Abstract
Kayla Berkey discusses her family’s multigenerational connection to the Lee-Harvard and Moreland neighborhoods along the Cleveland–Shaker Heights border. She recounts how her Mennonite grandparents, Vernon and Helen Miller, moved to the area in the 1950s, helped establish the congregation that became Lee Heights Community Church, and practiced pacifism, racial justice, and community engagement in predominantly Black neighborhoods. After growing up in Bedford Heights and living outside Cleveland, Berkley returned to Moreland to raise her children near the places and people central to her family’s history. She reflects on the neighborhood’s sense of community, its welcoming people, and the personal meaning of familiar landmarks such as Shelton Park and her grandparents’ former home. Berkey also discusses changes brought by foreclosure, vacant lots, new housing, and redevelopment along Lee Road, expressing both hope for investment and concerns about gentrification and displacement. She concludes by emphasizing the need for younger generations to get involved in the community and praises the United by Lee initiative for recognizing the connections between neighboring but sometimes divided Cleveland and Shaker Heights communities.
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Interviewee
Berkey, Kayla (interviewee)
Interviewer
Lambert, Jez (interviewer)
Project
Project Team
Date
7-19-2026
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
15 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Kayla Berkey interview, 19 July 2026" (2026). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 999164.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1456
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
