see-

David Brewer [01:07:47] See that much.

Kim Michalec [01:07:48] You didn’t see coyote. You didn’t really see fox.

David Brewer [01:07:51] You didn’t see them. [crosstalk] You know, deer once in a while you might see one, but there’s so much area that they stayed away from houses. But now it’s more populated. They probably seem- We see more over in our area now than what we did when we was down in the Valley.

Arrye Rosser [01:08:07] Yeah. Did you- Tell me a little bit about some of the things that you did for fun when you were little. I was kind of curious. Or just in the early days. Might not- You’re different in age, obviously. So what were the- What do people do for a good time?

Kim Michalec [01:08:23] When we were kids and we’d get off the bus, we would walk on the railroad. Some of the kids down at the trailer park and up on Mitchell Drive, we’d kind of all gather and walk the railroad track all the way down to the little store- 

David Brewer [01:08:40] At Everett. 

Kim Michalec [01:08:40] Uh huh. Yeah. Which we were not supposed to be on the railroad tracks, but we did it anyway.

David Brewer [01:08:44] Down to Sneed’s at Ira.

Kim Michalec [01:08:46] Yeah. Yeah, we’d go that way, too. Yep. So we’d be- You know. But a lot of times you just kind of just got home and hung out and played outside and rode your bike and, you know, you didn’t- I don’t know. We didn’t really- You couldn’t really go anywhere because-

David Brewer [01:09:01] Didn’t have no way to get there. 

Kim Michalec [01:09:02] There was no way to get there.

David Brewer [01:09:03] And we wouldn’t take them. [laughs]

Kim Michalec [01:09:04] Right. You’re- You know, you had to find something. I mean, I used to- My sister and I used to like to play with George Gray’s one cow. I mean, it was literally- We had, you know, we always had animals. Cat, dogs. We had ducks one summer. We had fish. We had it all. We had a pony, we had a horse. I mean, it was just- You just occupied yourself. 

David Brewer [01:09:30] Kind of old country living, like. 

Kim Michalec [01:09:32] Yeah. 

David Brewer [01:09:33] Didn’t have nothing to do but hang around the farm area.

Kim Michalec [01:09:36] And because we had family, grandparents and great-grandparents, you could always just go visit somebody. You know, we never had a babysitter.

Arrye Rosser [01:09:44] What time period was that for your childhood?

Kim Michalec [01:09:48] Well, I would have been seven, so that would have been in the early ’60s, all the way up until I left home in 1975, which was right before they relocated.

Arrye Rosser [01:10:02] And did you have- Did you play with other kids from the neighborhood?

Kim Michalec [01:10:06] We had- We had relatives. We had my cousin that lived with my great-grandmother. And then we had some family, the Skidmores, and those were kind of our playmates. Then we had some friends up on Mitchell Drive, which wasn’t that far from us.

David Brewer [01:10:19] And then the Snead boys.

Kim Michalec [01:10:21] And the Snead boys, which- They were just around over by Old Trail School, and they’d come across the big field.

David Brewer [01:10:26] Most of them had [crosstalk] little motorcycles or something.

Kim Michalec [01:10:30] Yeah. And so, I mean. Yeah, those were our group.

Arrye Rosser [01:10:34] And what about, like back in your time, like what did the grownups do for fun? Were they just hanging out?

David Brewer [01:10:44] It’s not the same thing. [laughs] I don’t remember my mom and dad going anywhere hardly.

Kim Michalec [01:10:48] Yeah, I mean people, I don’t think people really did. I mean we would visit-

David Brewer [01:10:53] Visit some of their friends in Akron once in a while and it wasn’t- People just didn’t run around and do things like they do now.

Arrye Rosser [01:11:02] Do you remember going over to Virginia Kendall Park? Did you go visit that one, that Metro Park?

David Brewer [01:11:10] I was over there a couple times and so on. And they had a, didn’t they have a chute over there where they had toboggan chute? I was never on that or anything in the back in the early ’50s and so on. But I remember up on Sand Run and down at Old Portage, of course that’s out of the park, where Sand Run Park is up there, they had a, just a hill you slid down into. They filled it up with water and had a little skating pond down there, on Merriman Road is what it is, just, just up from Old Portage going up the hill.

Arrye Rosser [01:11:46] Yeah, that is the Big Bend area, I think what you described. Because there’s still a skating pond up there.

David Brewer [01:11:51] Yeah. They called that Sand Run skating area or park or whatever.

Kim Michalec [01:11:56] Yeah. And when we were kids, if it was winter time, everybody would go home off the bus and then we’d all get together and we had a toboggan and we had a bunch of sleds and we’d go to the hill. It seemed like it took forever, but it was just across the field and it was the one that took you over to Hale homestead. 

David Brewer [01:12:14] And we would- 

Kim Michalec [01:12:15] Yeah. And we would ride that hill with the toboggan and the sleds, and that was a big- That was a lot of fun. That was a big activity.

David Brewer [01:12:24] By the time you went through all the snow getting back there-

Kim Michalec [01:12:26] It was a big job.

Arrye Rosser [01:12:28] Do you remember anything- Let me back up to that. So was that kind of in the path that the connector trail now runs? Is it somewhere back in that area?

Kim Michalec [01:12:39] It’s kind of that way. The connector trail is actually over. If, if you’re standing and looking at the, the barn on the property, it would be to the right, directly behind. So you could just go back there and, actually, way back then there was nothing on this side of Hale homestead. They hadn’t brought all those other buildings in yet. There was just a big field you just- Because we used to go over and see our bus driver, Mr. Cranz, who lived over there too.

Arrye Rosser [01:13:08] So what do you remember about the Cranzes? We’ve been doing some research. There’s been research on the past, but there’s been some more recent questions about the Cranzes. So anything you can tell us about the Cranz’s?

Kim Michalec [01:13:19] Well, was it Harmon that was our bus driver?

David Brewer [01:13:22] Yeah, Harmon was our bus driver.

Kim Michalec [01:13:25] And he was a really sweet person. And then the Wetmores were relatives of theirs, and they lived in the house to the left of the Cranzes’ house. And they were friends with us, the family.

David Brewer [01:13:39] They was part of the old group before her great-granddad moved out there. They was there way back, you know, in the Hales, part of their family down the line. But yeah, Harmon- [phone rings]

Arrye Rosser [01:13:58] Sorry about that.

David Brewer [01:14:02] Was he your bus driver?

Kim Michalec [01:14:03] Yeah, he was.

David Brewer [01:14:04] Oh, was he? I didn’t- I didn’t remember that.

Kim Michalec [01:14:06] And he liked Robin and I, so we could sometimes sit up there where he was driving and had the hump.

David Brewer [01:14:11] And he had- He had a barn over there on. What was it? Ira Road. Went around the hill before Oak Hill. And he had a plane. [crosstalk] He flew a plane over there. And he had a little landing strip there. Like a little Piper Cub there by that barn over there to Cranzes.

Arrye Rosser [01:14:30] This is Harmon Cranz?

David Brewer [01:14:31] Harmon. Yeah. You didn’t know that?

Arrye Rosser [01:14:34] No, I didn’t know that. And I get a little- It’s Eugene Cranz that we know a bit more about because he was doing some farming, like scientific farming associated with the university back there. So anyway, I won’t go off on the Cranzes. Let me ask you about the railroad. Do you remember anything about the railroad operation?

Kim Michalec [01:14:56] I mean, the train would come by.

David Brewer [01:14:58] You mean before the Valley train or the?

Arrye Rosser [01:15:00] Before it was a scenic-

Kim Michalec [01:15:01] When it was- The train would come.

David Brewer [01:15:04] Yeah. Like we telling him, a train stopped down there for some reason in Everett and blocked the driveway. And the kids had to get out to the bus. And my father-in-law put them through the train, you know, between the cars. And he told them to really be careful and so on. And he said, I shouldn’t be doing that. But he helped him through that.

Kim Michalec [01:15:24] So we could catch our bus. Yeah. I mean, the train would come.

David Brewer [01:15:28] Yeah. Blocking the road there. But it didn’t stop that often. It blocked the driveway. But then- But then when the train would come back before we moved, me and my wife got married and lived out there in the ’40s. When Percy was in the war and they first moved down there. My mother in law, which is Percy’s wife, she must used to hang her clothes out too. [crosstalk] And she said that dadgone train come through here blowing that black smoke and all that stuff would settle down on her clothes and get her clothes off her white sheets, all black. 

Kim Michalec [01:16:04] I know, she used to be mad about that. 

David Brewer [01:16:08] That was back when they had the old steam engines going through there, ’40s, before they went all diesel, you know.

Arrye Rosser [01:16:16] Now, we’ve also been doing some research on an African American nightclub that was called the Cabin Club in their first period and then the Drift Inn club on Akron-Peninsula Road. It was located near the golf course property where the-

David Brewer [01:16:31] Quick Road comes in there?

Arrye Rosser [01:16:34] Yeah, it was over in there. Do you have any memories of that property? It would have been the Lee family initially. Or if you have any memories of the Harrises. The Lees lived over there. This would be kind of a real early generation. The Harrises worked for the railroad.

David Brewer [01:16:52] That was probably before our time because I remember when they first put that golf course in there, it wasn’t there. I don’t know who owned the land before that or anything. I know it was northern Peninsula Road, east side. But where Quick Road came down over the hill. But I don’t remember that much. In fact, of course I was just a kid in the ’50s and so on, and me and my wife got married in ’58 and we was out here in ’60s and we, you know, we was all working and doing our thing. You just didn’t get around to see what was going on much and so on, you know. 

Arrye Rosser [01:17:33] So what do you- I know you guys need to leave, but maybe just to sort of wrap things up, tell us a little bit about what your memories are of just how - and we can come back if you are short on time, we can talk on the phone or whatever - but just the land, the time of the activity that created the park and then when the park started, like what are your family stories around that time period. I’m sure there’s a lot of-

David Brewer [01:17:58] The only thing I can remember is they start talking. Yeah, we- Everybody was upset. Well, hey, here we are all living down here, now they want us get out of here. John Seiberling, he’s the one that started it. He lived up on Martin Road over by the Heinz Orchard area- 

Kim Michalec [01:18:18] I went to school with his son. 

David Brewer [01:18:19] He was a congressman from- John Seiberling that used to run Goodyear. And of course he was way older than me, but like she said, they kind of did it and his house was up on the hill on the edge of the park and they kind of exempted him that he didn’t have to sell his property or get out or anything. Of course, we, none of us had to get out. We had that 25-year thing, we could stay and they’d give you certain percent money for each year.

Kim Michalec [01:18:50] But if you did that, you’d have to follow the rules of the park. And it was very- It almost seemed like punishment to stay in your own house.

David Brewer [01:18:57] Yeah, you couldn’t, you couldn’t dig a shrub up by your house and you couldn’t do that unless you asked. [crosstalk] Everybody heard that kind of stuff and they was kind of upset about it and so on. So when they come around to us, we just, me and my wife, we was younger then, we said, ah, we might as well just rather stay here another 25 years and have them pay us a thousand dollars a year or whatever it was. We might as well just leave. So that’s what we did.

Arrye Rosser [01:19:27] Did the family- You had five houses there. Were each one of you- On the land that your house was on, was it all divided up so everybody in the family kind of made their own decision about what they wanted to do? 

Kim Michalec [01:19:41] Yes, in fact, it was-

David Brewer [01:19:42] In fact, it was all Pap-Pap’s property. Kenny got two acres, my wife got an acre, or was it two acres? And then we had to get another acre to get. So I had like 3 1/2 acres and Percy had had an acre and a half. And then Warren had- They give him an acre or something over behind the old farm. So the old man give everybody some property and everybody built their house like a little family deal there, you know.

Kim Michalec [01:20:09] And then the first one to sell to the Valley or to the Valley was Kenny.

David Brewer [01:20:13] Well, he, he sold before the Valley.

Kim Michalec [01:20:15] Yeah, because he had sold to the Blankens. But they were the first ones to leave.

David Brewer [01:20:19] Yeah.

Kim Michalec [01:20:20] And then it just kind of. Yeah.

David Brewer [01:20:23] Then we had the friends at Shirley’s that lived up on Mitchell Drive. Their name was Cradlebaugh. [crosstalk] And they, they, they ended up, they stayed, then after- Then finally when their time was up, they moved up to Cuyahoga Falls. But I think they regretted it after they decided to stay-

Kim Michalec [01:20:42] Because everybody- So many people were gone and things just were not the same. And that was another thing, you know, well, if you stay, who’s going to be left?

David Brewer [01:20:51] But as like we was talking about coming down and we come down here and through the Valley anytime we say, really it’s- We was upset about it when they did it, but hey, we’re glad they did it, really, because it made a nice area. So it didn’t get all commercialized down through the river valley and all that.

Arrye Rosser [01:21:10] I wondered how people reflected on it. I mean, it must have been a really traumatic timeframe.

Kim Michalec [01:21:16] It was. And even, like, for Bobbie. I mean, here she is, what, was she in her ’80s?

David Brewer [01:21:21] Yes.

Kim Michalec [01:21:22] You know, here she is, she’s in her 80s, and Burl was 63 or something. Yeah. And they had to find another place. And that was- That was not an easy thing. It was really hard on people. It was emotional.

Arrye Rosser [01:21:37] Yeah. Burl got quoted- You know, he was in this Frontline documentary. I kind of wondered, like, how did he end up being, like, a voice of the residents or whatever?

Kim Michalec [01:21:49] [lauighs] Probably because they were the last ones there! I don’t know.

Arrye Rosser [01:21:53] Do you have any. Was it, like a big thing that he was on a national TV? I don’t.

Kim Michalec [01:21:58] I’m gonna have to look that up.

David Brewer [01:21:59] You know what? I think somebody did interview him one time.

Kim Michalec [01:22:02] They did. Before they left. And they were the last ones to leave.

David Brewer [01:22:05] And I don’t remember what that was all about.

Kim Michalec [01:22:07] I’m gonna have to research that myself.

Erich Schnack [01:22:09] We’ve got the program. It’s on YouTube.

Kim Michalec [01:22:13] On YouTube.

Arrye Rosser [01:22:14] Okay.

Kim Michalec [01:22:14] All right, I’ll look it up.

Arrye Rosser [01:22:15] But I don’t know if you remember. I remember Jessica Savage. She was a big neighbor.

David Brewer [01:22:20] Yeah. It seems like she’s the one that covered it or something. She come down. I don’t know who he met down the Peninsula or somewhere.

Kim Michalec [01:22:27] Yeah.

David Brewer [01:22:28] Interviewed him and he- I don’t know.

Kim Michalec [01:22:30] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [01:22:30] You think it was because he was a character? Now I’m thinking about it, we might have eyeballed him because he was good for TV or something.

David Brewer [01:22:37] Might have been. [laughs] I don’t know.

Kim Michalec [01:22:38] I don’t know when that actually was done, but, you know.

David Brewer [01:22:41] Do they ever- Do they actually have pictures of it on TV and him and everything?

Kim Michalec [01:22:45] We have to look that up, Dad.

Arrye Rosser [01:22:46] Its airtime, Its airtime was June 6, 1983. I’m gonna hand this to you and you can have it.

Kim Michalec [01:22:52] Okay. Okay. Awesome. So they were gone by then. In 1983. Right?

David Brewer [01:22:58] I think. I think it was an ’81 they sold it. So maybe it took them a couple years to get out. [phone rings]

Kim Michalec [01:23:04] That could be. That could be, what?

David Brewer [01:23:05] To get out of there.

Kim Michalec [01:23:06] That could be because he had to build that house.

David Brewer [01:23:08] Yeah, but no, it had to be before ’83 because we went down to Athens or Hocking Hills before Percy died, and he died in ’82.

Kim Michalec [01:23:19] No, that’s true.

David Brewer [01:23:19] So it had to be an ’81.

Kim Michalec [01:23:21] ’81. Okay.

David Brewer [01:23:22] So they might have been getting ready to move in ’80, a year after Percy left. We left in ’88. My father-in-law left in ’78, ’79 and ’80, probably, by time they got down there and got that little house built, it must have been ’81.

Kim Michalec [01:23:40] Okay.

David Brewer [01:23:41] And then they made that documentary in ’83, you say? 

Arrye Rosser [01:23:45] That it aired. So.

David Brewer [01:23:46] Oh was probably-

Arrye Rosser [01:23:48] I think it was pretty soon after they did it because it was part of a PBS series. So I don’t think- It wasn’t like a movie. They were making it a whole lot.

David Brewer [01:24:00] So it was in- It was in ’83.

Arrye Rosser [01:24:03] Yeah.

David Brewer [01:24:03] Well maybe they look it up.

Arrye Rosser [01:24:05] And this is the transcript here. So you can kind of see. I don’t have the best scan, but I can get more of it.

Kim Michalec [01:24:12] Oh, it’ll be fine.

David Brewer [01:24:13] You know what? If they was getting ready to leave in ’80 and ’81, he went down there and was getting that little house built, and so on, they probably didn’t leave until ’83. It could be that’s probably when they done that. 

Kim Michalec [01:24:25] Before they left.

Arrye Rosser [01:24:26] So you think it was maybe a little bit because a lot of people had left at that point.

David Brewer [01:24:31] Yeah.

Arrye Rosser [01:24:32] Do you remember Bill Birdsell? He’s also quoted a lot. He seems to be kind of a villain in a lot of ways.

David Brewer [01:24:38] Yeah, he- He was the first. [crosstalk] We didn’t deal with him. Birdsell. He was the first. What do you call- He was the first superintendent when the park first started coming up. Yeah. And then I think he was down around Peninsula somewhere and he’s over then. He was an older guy, I think. I think I was at a couple meetings that he had down there in Peninsula, and he seemed like a pretty nice guy. But then some people didn’t like him for some reason. But he was an older guy and I heard he died. I don’t know if it was after we sold or whatever and he- They buried him over there in Ira Cemetery. I didn’t know where he lived around in the park area or what. So then I don’t know. I don’t know who took his place.

Arrye Rosser [01:25:29] So were you guys- Was your family involved in like the homeowners- There was a association that was that, I think. I’m forgetting the terms of it. But Leonard Stein-Sapir, who was up on the Oak Hill property where that then became Cuyahoga Environmental Education Center. He was kind of the leader of the homeowners’ association that was sort of fighting the park-

David Brewer [01:25:55] Yeah, I remember that. [crosstalk] Yeah. We didn’t get into that and it Seemed like it was. Was there a Morris, a guy’s name?

Arrye Rosser [01:26:05] Could be Pat Morris. Janice has done an oral history with us. Her family was living over by Hale Farm.

David Brewer [01:26:09] Up off Ira Road, there was a guy. His name was- Janet Morris. What was his first name? Janet Morris went to school with us. She was about our age, a year younger. Her last name was Morris. She had an older brother. I’ve just seen his name somewhere, and something about- Oh, maybe it was in that book. And he was kind of ahead of working on that homeowners’ thing because I think he lived over on Oak Hill Road, not too far from where Paul Wilson-

Kim Michalec [01:26:54] Okay.

David Brewer [01:26:55] Him and his wife, they lived back in there. And he was- They was getting banded people together to try to go against the park, so you didn’t have to buy our land and do this and so on, but we didn’t get involved in that.

Arrye Rosser [01:27:09] I kind of wondered about the politics side because of them sweeping up interviews with these other folks, but-

David Brewer [01:27:16] So they-

Arrye Rosser [01:27:17] He might have just been the character.

David Brewer [01:27:19] Yeah, they might have come around and asked him, and somebody, and got him involved in it and interview him or something.

Kim Michalec [01:27:27] No wonder the Tonkin Garage got its reputation. [laughs]

Arrye Rosser [01:27:30] Oh, my goodness. Well, you guys have just been absolutely lovely and I-

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