Sheila Hunt-Sharpley Interview, 14 November 2025

Abstract

In this 2025 interview, Sheila Hunt-Sharpley reflects on growing up in East Cleveland after moving there with her family in 1966. Hunt-Sharpley discusses her experiences in music, theater, and arts education, describing the East Cleveland school system during the 1960s through 1980s as academically and culturally rich, with strong arts programming and community partnerships. She recounts her professional journey, civic engagement, and volunteer leadership as Vice President of the East Cleveland Public Library Board of Trustees. Hunt-Sharpley also reflects on her deep passion for East Cleveland history, her extensive collection of historical materials related to the city, and her efforts to preserve local history through research and the restoration of a historic Rockefeller-Rudd home that she hopes to transform into a museum and educational site.

Interviewee

Hunt-Sharpley, Sheila (interviewee)

Interviewer

Mays, Nicholas S. (interviewer)

Project

East Cleveland

Date

11-14-2025

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

129 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Sheila Hunt-Sharpley Interview, 14 November 2025" (2025). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 757023.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1458

Related Resources

East Cleveland @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Nick Mays [00:00:00] My name is Dr. Nicholas S. Mays, and today we are in the city of East Cleveland conducting an oral history interview for the East Cleveland Oral History Project. Today we are joined by Mrs. Sheila Hunt sharply, a lifelong East Clevelanders whose love for this community, its history and its future is well reflected in her life, her service and intentional engagement with the city. [00:00:27] Today we want to learn not only about Mrs. Hunt sharply's life and upbringing, but also about her deep connection to East Cleveland's heritage work, preserving that history and vision for what the city can be. Mrs. Hunt sharply, before we begin, thank you for welcoming us into your story. Can we start with your name, age and date of birth?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:00:50] Sure. My name is Sheila Hunt Sharply or Sheila Sharply. My date of birth is [...], 1963. I just had a birthday and I turned 62.

Nick Mays [00:01:03] Well, Happy belated birthday. Thank you and feel free to engage me if. Okay, so we're going to start off with early life, family and roots in East Cleveland. To begin, can you share a bit of about early life? Like for example, where were you born?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:01:22] I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Actually, the first place I lived was on Wake Park. We grew up on the first three years. Life. I grew up on Wade Park. My mom was new to East Cleveland. She is from Muskogee, Oklahoma, which is a small, small town in Oklahoma. And she migrated here with my uncle or my. [00:01:50] Well, actually my great uncle is. My grandmother's two brothers came to Cleveland. And when my mother became of age, she hopped in the car and came to Cleveland. So it was just her and my two uncles. And then she met my father and she ended up staying here in Cleveland. So I started out on Way park, But then in 66, we moved to East Cleveland. [00:02:14] So I was about three years.

Nick Mays [00:02:15] Where's the community of Wade Park?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:02:17] Wade park is over there. 105, you know, 105. All that new development, big hospital, that area. Martin Luther King.

Nick Mays [00:02:27] So the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, Right? Essentially, yeah. Okay, so you were born. So where. Where did your. Your parents meet?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:02:37] My parents met my. Well, both of them were working at a dry cleaners, and that's how they met. They both worked night shift at a dry cleaners.

Nick Mays [00:02:48] Okay.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:02:48] That's how they met.

Nick Mays [00:02:49] What brought your family to East Cleveland in 1966? 1. And then introduce us to your parents and siblings.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:02:59] Oh, great. Well, what brought my mom to East Cleveland was her best friend, Lena Goldston. Again, we were staying on Wade park, and my mother's best friend stayed on the second floor of this house. Me My mom and my sister, we stayed on the third floor of the house. And so when my mom's best friend have money saved up, enough money to buy her a house, she bought a house in East Cleveland on East 135th street in East Cleveland. [00:03:34] So of course she told her best friend, hey, I bought a house. I want you to come live with me. So that's what happened. She bought the house, she lived downstairs, and we lived on the second floor on 135th street in East Cleveland. My siblings, oh, it's a lot of us. My mom had had three, but my dad had eight. [00:04:00] And so when I was growing up, there was no such thing as half siblings. Oh, you're my whole sister. You're my half sister. You might. You know, we were raised as being just siblings. So I remember the very first time that I met my sister sisters, I must have been about five or five or six years old. [00:04:23] And my dad used to go to church every Sunday. And so he came to pick up me and my sister for church. And we got in the car and looked in, peeked in the car, and seen all these other faces in there. Like, who are they? We now, we heard of them, but we didn't know them. [00:04:39] So my dad was like, these are your siblings. Now, my father spoke just like that, very clear, clear, very distinct English. He said, these are your siblings. Yes, and you're all my children. So when me and my sister got out the car, of course we paired up, and we were walking into church, and he made us all hold hands. [00:05:00] So we were holding hands walking into the church, and he saw that me and my sister was holding hands, and then the other kids were holding, and he came down, he karate chopped everybody's hand and made everybody mix up, up. And he said, you're all my children and you're all the same. So that's how we kind of interacted with each other. [00:05:18] So from that point on, you know, there was no halves, there was no holes. It was just always those. My, those are my sisters, That's my brother, you know, and they would spend a night on the weekends, you know, over my house or. And when they got older, a couple of my. [00:05:37] My other siblings, my dad's children, which is my still my sibling, they came to live with us. So we all grew up in the. In the same household.

Nick Mays [00:05:47] So eight in total.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:05:51] No, actually, start off, let me get him in my head. So it's my brother Zachary. He's deceased. And then my sister Wanda, and then my sister Val Then my sister Ava. Then I had another sister named Denise, who's deceased. Then my sister Fran. Then my sister Denise. I had another sister. I got another sister whose name Denise. [00:06:17] Well, actually is me. Then my sister Denise. I was born on Christmas 1963. I mean, I was born on Halloween, 1963. My sister Denise. And then it is my sister Diane, my sister Tanika, my brother Prince, my brother Devonte, and my sister.

Nick Mays [00:06:47] Impressive. You know, all the days...,

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:06:50] the last three are very young. They're the oldest one of them. Those the last three sets of siblings. The oldest one is 30.

Nick Mays [00:06:58] Oh, okay. So did you. Oh. Can you share the name of your parents?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:07:09] My mother's name is Carlitha Hunt and my father's name is Albert Lewis. My father. Here's the irony. My mother has a set of twin brothers that are from fraternal until my different is night and day and they look different as night and day. And then my father is a twin. His brother's name is God, that's terrible. [00:07:32] Andrew. Uncle Andrew. Andrew and Albert Lewis. My Uncle Andrew was a real estate broker. He owned A.J. lewis Associates right there on Lee Road. Self made millionaire. He used to be a self taught chemist. Okay. He was a self taught chemist. And he worked for the Rand Corporation. He was actually like a servant for the Rand Corporation. [00:08:05] And they gave him a little place in the backyard and he would tinker and stuff in the backyard. And he came up with some type of vaccine. I have to get the paperwork. But he came up with some type of vaccine for cancer back in the early 60s. And he got discouraged because he couldn't promote it here in the United States, but out of the country. [00:08:27] He got recognition. But he amassed his fortune in real estate because after that he got discouraged, got a quick chemistry, and got into real estate real hard.

Nick Mayes [00:08:38] Did your parents eventually purchase a home in East Cleveland?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:08:42] Well, my mother and father didn't stay together. Oh. But my mom stayed in the house I grew up in for. She stayed there for 28 years. And then we eventually. My mother eventually moved right next to the house that we grew up in. So she didn't want to leave estate her herself. She herself never purchased a home. [00:09:06] But a home was given to her in East Cleveland, but she decided not to stay in it. She wanted to stay exactly where she was on the 135th Street. So she never resided in the home that she was given in East Cleveland, which was just kind of weird. But that was her, you Know.

Nick Mays [00:09:23] Do you know the story behind your mom giving a home?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:09:26] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick Mays [00:09:27] The Circumstances.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:09:29] My mom used to take care of this fighting couple, Aunt sula. And, well, I used to call him dad. Aunt Sula and dad was this elder couple. And they would drink and fight like, you know, Popeye and Brutus, you know, get drunk. And so my mom used to hang out at this bar called the Dolphins. [00:09:49] And they were regular patrons at the Dolphins. So, you know, they would go down there and either he would get drunk and want to fist fight, or she would get drunk and want to fist fight. So they would always call my mom to come referee or break them up or come collect them or take them home. So my mom kind of became their caregivers. You know, she would go down there. They lived down. As a matter of fact, the house that my mom was given, they're the couple that gave my mom the house. So as they got older, they ran into health issues. So my mom would go down and take care of him. [00:10:24] He had throat cancer and he had a, you know, a hole in his throat. And he would talk with a voice box. And then she got plagued with diabetes. But he. Ultimately he died first. And then when he died, my mom became the caregiver of her. She would go down there, make her meals, wash her clothes, all that kind of stuff. Stuff. And then eventually she died. And when she died, she gave my mother. She left my mother her house.

Nick Mays [00:10:54] Well, what did your mom do for work?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:10:57] My mom worked for VA Hospital. She worked in a canteen service. Well, you know, the food service industry. That's what. That's what they called it back then, the canteen service at VA Hospital. And the irony of it is that my grandmother did too. My mother worked in a canteen service at a hospital in Muscogee. [00:11:18] So they kind of both wound up doing the same thing. But my mother love was anything secretarial. When she came to Cleveland, she went to John Hay at night, took classes to become secretary. And her specialty, which they don't. I don't even think they do that anymore, was she shorthand and typing. And so she wanted to do anything in that had to do deal with secretarial work, but she kind of wound up in. [00:11:48] In food service. But. Yeah.

Nick Mays [00:11:52] What did your. Your dad do for work.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:11:55] My dad was his own man. You know, my dad always worked for himself. My dad was a barber. When I was a kid, he had a barber shop. I forget exactly where the location was, but my dad had his own barber shop. So I would see my dad and He, I would go to his barbershop. [00:12:15] That's primarily what I was seeing. And my mom would drop us off up at the barbershop and we would go visit my dad or over his house or something like that. But most of the time I saw my dad at the barbershop. My dad did hair. And so in the late 60s, early 70s, that's what he did. [00:12:31] You know, you go to his barbershop and he would have customers lined up, everybody sitting in a chair. You know, he made money hand over fist during that time because he used to. I remember as a kid watching my dad have a man. It was a tailor shop right next door. And my dad at that time, it was just unheard of. [00:12:56] He had the phone on the wall and the cord will pull all the way out. We were just amazed. Oh, we got the banana phone with the phone cord just stretched out, you know, and he had his arms stretched out while the tailor was measuring him for a suit. So my dad always worked for himself. [00:13:11] And then when he stopped doing hair, he went into electronics and he started teaching electronics. And I forget what college he started teaching elect electronics because that was something that he was just fascinated with. And he actually owned a television repair shop in the city of East Cleveland, right over there where Popeyes is. He had a repair shop over there for about 20 years.

Nick Mays [00:13:35] So just to be clear, you lived with your mom in East Cleveland, but both your parents lived in East Cleveland?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:13:41] No, my dad lived in Cleveland, but his television shop was in East Cleveland.

Nick Mays [00:13:47] What, what year or what decade can--if you can recall.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:13:51] That was the late 70s, mid-80s. Because that whole strip over there is torn down. It's Popeyes, it's a gas station. And over there, it was just a roll. It was just one big gigantic building with storefronts in the front and apartment buildings over the top. And my dad had a television repair ship job over there. [00:14:13] Well, for years, right across the street.

Nick Mays [00:14:17] So your dad in that period was one of the business owners that many of the participants talk about when they talk about those, those decades.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:14:26] Yeah.

Nick Mays [00:14:27] Oh, I see. That's interesting. So, and we'll, let's, stick around your parents for a little bit and then we'll pivot. You mentioned briefly about your mom coming from Oklahoma. So what is, what are your parents background? Maybe start with your dad in terms of his roots or where he was born and then how your dad came to Cleveland.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:15:00] My dad, here's the thing with My dad, I don't know a lot about him because at the time when he was talking, I wasn't listening. You know what I mean? So now that I'm at this big old age, I wish I would have been listening to what he was saying. But, you know, at that time when he was trying to tell me about his life, I was like, oh, yeah, okay. [00:15:21] So the most I know is that my dad is from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and that's where his family. Family, all his siblings is from. He joined the military, got out the military, and his brother Andrew decided to come to Cleveland. And so my dad said, hey, if you going, that's where I'm going, too. [00:15:46] So my Uncle Andrew came to Cleveland, started working, and then my father came, and then he kind of brought his other two siblings up. So that's how he kind of got to Cleveland. My mom. My mom. It's funny, my mother got to. My mother came to Cleveland because her and my grandfather or her stepfather, but, you know, didn't get along, so they would fight all the time. [00:16:19] So my mom had this big blowout fight with her stepfather, and the neighbors had called my grandmother at work and told my grandmother, hey, Carrie, you need to get to the house because your husband and your daughter out there tearing up the yard. And so my mother came home. My grandmother came home, was like, what's going on? [00:16:39] And, you know, my mother was like, I can't stand. He was like, I can't stand her. And my mother decided at that point, she was like, one of us. Somebody's got to leave or somebody's going to die. So my mother hopped in the car and came to Cleveland with. With her uncles, and so that's how she got to Cleveland.

Nick Mays [00:16:56] I See. Do you know your mom's age when she first came to Cleveland? Was a teenager or.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:17:00] My mother came to Cleveland at 19.

Nick Mays [00:17:05] Okay. What would you describe your household growing up in terms of values, culture, music? If you can recall growing up in East Cleveland, in the household.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:17:28] Growing up in East Cleveland, growing up in my household, my mother was a very. My mother was never the type of person. She wasn't the type of person that went to church. You know, she just was not that type woman. Now, did not mean that she didn't believe in God. She did, but she didn't go to church. [00:17:53] But in everything she did, she exuded godly principles. She loved, she cared, she cooked. There wasn't anyone or anything that my mother wouldn't take in. And that includes just anybody, everybody. One of the Neighbors that I used to play with all the time. Her mother had cancer. And here's the irony, and get into that story, but her mother had cancer and she had sex with cervical cancer. [00:18:32] And we were. We grew up real close because like I said, we lived next door. We played Barbie dolls in the windows and everything. And when her mom got sick, she would come over to our house until her mother would get better, and then she would go back home. And every morning, her mother was a seamstress, so she had to be at work at 5 o'clock. So she would get up at 4 o' clock, send Brenda over at like 4. Between 4:15, 4:30. And so we were laying the beds with our flashlights, you know, playing Barbie dolls, arguing over this one sparkle dress that we had to share between. Between us. It was my turn to put the sparkle dress on my doll, you know. [00:19:13] And so when her mother passed, when our mother passed, my mother wanted to take care of her. My mother was like, well, I'll take her. You know, I'll take her in. Well, at the time, it was a fight on the street because everybody wanted to take her in, because that's the kind of street we had. [00:19:29] Okay, she lost her mother. She's gonna live with me. No, she's gonna live with me. She's gonna live with me. She eventually moved down the street and lived with another family for about two months. She didn't like it there because she was used to us. You know, we went to school every morning. [00:19:45] We played dolls every morning. So she asked her dad, you know, look, I don't like it here. I like it there. Can I stay with them? So she moved in it. When she moved in with us when she was like 11 or 12, and she, you know, she was just a part of our family. [00:19:59] She became another sibling. So that's the type of environment I grew up in. You know, my mother was very loving, very nurturing, very strict. But my mother was also, no nonsense. My mother was a loner because as long as I lived on that street, as long as we lived on that street, no one knew her. [00:20:26] You know, she kept her private life private. When they would walk down the street, when she would walk down the street and they would have street club, because we had street club. And the street club used to be responsible for. Every summer we had a program where the kids will go on different porches, you know, for. [00:20:46] For the summer. This is the house for arts and crafts from this time to this time. This is the house for field trips. This is the house where you learn how to cook. This is the house where you learn how to sew. And that went on all day long in the summertime. So it was kind of like a mini camp, but it was on the street and. [00:21:05] But you went to different houses. Okay, time out. It's time for you to go over there. Okay, time out. It's time for you to go over there. In all of that, nobody really got to know my mom. My mom was just the lady to say, hi, Ms. Hunt, how you doing? Finding you, you know, because she was just always very close, very personal. [00:21:25] So, like I said, she lived on that street until she died. And I think maybe within the last three years of her life, she started to open up a little bit to the neighbors. They knew her, but they didn't know her. And that's the way my mom was.

Nick Mays [00:21:44] How about cultural stuff? Cultural traditions or traditions? Music, like, you know, growing up in the household, whether it was Marvin Gaye or, I don't know, growing up in.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:21:56] In the household during that time, it was nothing but records. It was records. And the record player. And the record player, you know, at that time, everybody, if you were lucky enough and your family had a little money, you had that little piece of furniture that was in the corner, big gigantic record player that had the TV underneath, and you go to the side and you can put the records on there. [00:22:20] But if not, then you had a portable record player. And so we had a portable record player. So every week it seems like we would run to Vipko's. Vipko's was a store that located in East Cleveland on Hayden Avenue. And he sold records. It was either Vipkos or Bibbs. Bibbs was another record company. [00:22:42] Mr. Bibbs, he held a lot of political positions in the city. He died maybe about a year or so ago between those two. But we would go to Vipko's every Friday and get records and then come home and play records, lay on the bed and play records, or just talk and play records, or pantomime the different songs and play records. [00:23:09] And I remember one of my favorite groups during that time was Ohio Players and the singing. Oh, Ohio Players must have came out with a song every week. They came out with something sweet, sticky thing, roller coaster. I mean, they always had something coming out. So we would listen to music. At that time, music was music. [00:23:29] There was. Your music was the same as adult music. There was any difference during that time, Whereas now there is a definite difference which your parents listen to. You listen to whether it was James Brown. James Brown was good for, oh, you know, little middle and old. I mean, that's just the way it was. [00:23:51] There was no difference in music. So I listened to James Brown, I listened to Curtis Mayfield, I listened to Isaac Hayes, I listened to the Stylistics, I listened to the Spinners, I listened to Joe Tex, you know, because like I said, or Betty Wright, because that's the music they were listening to. So that was the music we were listening to. [00:24:14] We were listening to basically the same thing. So there was no Internet during that time. You know, TV signed off. So what you did was you listened to the radio. You listened to the radio and you played records. We would have transistor radios and we would turn them on to wjmo, which is a black radio station that used to be be right down here on Euclid and put them under our pillow and listen to music. [00:24:41] That's what you did, you know. And then as you got older, when I got in high school, the boombox was the thing, so you still had the music, but now it was big portable stereo that you put on your shoulder and you listen to music or if you couldn't carry it up here, then you carried it down here. [00:24:58] So you walked around with your music with your, a trap and your pencil to make sure your, your tapes re. Roll your tapes back up. You know, you had to keep that in there. So, you know, music was a part of your life. Growing up, that's, that's what you did in the morning time you got up and, and, and you cleaned or, or on the weekends. [00:25:21] You know, most households, you get up, you put on music and you clean, you know, you vacuum. You know, that's just the way it was. You know, that's what you did. You know, music was a part of our life, you know, growing up as kids.

Nick Mays [00:25:40] Okay, let's pivot to outside of the household, right? Growing up in East Cleveland. What do you remember in like maybe middle school, junior high, high school years about growing up in East Cleveland? What stands out to you when you think back and reflect about growing up in East Cleveland in that period in your life?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:26:09] What I think about growing up In East Cleveland, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade was East Cleveland was very self contained. I didn't know where Buckeye was, 116th or Woodward or, you know, I didn't travel. You didn't. I traveled as far as I traveled was downtown Cleveland and came back. Now I knew downtown Cleveland, but the rest of you know where's Shaker. I didn't go there at that time. When I was growing up, growing up as a kid, if you went downtown, the bus systems during that time was called the CTS Cleveland Transit System. If you. If you went downtown during that time, it was customary for you to dress up. There was no such thing as wearing pants or blue jeans or anything like that because they called.Well, our parents called it going to town. So when you went to town, you dressed up. You dressed up in, like you were going to church or somewhere formal or, you know, dressed up, you know, I would never forget crying, telling my mom, I want to go downtown. I just want to wear some blue jeans. She was like, no, no, we're wearing the blue jeans down. Nobody's wearing blue jeans downtown. Like I said, you dressed up when you went downtown. But East Cleveland was self contained. We had everything here. There was no reason for me to go anywhere else. There was no reason for me to. If I wanted to go to movies, I could go to movies right there on Hayden. [00:27:45] I remember, I think the Hayden theater closed in 68 or 69. I know it was somewhere in the 60s and I was really small. And I remember us going, me and my mom going to the movie theater. And when we walked out, I remember everything being like, you know, one of those old movie theaters. Everything was burgundy and velvet with the gold. And the movie theaters had crystal chandeliers and everything. And I remember walking in the hallway and just looking up at the chandelier, saying, jesus is so pretty. But the day that we went, it was so quiet. When the movie ended, I can't even remember what movie we went to go see. When we walked out of the theater, everybody was quiet, nobody was talking. And my mother was holding my hand. I was asking her, I said, what's wrong with everybody? Why is everybody so quiet? And she said, because it's the last day. I said, last day for what? She said, the last day for the movie theater. I didn't know that was the last showing. So everybody was in there feeling about the movie theater closing and that, you know, was shutting down. That was end of an era, you know, But. But when that closed, it was a continental movie theater up here on Euclid. We would go to the Continental movie theater. I remember seeing the Exorcist there. I remember seeing the Omen there. Every Sunday they had Kung Fu theater. So every Sunday you pay one price and you go all. You stay all day long and you see Kung Fu Theater. You know, just watch all the Kung Fu movies. I never forget seeing the Godfather there. Me, my best friend, her sister went to go see the Godfather, and I swear to God, we sat down. I said, this has got to be the most boring movie I've ever seen in my life. Because I didn't understand it. I was so young. And we. I just kind of sat there, you know, through it, you know, But I remember, like I said, I remember seeing that movie there. We had the ice skating rink. The ice skating ring rink was. We couldn't wait till fall because fall came, they opened up the ice skating rink, and that was only open seasonal, from fall to maybe about February, March, you know, and that was outside. That's where the civic center is. So we would go there. And I remember I couldn't skate. I could not. I can't understand how people balance themselves besides living, leaning on something, on those two blades. And I would go there all the time. Never wanted to skate. Just wanted to kind of hang out with my friend. Just kind of stand around at the concession stand drinking hot cocoa, you know, I didn't want to skate. [00:30:24] I just wanted to, you know, be. I just wanted to be there. And I remember this particular time I went skating and I went with my cousin and her boyfriend and, you know, a couple other people on the streets, and. And I had, you know, I had these jeans that, you know, the zipper was broke on there, so I safety pinned up everything, and I had all this change in my pocket, and I went out. [00:30:49] Like, I let my cousin talk me into going out. Oh, you got to go around at least one time. I said, I hate skating. I just want to stand around. I hate it. She say, no, no, no, you got to go around at least one time. So when you were out on the skate, when you went out there on the ice, and if you didn't know how to skate, skate, if you fail, everybody seems like from St. Clair on down would come and they would just kind of run, skate in your face and shoot all the ice in your face when you're down there. Someone's like, no, I don't want to do it. You know, I don't want to do it. So she said, come on, I'm gonna hold you. So I get out there and I'm letting her hold me, and next thing you know, got the crazy legs, and I fail. [00:31:26] Well, pow, my pants zipper busted open and all of this change that I have for all this hot cocoa because my. Because they were in my pockets and my thighs were warm. Fell out on the ice and Started sinking into the ice. And you should have seen me trying to scramble for those quarters down there while holding up my pants. [00:31:45] I was like, I hate skating. I hate skating. So, you know, that was one of my, one of my fondest memories. Or catching the rapid. Riding the rapid back and forth. Because you, I, we could get on the rapid. That was a day, get on a Saturday, get on the rapid and ride the rapid all the way out to the airport and get off at the airport and watch the airplanes take off and then get back on the rapid and then ride it all the way back home. [00:32:08] You know, we had Shaw bowling alley, you know, right over there by Starlight Baptist Church. So, you know, we had the bowling alley there. We had a swimming pool, we had parks and playgrounds. It was just. Everything was here so I didn't have to travel. Where, where am I going? You know, everything was right here. [00:32:30] Everything I wanted, everything I wanted to do, whether it was camp, whether it was. I don't care what it was, it was right here. So a lot of East Cleveland people were. When you took them out of East Cleveland, they were just kind of out of elements because everything was here self contained swimming pools. [00:32:48] And swimming pools, like I say, you know, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, big Forest Hills park. At that time, Forest Hills still had remnants of things for that Rockefeller still had there. So we would go scavenging around. Oh, look at what we found. You know, everything was here. Everything was here.

Nick Mays [00:33:08] What about businesses in particular? Businesses owned by African Americans, black people. Your dad was one of them. Can you recall the businesses here in East Cleveland?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:33:22] Well, there was record stores, like I said, VIPCOs and Bibs. And then you had your candy stores, you had Dads and Sons. Those are the corner stores that you can go to where your parents write a letter and note, say, here's $5, she can buy my pack of cigarettes. [00:33:42] So, you know, you have a little. Take a little handwritten note up there and you, you know, you get a pack of, you know, get a carton of cigarettes. Palmel's or Terence or whatever. They had a lot of bars on Hayden. Poodle Inn. A lot of apartment buildings. Of course, they first became B&M right there on Hayden.

Nick Mays [00:34:06] What's B&M.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:34:08] B&M was a barbecue place.

Nick Mays [00:34:09] Okay.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:34:11] It was owned. Well, it still is owned by the Beckhams. Anthony Beckham and Greg Beckham. I think Anthony might be deceased now, but Anthony and Greg Beckham. I think they have one over in Cleveland. They used to have one over here on Superior. And I think they have a B. Some kind of convention center or somewhere on Harvard or somewhere. [00:34:40] But they were the barbecue place. Then you had Hot Sauce Williams, you know, right there.

Nick Mays [00:34:45] In East Cleveland as well.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:34:48] The very first Hot Sauce Williams right there. You know, on Hayden Avenue. There was great drugstores when we were running there because they would have, they would sell right on magazines. So we go on gray drugs. Hide the magazine, hide the magazines until we got the money. You know, hide them in different places and be like, I got the money and then go back and find it. You know, we run in there and get our candy and our magazines. What else was here?

Nick Mays [00:35:24] What about businesses? Just in, in general in terms of grocery stores and banks.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:35:29] Oh my God. Grocery stores. East Cleveland had the first black owned minority grocery store. They used to tout that on the radio and on this, this late night TV program that was, you know, one of those cable. It wasn't cable, but it was on regular TV. You come on at 2 o' clock in the morning. [00:35:52] It was a dance program, kind of like Soul Train, but it was local and it would come on at 2 o' clock and it would feature people and you know, from the city at different clubs. Well, that they used to always tout about that grocery store right there on Hayden, it's now boarded up. [00:36:09] It was the first owned, operated, minority owned grocery store. So we had a grocery store there. We had Bondi's, another grocery store that was right down, right a block away. You know, we had a hotel. It was a big gigantic hotel that where Huff Neon, the medical building is. That was there. I can't remember a time time where Angela Mia's wasn't here. [00:36:38] Angela Mia's always been here. Bill Capps piano that was another staple of the community. Of course, I only walked past there, never got a chance to go in there because couldn't afford anything in there. But you, you had that. We had restaurants here fast. We had the burger King and McDonald's. You said to compete with each other, but some kind of way McDonald's won out. [00:37:06] And Burger King, it was closed down. So you just had, you had everything here. You had Dolls, Rapid Creations. That was another store that sold T shirts and music and just. It was kind of like a Spencer store, but heavy on, on music. That was. Right. I honestly think thought it was owned by Renee Fowler. [00:37:30] Renee Fowler, she has a business in Shaker Square called Fowler Fashions and she's been doing that for forever and ever and ever. But prior to that she said she cut her teeth at East Cleveland with Doll's Rapid Creations. I thought she was the owner. She said, no, I was just the front person, you know, but everything was here. I mean, just everything.

Nick Mays [00:37:52] What about bonds between communities, neighbors, and then safety?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:37:59] Well, of course, that was a different time then. So your neighbors saw you do everything. Your neighbors watched you like your parents did. So whatever you did do, your neighbors had the right to chastise you or whoop you. So, you know, you didn't wait for your parents to come home, your neighbor whoop you, or, you know, or. [00:38:25] At that time, there was a certain reverence for mature people, older people. Whereas now you don't have it. You could be walking down the street and you don't even know the kid, and you might hear kids cursing and be like, hey, don't do that. And they'd be like, oh, chastised. Okay, I'm sorry, mam. You know, that was a thing. Now that's not a thing. You hear him curse, they'll curse you out now. So the community, it was a village. It took a village to raise. It takes a village to raise the kids. And that's exactly how East Cleveland was. It was a village. Like I said, we were close knit. [00:39:09] That's why when we do, I don't care where you go in the world. No one understands how we come back together every year, once a year. And that's all alumni, young, old, black, white. You know, we all come back together once a year and we bond. You know, we love each other, we say we see each other next year. [00:39:33] We represent our T shirts and, you know, we wear black and red. I'm. And that's. And it's funny because you would think that the people have moved on that got their doctor's degree or doing mega things or whatever. They don't care. They don't talk about the colleges they went to. They talk about Shaw. [00:39:53] That's all that's important.

Nick Mays [00:39:55] Okay, so before we pivot, based on our conversation, we had. There was the first drive through store in East Cleveland, or what's the story behind that?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:40:09] That was Mr. Vipko. Mr. Vipko was very, very innovative in the city of East Cleveland, as a matter of fact, any and everywhere. He always thought outside the box. He started with the record store, and then with the record store, he started putting candy, little things that you might need in the house, T shirts, that kind of stuff. [00:40:36] He kind of expounded or built off of that, then beverages, then, you know, just, you know, A little bit of everything on the side of the store because you, when you walked in, you had the records, you had the record portion of it. When you went in there and went through the albums, bought your records, that's where we bought our records every Friday, Ohio Players. [00:40:57] And then you had the regular part of the store where you could buy everything else, candy, aspirin, whatever it was, you know, kept a little bit of everything in there. It was kind of a little variety store. But then he built on that, he added another portion to it, the building. And it was kind of another building but it had, you know, was cut out like a garage or opened a garage so as to say that was attached to the building where you walked in or you drove up around the building instead of getting out the car and getting stuff, hey, I want some, I want a pack of cigarettes and beer or want some potato chips and a Pepsi. [00:41:38] And you pulled in, people came to the car, the guy got you what you want, came back, took your money, gave your change and you just, just sped on off. You went on out. It was a drive through. So you never even had to leave your car because he was like, okay, we're going to make it real convenient for you. [00:41:52] Instead of you getting out the car, you can drive, you can come in if you want to or you can drive through just like McDonald's. And it was the first drive thru store.

Nick Mays [00:42:00] And that's mainstream.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:42:01] Mainstream.

Nick Mays [00:42:02] He's African American or black?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:42:04] African American. Robert McLaughlin, his son Keith, Sean is the ones who designed this T shirt. Keith and his brother, from the time they was knee high to a junebug when most of us was outside playing and getting into trouble, they were working at zip cos because he taught them, you know, early you work hard. [00:42:30] So they were loading stocks and sweeping floors and working behind the cash register. From a very, very, very young ages. You feel bad for them because they were always working after school. You know, those two boys had to go in there and they worked. But he, you know, he taught them that you work hard, you know, and that's, that's what you did. [00:42:49] So as a result of that they, both of them went on to do their thing. Keith, now he has fabulous ideals. He too thinks outside the box. He was the very first one we had dialogue about the city of East Cleveland. He said he came up with an ideal that I thought was brilliant. [00:43:08] And he was the first one who proposed that alumni instead of coming back every year for the reunion. That's good, but why don't we come back and we collectively buy up different properties in East Cleveland, and alumni own the building. So alumni could decide who's in the buildings, what we do with the buildings, and we just kind of buy one, move on, buy another one, move on, buy another till alumni basically owns the whole city. [00:43:40] You know, that was his ideal. I was like, no, you got something there. Brilliant. Brilliant Ideal. Brilliant ideal.

Nick Mays [00:43:48] So moving on, you went. You went to East Cleveland public schools From K to 12th, right? Talk about your experiences in the schools. What what made the schools. In our conversation, you said that the schools were phenomenal or they were special. I'll talk about the schools and the program.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:44:20] Well, East Cleveland schools were phenomenal. They started you off early in everything. It wasn't just about reading, writing and arithmetic and social studies, but in order to educate the person, they educated all aspects of it, from reading, reading, writing, arithmetic, social studies, to music. Like I said, music was very heavily indoctrinated into us at a young age because we had Joseph Riccardi, and then we had Dr. Alvin Fulton, who would come down to the elementary schools and they would teach us basic music. Whether it was. We all started on the recorders, those little recorders. Everybody started on that. And then you went from the recorder, then you chose either the violin, flute, trumpet, drums, whatever it was. And the district provided each student with an instrument. [00:45:24] So if you wanted to play that instrument, you know, the school would loan it to you. They would give it to you if you couldn't afford to buy one. And let's say, for instance, you wanted to buy one, but your family couldn't afford to pay for the instrument up front. And they put you on a little program where you pay a little stipend every month until you actually owned that instrument. So you had Joseph Riccardi, and then you had Dr. Fulton coming down at elementary school level teaching us basic music, teaching us basic, you know, like, basic notes, trying to figure out, where do you. Where do you. What do you like to play? By the time you got into junior high school, you were already reading music. [00:46:10] By that time, you were probably working on your. Either your second instrument or your third instrument, because you kind of went from instrument to instrument. And like I said, it was very heavy, indoctrinated into us as kids. We had East Cleveland Community Theater that was founded by Christopher Pace, and so they brought the arts to East Cleveland. [00:46:34] That was a part of our education. So you had Christine Pace, or you had people from East Cleveland Community Theaters teaching us about theater. The theater, different arts, modern dance, jazz. Mr. Martin would come down and he would go into each classroom and he'd taught us the art of pantomime or reading or dialogue, just everything. [00:47:02] So we were flooded with the arts as well as just basic educational things. We also had different people who tapped into the system. Doctor. I mean, not doctor, but Joseph Whelan. Joseph Whelan was a phenomenal principal in East Cleveland at Chambers Elementary School. In the early late 80s, early 90s, Chambers Elementary School was the number one elementary school in the country because he, we. [00:47:38] Chambers was the first elementary school to bring computers into the elementary school. Like I said, he was always thinking outside the box. When I was in Chambers, he came up with a program called extended school year program. And it was for kids who struggled in school or for kids who wanted to do something different, because those who now you have different things where now they have labels. [00:48:05] Okay, this person is adhd. This person might not be able to sit in the classroom all day long. So he catered to that. And then for those who just wanted to be in the extended school year program, you like the idea of traveling to different places. He implemented extended school year program where you didn't sit in a classroom throughout the year. [00:48:28] You got your education hands on. So if we were talking about farming, we went to Hale Farm and we learned how to milk cow, churn butter, how to tap different trees for syrup, you know, how to dig in the ground with the soil made out of how to plant. I mean, and we had the actual farmers there taking us by the hand. [00:48:57] And we didn't talk about it. It wasn't sitting in the classroom saying that this is how a seed grows, blah, blah, blah. We were out there there planting, digging, chopping, picking, and you stayed there for a week, you know, and that's how you learned about whatever it was about farming. We went to Case. [00:49:16] I mean, yeah, Casey Western Reserve Historical Society to learn about, you know, the 1800s, how to set a table, different china, learn about the Indians, whatever it was. We stayed there for the week and we were hands on with the art and with different instructors and all that stuff, working with clay and, you know, just, just everything. [00:49:42] Music settlement house. We went to the music settlement house for a week. We. We learned music and folk songs and where they came from, learn how to strum a guitar and, you know, everything was hands on. So you spent 90% of your time out the classroom in the extended school year program learning, physically learning about different things. [00:50:03] And then you spend an additional month at the end of the school year in class, you know, getting the, you know, the social studies, the math, even though we got that during the school year, but not as much as the regular people who had to go to school all year round. That's what they did. [00:50:21] But we were outside, you know, figuring it out. You know, we were outside at Tower City or whatever it was. We were outside experiencing learning as opposed to sitting in the classroom and learning. So, you know, that whole technique, that was something that had never been done before and has not been done since. [00:50:42] And then, you know, you went to junior high school. When you're junior high school, that's when you experienced the changing of the classrooms that you actually, oh, I'm changing. I don't have to stay in the same classroom anymore. But the junior high school was only seventh and eighth grade. Then when you left there, you went to shaw. [00:51:01] Shaw was 9th through 12th. And it had definitely had a system when you went in there. You ninth grader, of course, the bottom of the totem pole, you know, but when you went to Shaw, you had everything you needed at Shaw. When you got to the 10th grade, you could decide where you wanted to go because Shaw had different schools inside the school. [00:51:28] So if you wanted to go to college, and let's say, for instance, hey, I'm thinking about going to Ohio State. So then you went into the school of humanities, because the school of humanities. Humanities was a college preparatory school and you had to commit for two years. And in that you did everything that you would do in college from, I don't know if they do term papers now, but you do term papers and research papers and you study different dialogues and languages. [00:51:54] You had Dr. Malo, who Liliam Malo, who died, I want to say, about 10 years ago, she was head over our language department. That's when you know, included in language, Latin was one of the languages. You know, I don't even know who they teach that in high school anymore, but Latin was one of the language. [00:52:13] She was head of our language department. And this woman spoke five different languages fluently, and she was a holocaust survivor. So with her we learned she in her classroom, we learned about the origin language, different sounds, where the Greek Alphabet came from. Because matter of fact, we walk in her classroom, everything will be in Greek. [00:52:37] So if you didn't know the Greek Alphabet and how to sound it out, you couldn't take her bell work. You couldn't do her bell work. So you, you know that, like I said, that was a college preparatory school. Then you had the school of let's say cosmetology, court, sonography, food service, auto mechanics, secretary. [00:52:56] I mean, you had just any kind of school or wherever you thought you might want to go. Welding, electronics, electricity. I mean, just all these schools in that school.

Nick Mays [00:53:09] Vocational schools.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:53:10] Vocational schools that when you walked in there, you know, you decided and you committed for those two years. And we also partnership with Cleveland, with the aviation school, because we had kids who wanted to be pilots. So they went to aviation school all day long, but they had to come back. They were bused to aviation school out there. [00:53:30] Benjamin O. Was that Banneker Aviation. They went to aviation school for, let's say, six hours out of day. And then the last two, they would come back to Shaw and do their English and whatever mandatory class they had. So, you know, it was just well rounded. I mean, anything that you wanted to get into, Shaw had it.

Nick Mays [00:53:51] What school did you attend for elementary, junior high. And then, of course you went to Shaw.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:54:00] I went to Chambers Elementary School, the best elementary school that was around. You know, I was. I went to Chambers Elementary School. I went to Kirk, and then I went to Shaw. And that's where the crossroads was. You had all these elementary schools in East Cleveland, but you had all these kids. You had Prospect, Chambers, Roseville, Superior, and Caledonia. [00:54:24] You have five elementary schools. So you had all these kids living in all these different areas. Caledonia is up there in Cleveland Heights. So you had the Cleveland Heights portion of East Cleveland. And then you have Superior, Prospect, and then you had Mayfair and Chambers, you know, and Roselle. All these other different elementary schools in different locations, pockets of East Cleveland. [00:54:45] But we all came together in junior high school because we all. It was only one junior high school. And then we all came together again in high school. So everybody went to the same junior high. Everybody went to the same high school. So you kind of knew everybody, even though you didn't know them personally. I've been through school all the way walking through the halls with you since seventh grade. So we kind of. Everybody knew everybody.

Nick Mays [00:55:11] So now we're at Redshaw. You're. You graduated what year? 

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley 82

Nick Mays 82. Okay, so who are you in the high school years? Both, you know a little bit about who are you in school but out of school. What are you doing? Are you hanging out? Are you working? Who's Mrs. Sharply in high school?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:55:36] In high school, I was a band head. I loved everything that dealt with the band music. So because of the fact I was in a marching band. Marching band people hung with marching band people because you Were kind of with them all day long. Whether it was because every day you. You practice. [00:55:57] Every day you had to practice, learn your routine. So you kind of was with the marching band. I was with the marching band all the time. When I wasn't doing that, I liked plays, so I used to try for different plays in high school. So I was the artsy kind of not nerdy because I definitely wasn't a nerd, but just kind of artsy kind of person at that time, too. [00:56:24] In the ninth grade, I was going through some. I was going through this. This thing where I, you know, I kind of grabbed. Grabbed on to religion, and I became kind of a really square peg, you know, where I wasn't going out or doing things that my other peers were doing, because at that time, I was saved, sanctified, filled with the Holy Ghost. [00:56:51] And I, you know, was just not into that. So where everybody else was kind of partying, hanging out, I was going to church during that time. So I want to say 9th and 10th grade, I was kind of religious bandhead girl during that time.

Nick Mays [00:57:08] Well, junior, senior year.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:57:10] Junior, senior year was Ghost, because I have finished my credits for high school by the time I got--when I was in 11th grade. So 11th grade, I, you know, took all my classes. I saw folks in the hallway, blah, blah, blah. But by the time I got to high school, when I got to be a senior, I was already finished with more courses, and I only had one class, and that was Classical English with Carol Blaha. [00:57:39] So I was, you know, I went to school, went to my first beard class, that was Classical English, went to homeroom, and I was home. So I didn't see anybody during that time. Nobody even knew I was still at the school except for the close. My, you know, close people. But for the most part, nobody even knew I was there.

Nick Mays [00:57:57] Well, what did you do after school? What was life like after school for you?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:58:01] After school, I would come home and I would go to church. You know, I spent a lot of my time during that time I was in church. And it's funny because that was a time, you know, I should have been Party Harding, because that's one of my friends who's Party Harding? But I kind did that before everybody did because I grew up really, really fast. [00:58:28] So unfortunately, when I was young, when most kids were riding their banana bicycles up and down the street, you know, watching, you know, the Flintstones, I was partying like a rock star. You know, I started that early. I was partying when I was 12 and 13, you know, partying, just kind of, you know, living the teenage, full teenage life. [00:58:59] Then when I became, when I got in high school, I was burnt out. So then I became a Christian girl. So I wasn't doing any of that stuff.

Nick Mays [00:59:07] Did you have a job in junior, senior year, after school job.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [00:59:11] I used to work at Davis Bakeries when I was in high school and my uncle helped me get that job. I worked at Davis Bakeries right across the street street from the Windermere. Well, right next door to the Windermere and that was the corporate place. So in the, right there and they had the front part where the receptionist area where you come in, you order your cakes or pick up your cakes. [00:59:37] Then right next door was the big gigantic plant where you walk down the stairs pushing the code and you walked in and they had mixers big as this room where they mix and cake batter or you know, and then you have all these bakers down there baking cakes. So I worked there when I was in high school and I still can't stand the smell of cakes because it was just always in the office, in the door, in the files, all you smell was icing and cake.

Nick Mays [01:00:04] So you graduated high school and then we'll talk about that transition. But, but really quick. Can you explain the shirt you have on right now? Talk about it.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:00:16] Yeah, this is my Shaha alumni T shirt. I bleed black and red. That's what it should say. But this is alumni T shirt. I own everyone since the inception of the alumni, the first alumni or the first reunion. I bought a TV T shirt every year. This one again is made by Keith Vashon McLaughlin. [01:00:47] His dad is the owner of VIPCO. So now he, he makes, he's into the T shirt business. And like I said, everything that deals with Shaw, Shaw people or people who live in East Cleveland, they always rocking, you know, East Cleveland alumni attire.

Nick Mays [01:01:06] Talk about the Shaw reunion and why is it important to you? But why has it in your view, why has it become a phenom? Because, yeah, I think that's what you know, I call it the event just as a generic term but like it's really become like an entity or a phenome like, like you said. But talk about why it's become so significant but also why important to you.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:01:43] That's because how close our community was. Like I said, you were with the same people from the time you were in kindergarten until the time you graduated from high school. So we talking about 15, 16, 16, 17 years old, majority of Your life, you live next door to these people. You're in the same class as these people. [01:02:03] You all went to the same high school, you all went to the same junior high school. East Cleveland was self contained. Like I said, there was no reason for us to go outside of the community. So everything that we did, we did with one another. Whether it was picnics, whether it was fights, whether it was snowball battles, what, you know, I didn't have friends in Cleveland. [01:02:26] All my friends were in East Cleveland because again, I, there was no reason for me to go outside of the community. So with it being so self contained, we just kind of grew up as like a family. I can't, I can't. It's so, it's trying to explain that to somebody on the outside is. [01:02:48] You can't, you just absolutely can't explain it. It's just something that happened or is happening with the city of East Cleveland that we've always been very close knit. We've always wanted to come back home. We always, no matter where you went in the world, you always come, you always come back to see each other, to love each other, to remember old times and you know, because you know, just the same way as if when you smell something, it'll bring back an old memory or you feel something or deja vu. [01:03:25] That's what it's like when you, every year people come back home and it feels like yesteryear. It feels like home. I can't, I can't explain it to anybody. It's hard to explain. You just have to, you have to be here to understand it. Like I said, we don't care about the college you went to. [01:03:48] You could have graduated from Harvard, Yale, blah, blah, blah, you know, but what school you go to? Did you go to Shaw? That's all we want to know. And that's all people want to know. You went to Shaw. Oh, you failed, okay. You got a double doctorate's degree, came out of Yale. You worked. [01:04:03] You doing. What for? Came with. But did you come, did you go to Shaw?

Nick Mays [01:04:07] You know, and even if you didn't go to Shaw, they'll adopt you for that weekend.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:04:11] They'll adopt you for the weekend. Yeah, you all of a sudden you bleed black and red too. You know, it's just love. It's a phenomenal, profound love. And I think because of the fact that it was the best years of our lives, you know, it. And for that moment in time, you kind of go back for that weekend, you kind of go back in time and you relive that the best moments in time because you see

Nick Mays [01:04:36] the people who created those moments and it brings the city together. Not, you know, of course, Shaw graduates, but past, current and future, like all is intergenerational. And it's become more than even Shaw bringing Shaw classmates together.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:05:00] Right.

Nick Mays [01:05:01] But bringing the city.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:05:04] Bringing the city together and also bringing money back into the city. Because during that time, if you see East Cleveland, we get here miss there a couple people come from different places might shop in East Cleveland. But when alumni comes back, we know for sure or the business owners for know for sure that. [01:05:25] Well, on any given, like on a Friday night it might be. Well, they had to shut it down this last year, but in any given night it might be 2,000 people on, on Euclid Avenue. So that means that the stores are going to be flooded. That means the gas station is going to be flooded. [01:05:40] That means that Angela Mia is going to get all the book of Business. That means Smoking Diva is going to get the book of Business. That means the barbecue place is going to get bids business. You see what I'm saying? It brings money back into the community for if nothing else but for that weekend it floods the community with money because everything is here.

Nick Mays [01:06:01] So transitioning from high school to professional life, adulthood. Did you have your own family after high school?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:06:15] I did.

Nick Mays [01:06:15] And can you introduce us to your [family].

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:06:18] I had two families. I married twice. I got married young. The first time I got married, I got married to this guy. Yeah, you know, I got married to this guy. I'm. I think I turned a matter of fact, I turned 21amonth after we got married. I was in that marriage for about five years and then we got a divorce. [01:06:51] At that time I was stepmother to his two children, which were. I was just turned 21 and his oldest child was like 13. So. But like I said, I. I got divorced and then I got remarried again in 2004. I met my husband, my current husband in 95 and we were friends. I met him out just happenstance out at the Mirage. [01:07:24] It was three girls going out and three guys going in. And my girlfriends, you know, we're talking to his two friends and they kind of left us two people out. He wasn't interested me, interested me, but some kind of way we wound up together. You know, we were friends for the first four years. [01:07:45] He would come over, we'd go eat and stuff like that and go to different places. But we didn't start dating until 99 and we've been together since 1999, the both of us. And it's funny because he dated a lot of people at Shaw. He was like, oh, Shaw was my school. You know, I love Shaw, love the girls at Shaw. [01:08:05] You know, his family church was right there on Hayden Avenue. So his mother and his siblings, their. The familial church was right there on, on Hayden. I never, never ran to him in East Cleveland, but he said I was always in East Cleveland because, you know, we had to go to church, you know, pertinent every day. [01:08:28] So, you know, it's just ironic that I never saw. And he even dated a couple of my classmates and I never, I never knew him. You know, we both are the same age. He is. We both the same. We both have only one child, which is our son. You know, we had him late in life because I was almost 40 when I had my one and only child. [01:08:58] He's 23 now. He's 23 now. And his name is Micah. Micah too is a alumni of Shaw High School marching band, lead trumpet band president. He was featured on a couple of billboards for Shaw High School and for the marching band in Cleveland at some of the gas stations. You see his face, he's holding his trumpet. You know.

Nick Mays [01:09:29] Is is it safe to say you lived in East Cleveland your centrally your entire life?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:09:34] Essentially my entire life with the, with the exception of the four years I moved out and I stayed in Cleveland. Well, actually I Cleveland, I stayed in Maple Heights. Stayed in Maple Heights for about four had apartment out there for about four years.

Nick Mays [01:09:50] So maybe not technically, but essentially you lived in East Cleveland my whole life.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:09:55] Entire life.

Nick Mays [01:09:57] So you went directly into the workplace. Can you just highlight some of the work that you've done since graduating high school? Careers?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:10:11] Basically what I did in high. Well, the majority of my career was spent in insurance. I work for an insurance company, one of the well well known insurance companies. I've been there, I've been an insurance agent there for the last 30 years. I'm going to be retiring in February. So I've been an insurance agent there for the last 30 years. [01:10:45] For the last eight, no, nine years. I've worked primarily from home, so I love that. Prior to that I worked in banking. I did most my, my thing in banking. I work for ameritrust, which was the old Cleveland Trust Bank. I worked downtown in, in the Cleveland Trust at that, like I said, the bank on 9th Street. [01:11:13] And then I went to Federal Home Loan bank and then I worked for the Federal Reserve Bank. And even with my Insurance. Being an insurance agent the first couple of years, I was just too scared to let go of my nighttime job, which was I was working for a bank because I didn't know if I was going to keep my daytime job, you know, so I kind of. [01:11:35] Between banking and insurance, that has been what I've done for the majority of my life. Now with the retirement, we're going to move on and see what I could do. What's next?

Nick Mays [01:11:53] So let's pivot and talk about your commitment to East Cleveland. You are now currently vice president of the East Cleveland Public Library Board of Trustees. What brought about your service at the library? And then. Yeah, let's start there. What brought about your service to the library?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:12:23] Well, actually, it kind of happened. What brought about my. My position there was. I was going to the library on the weekends because that was. I have a passion for East Cleveland and anything historical about East Cleveland. So I would go to the library on the weekends just to get. Dig up old information about this, the history of East Cleveland, what about East Cleveland, this, the East Cleveland pictures, maps, whatever. [01:12:53] And I would run. I would run into the director and I would talk to him about. We would just reminisce about. We will reminisce about how East Cleveland was, the school system, you know, just kind of just, you know, talk about, you know, different things that was going on in the city, what could go on in the city, blah, blah, blah. [01:13:17] And there was a board member that was. There was a board member or trustee member that was leaving because of. She had obligations to her family and the position became available. And I found out about it. A couple of people had told me that, you know, you have such good ideals. You always know, you have a love for the city. [01:13:48] You always talk about how east living was. You talk about different programs that need to be implemented at the library. Maybe you should. Maybe you should interview for trustee position at the library. Like me, you know, why me? You know, I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy, you know, because, you know, you have doctors and people with doctorates and, you know, people that are just kind of up there. [01:14:12] And I was like, I'm not worthy. I don't fit in. But I thought about it. I said, I love the city. What can I do for the city? What. How can I put back in the city? What can I do? Should I take the opportunity? Should I. Chances? Should I? And I did. [01:14:34] I took a chance and interviewed for the position. But one of the things I said is that I Love the city of East Cleveland. My passion is the city of East Cleveland. I'm here. I'm the one. Like I said, I told you, I'm the one that keeps the lights on when you want to come home. [01:14:50] You haven't been home in 10 years. I'm the person that's still, I'm standing in the doorway, I got the lights on. I'm ready for you to come home. Because anywhere you come, I'm here. I'm going to welcome you. What can I do for the city of East Cleveland? I thought about our interview for the position. [01:15:06] I told them, I said listen, I love East Cleveland so much. Whether regardless whether or not I get the position, I'm just grateful, thankful that you allow me to interview for the position. Even if I'm not the best candidate. It's okay just as long as you choose the best person for that position. [01:15:24] Because by any means necessary. I just want, I just want the library to be good. I just want everything to be okay. I just want to put back into the city. If I'm not the person, that's fine. I ended up being the person. So that's.

Nick Mays [01:15:38] Congratulations. Can you talk about why? So I may have mentioned this to a couple of, I think mostly all the participants but the East Cleveland Public Library is one of the most-- if not the most respect respected institutions in East Cleveland. Can you talk about the East Cleveland Public Library and why it's become so essential to the city and the communities?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:16:16] East Cleveland Public Library first off when you think of library you think of books. Most people just think of books. The East Cleveland or the library is not just a place for books. It is a hubbub for information for the city. It's a place to get in get information. It's a place to come if you want to. [01:16:43] If you need assistance with your light bill. It's a place to come if you need help filling out your census form or to register a vote. It's a place where we offer information on anything if it's health related. It's a place for people to come in out the cold. It's a place for people who don't have Internet to come and sit in the parking lot because we keep our Internet on 24 7. [01:17:11] So if you in the parking lot, whether or you sitting in front of the building, you can still get your homework done. You can still get on your tablets, you can still check your emails. It's a place that you know where you come if you're hungry. We're gonna feed you because we have a program that offers food and meals not just for the kids, but for anybody that's in need. [01:17:33] It's a place if, like I said, if you're homeless and I just need to, to plug up my phone because I need, you know, my phone charged. It's a place where you can come in and you can get that. It's a place where you can, you can get your music. It's just, just everything. [01:17:50] It's not just a library anymore where you come and looking at books. It's a place that tries to cater to all the needs for the city to be that place that, where it's a one stop shop. I can go there and I can get what I need. If my lights are getting shut off, I need to get. [01:18:09] Maybe we offer programs that, hey, if you, you need help with the utilities, hey, it's a program that we having a program next week where if you got something on there that you need expunged off your record, we got programs for that. Hey, we got a symposium. We want to talk about your dialogue about what, what's happening in the city, how can we make it better or whatever, whatever your needs are, that's what the library is there to meet. [01:18:39] We are there to fulfill the community's needs by any means necessary.

Nick Mays [01:18:45] Impressive. I can sense your passion for the work that you guys do and the programming that you offer and what you can contribute to the city. Let's pivot and talk about your work as a community historian. You've described yourself as a historian of East Cleveland. What drew you to researching the city's history?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:19:20] Let's see. I can't remember. What's the first thing that drew me to the history? I want to say it probably started back in seventh and eighth grade when we do our field trips and we would go to Forest Hills and we would go to Forest Hill. We find remnants of things that Rockefeller had because his, you know, whether it was stables or because they used to have remnants of his stables or wheels or we would go digging and just find different things. [01:19:52] So I think it stemmed from just our field trips going, going out up to Forest Hills and finding things pertaining to what used to be here. I love homes. I love anything that deals with houses, homes or anything like that. So combined with that and then finding out the history of East Cleveland, how it was so many people that came through East Cleveland, not just the Rockefellers. [01:20:22] You know, like I said, you have the owner of Lincoln Electric, he lived In East Cleveland, 1889 Wymore you have the architect who built Tower City, John T. Gill. His house is right across the street on Euclid Avenue. You have the beautiful Lakeview Cemetery that kind of goes through three different zip codes. [01:20:54] You have that history. All of it combined, you know, just me with the love of the city, love of everything, old houses, homes, how this was made. It just kind of fell into my lap. And so that became a passion of mine, just finding out about my community. What's. What. What happened to these? [01:21:14] East Cleveland. We have some heavy hitters here in East Cleveland. We have some beautiful buildings here in East Cleveland that sometimes I don't even see. It takes somebody else's eyes for me to see the beauty in it. You know, walking into the house I stand now, they go like, oh, your woodwork is so pretty. [01:21:29] I don't even see that anymore, you know, because I, you know, like I said, I'm so used to it. But I think combination, all of that love for everything old, the city buildings, all of that just kind of played a role in me researching East Cleveland. Okay, let's. Let's see how it was formed, where it come, you know, all these names and places and things, and then not only the house.

Nick Mays [01:21:57] Why do you. I get a sense of your passion. Why do you. Have you ever thought of about why you're so passionate about the history of East Cleveland?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:22:06] Because I'm still here. My passion is because I could be anywhere. I could pick up and move anywhere I wanted to move, but this is home to me. So I want to know about home, you know, I want to know how I was. I want to know how it is, and I want to know how it's going to be, you know, because this is home.

Nick Mays [01:22:28] What kind of items have you preserved?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:22:33] Oh, boy. I have preserved a lot of things in your collection.

Nick Mays [01:22:41] Like, what kind of items do you have in your collection?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:22:43] I preserve, of course, just a whole bunch of pictures that deal with East Cleveland from its origin maps that date back over 100 years. I have a bank, copper, a very heavy copper bank that belonged to the East Cleveland Savings Loan that used to be on Hayden Avenue. That's. The building is still there. [01:23:10] But, you know, even in the 66 when I came and even in 75. Let me think up to 75, I don't remember that savings alone bank, but it was there. So I have. I have the bank. Like I say, I have.

Nick Mays [01:23:26] What do you mean by you had the bank?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:23:28] It's a little bank that looks like a bank. A Little miniature bank.

Nick Mays [01:23:34] Okay.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:23:35] And that's what they were giving out. When you open up your. Oh, opened up your account, they gave you. They give you this little copper bank that you know in today, somebody hit you with it, you, you have a concussion. But this is something they were giving out during that time. I have programs from East Cleveland. [01:23:51] I got programs from city hall. I got yearbooks. Just anything I can get my hands on pertaining to East Cleveland, I'm going to collect it. I have the very first picture of Shaw High School. I have letters that were written back in the early, let's say 1900s from people who are writing to other people in East Cleveland. [01:24:17] You know, just anything that has to deal with East Cleveland old. I'm going to collect it. I'm. I'm looking for it.

Nick Mays [01:24:27] When did you start collecting? What year?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:24:31] Let's say. I want to say I started collecting maybe about. I want to say about 10 years ago I first started, you know, collective stuff.

Nick Mays [01:24:41] Do you remember the first item you, you collected or purchased?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:24:45] Let me see. The first item I probably would have collected was probably a photograph. Not, not which one, but a photograph.

Nick Mays [01:24:57] A photograph, yeah. What in your discoveries-- what surprised you or interest you the most in your collection or discoveries of historical items pertaining to East Cleveland?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:25:18] What surprises me is that the older. When I, when I would go to the library and I would pull out the information or, or something from the historical collection. What surprises me is that East Cleveland was a big deal back in the day. You know, it was a big deal. It was like the place to be if you were anybody. [01:25:46] This is where you wanted to be. You know, I remember when they, when I was at the library and I happened to come across this article about this. Them opening up the, or launching the, the Masonic Temple. They built this Masonic Temple right down the street from Huron Road Hospital. And the parade they had, they had thousands of people that attended the opening ceremony for this Masonic Temple. [01:26:16] I mean, they had a big ticker tape parade. It was like who's who. You had the Rockefellers. You had just famous near and far people that came to support the opening of this Masonic Temple. And I look at the Masonic Temple today and I'm like this little building. You know, they had such a big to do. [01:26:36] But it was a big thing back then. You know, East Cleveland was one of the first places that offered voting for women in 1916. Of course, law wasn't in effect granted until the 20s, but in 1916, East Cleveland, east of Mississippi was the first city to offer granted voting for women. You know, it was way ahead of his time.

Nick Mays [01:27:04] Before nationally, women were permitted. There were states and in cities throughout the United States that allowed women to vote.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:27:18] And East Cleveland was the first.

Nick Mays [01:27:20] Wow.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:27:20] So you have. When I look at this, and I'm like, wow, it's. East Cleveland was really something. And the more I dig, the more I find out. Just like I said, I found out that the. Just listening and talking it to people online, East Cleveland memories, when they were talking about how the. [01:27:39] The famous Joanne Fabrics, you know, Joanne Fabrics, the lady who. Joann Fabrics, she came from East Cleveland, you know, and to know that there's a part of history or one of the pictures that I purchased, it has this one man right there at Eddie Road. When you. Right past McDonald's, when you get past going down Eddie Road Road and you get to the bridge, right past McDonald's, you get to that wonky intersection where you go this way or that way. [01:28:12] There's a vacant little area to your right that looks like a little. Okay. I don't know if it's like a parking garage. We used to sit there. But that was a gas station. And, you know, that was a gas station. It was owned by this man named Mr. Sapiti. And Mr. Sapiti, he did Christmas trees in the wintertime, and then he did gas, you know, during the daytimes. [01:28:37] Well, Mr. Sapiti, legend had it, rumor had it, said that, you know, he got a little tired of that place, and they didn't know whether it caught fire or he caught it on fire. But, you know, he ended up, you know, leaving that place and building this. Opening up a place. Place where, you know, you buy your plants and stuff, stuff somewhere else. [01:29:00] But the irony of it is, I got a picture of him sitting at his gas station while he had the Christmas trees up, drinking a pop, only to find out that both of his grandsons were in the Super Bowl. Jim and John Harborough, they're both super bowl people. So just finding out that there's connection. [01:29:21] We have some famous people that came out of East Cleveland, just, you know, so even that just makes me dig more, you know, and each time I uncover a nugget, it's another nugget to uncover. So it just keeps me all the time, like I say, just fascinated with the history East Cleveland.

Nick Mays [01:29:40] What is the Rockefeller Rudd house?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:29:47] The Rockefeller Road house is a house that was owned by Marianne Rockefeller Rudd, which is John D. Rockefeller's sister, and William Cullen Rudd, who was the owner of Chandler and Rudd's grocery store that opened up like the 18. In the late 1800s, those two together. The house was purchased by John D. Rockefeller. [01:30:18] He gave it to his sister, but prior to that it was owned by Annabelle Wilson Noble. Now the irony of that is that I can't find any information because it was so old, but I'm going to find it. The house was sold in like 1905 or 1906. But the reason why I say Annabelle Wilson Noble is because we have a street called Noble and we have another street, you know, we have Wilson Mills. [01:30:51] So I don't know if those were the namesake because a lot of those people from the early, early 1900 do have names, street names after them, you know. So I'm not sure I going to make the relate the correlation between those two, but it was a house that was, that was owned by those two and they lived in the house. [01:31:15] Well, he died in the house and she died in the house. And then they raised their children in the house. The last Rockefeller that lived in the house was Frank Rudd, which is their son. He moved out of the house and 1965 and he gave the house to the city and the city turned the house into Children's Guild. [01:31:38] And it was a place for kids, you know, to go that didn't have parents. And then from there it went into, it changed into still kind of Children's Guild, but kind of changed names and it went into a, a place where girls were kept there whether their parents died or whether they were having problems at home. [01:32:02] That was a place that, that was for females. And I actually got a chance to talk to a couple of females that, you know, lived and lived during that time, but that was in the early 70s. And then it went back into private ownership again. And it's been kind of in private ownership ever since then.

Nick Mays [01:32:22] But what's your connection?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:32:25] My connection is that I'm the current owner of the house. It was a house I used to see all the time. I had no clue who owned the house or where it came from or any of that stuff. I used to just ride past there and say, Jesus Christ, that's a big house. [01:32:41] I would love to go on the inside of that house. I bet you it's gorgeous in the inside because again, I have a love for old home historical pieces. Whether it is or isn't, I just love homes. So when I saw it, I said, God, the house is so big. I would love to see the inside of the house. [01:32:56] I would love to own the house one day. And one day it just kind of fell in my lap. The house was sold to somebody else. And the person who bought the house ended up losing their. Losing their job and moving to Boston. And within a week, week of me seeing the house sold to somebody else, a week later, I was offered the house. [01:33:17] So I jumped on it. Even though I wasn't looking for a house, I just kind of was like, I gotta get it now. I got it. I gotta have it. So I bought it.

Nick Mays [01:33:25] Why did acquiring it matter so deeply to you?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:33:29] I wanted a piece of history. I wanted something that was affiliated with something big and something major in East Cleveland. I wanted something that I knew at that particular time. When east, when the. When east. When not East Cleveland, when Cleveland was offering the trolley tours, that was one of the. They would come as far down as to the Rockefeller Hood house because they want. [01:33:57] That was a place that they wanted to see, they wanted to show. So I wanted a piece of history. So when I got it and. And I wanted it just because it was beautiful. But then when I found out the history of it, I really wanted. I really had to have it. I was like, I have to have that house. [01:34:13] And my whole thing with acquiring the house is to rehab it. And I want to make it like a living museum. When you walk back, when you walk into the house, you step back in time. I want it to resemble how it look when the Rockefellers owned it. I wanted each. I want each piece to represent that time period. [01:34:35] Glasses, furniture, drapes, everything. I want. When you walk in there, I want you to feel like you stepped back into a fluid house from the 19. From the early 1900s, 1920 to 1930. So in that time, in the last 10 years, I've been acquired and acquired pizzas for it here, there. And all the period pieces are even older. [01:34:59] Some of them are even older than the house, you know, But I want you to. When you walk in there, you have a feel of stepping back in time into a Rockefeller home. So with that, you know, I've been to estate sales. I've got pieces from the White family. White family were before the Singer sewing machine family. [01:35:20] They made sewing machines, but they were before Singer. So I've got pieces from the Singer family to put in there. I've got. I don't know if you're familiar with the Coliseum. The Coliseum used to be a big mansion that was down on Euclid. I got pieces out of there. I have doors and light fixtures from there to put in there. [01:35:44] I have this old It's a clock that's maybe. Yeah, maybe this tall, maybe that wide, that. It's a wooden cuckoo clock that sat behind the custard stand in Euclid beach from the time it opened till the last to the day it closed. I acquired that. These are pieces I want to. Even though it don't, you know, it's not a Rockefeller, but, hey, it's from the time period. [01:36:13] I want pieces to put in there so when you walk into that house, you feel like you step back in time. I want people to view my wonder. I want people to come in and be able to walk around. That's schools. That's anybody, you know, to come in and see a piece of history. [01:36:30] This is how they did their woodwork. This is how. There was this one guy named Clay Matthews who happened to come into the house. House. And one of the walls in the house was destroyed by vandals. And so in it, they pulled, you know, knocked a hole in the wall. And so he told me. [01:36:48] When I said, yeah, I'm gonna have this whole wall repaired. He said, no, no. He said, have the wall repaired, but leave a section of it open. Because this kind of work is. They don't do this type of work anymore as far as building the walls, the mesh inside the walls. He said, this is history. [01:37:05] He said, most of the times when you walk into a historical old home, you can't see this work. We have to show it and say, this is how they built. This is how they built walls. This is how they did plaster. He said, we actually get a chance to see it. So leave a piece, a portion of it out so builders can see. [01:37:23] You know, people like me can walk in and see, oh, wow, look how they actually did this wall. You know, look at the. You know, the wood, the windows in there. He was like, don't ever change them, because this is. This is old school. They don't do that anymore. So when you walk in there, you have a piece of nostalgia, history, and a place that can make East Cleveland proud. [01:37:48] You know, like I said, it's one of the few homes that has a direct affiliation with the Rockefeller fellow that actually stands, that they actually lived in. So I can honestly say John D. Walked through that house. You know, he was good friends with Marianne--his sister's husband. They were really, really good friends. [01:38:10] And like I said, William Cullen owned a grocery store, the Chandler and runs Ruts grocery store. In 1914, there was a major fire that did a whole lot of damage to the grocery store. Him and John D were such good friends. He gave him. And you know, Rockefeller was tight with money, but he gave his brother in law at that time in 1914, $115,000 to rebuild the grocery store because it was damaged due to the fire. [01:38:43] So they had a very, very close relationship. And I, I know for a fact that he roamed through the house. So I have a, a direct link to the Rockefellers.

Nick Mays [01:38:56] Would you mind showing us a photo of the house?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:39:00] Sure. Okay, let's see. Get that.

Nick Mays [01:39:09] WoW. Thank you. Yeah, we can see it. So through your lens as both as an official, unofficial official historian of East Cleveland, but also through your lived experience, you live through East Cleveland to strong. The strongest decades. How would you describe the decline? When did East Cleveland begin to decline? What decade did it start and what did you begin to see?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:39:57] Well, I think the decline began. I want to say in. Because during the time that I was in high school, still relatively the place to be. 85 it was still relatively the place to be be. Then in 86, 87, it started changing. 88, it was really changing. Then we had a, one of the mayors with the first mayor because we had our very first mayor, Daryl Pittman, who came into office and that was in. That was the first mayor since 1914. Then we had.

Nick Mays [01:40:45] What year did he come into office?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:40:47] I want to say it was in the eight. It was in the late 70s, early 80s. He came into office and then ironically, one of the mayors of East Cleveland was the one who owned the funeral home, Cummings and Davis. He became mayor at East Cleveland. And then it started changing. When we always had a city, city commissioner, and that was the big fight is that why would we want to change. 

Nick Mays [01:41:26] City manager.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:41:29] I'm sorry, City manager instead of, you know, instead of a mayor. Well, that's when things started to change. When we first got our. We first got our first mayor. Then the scandal started to hit when we had one of our mayors, mayor Onunwor went to jail for bribery, extortion, that kind of stuff. [01:41:57] And that's when we started seeing bad politics in office, you know, and money started being mismanaged. Then you started to see a lot of people who could have done well for the city, didn't, didn't get into anything political or go to city hall or help out or any of that stuff. So I want to say that East Cleveland started changing in the. Right about the late 80s, you know, 86 on down and you know, every year kind of got progressively worse. Then it got progressively worse. Then what also happened too was that a lot of people. Like I said, well, my class graduated, I graduated with a thousand, you know, a thousand people. So, you know, imagine all those people leaving the city and we're talking about not even third coming Back; then you had homeowners that were paying taxes, keeping up their property, this, that, and the third start dying off, going into nursing homes, selling their property. Now instead of East Cleveland being home to people, homeowners that come coming in with their kids and buying a home. Now East Cleveland, slowly but surely, instead of being a place of home homeowners, it started to become a place of renters. When you change from home owner to a renter, then you change the texture and the vibe of your community. Because now where you have someone who's keeping the grass cut, making sure the lot, you're not making too much noise or, you know, this kind of stuff. You have renters who, not going to cut the grass, care less about the noise factor. The kind of transient. You have this transient community that kind of came in who did not care about the city. You had the older people who were dying off or leaving or. And you had the younger ones who said, well, I'm, I'm here. I'm stating was here, I'm never coming back home. So now you got homes that, you know, your parents are too old to live in, they're going to nursing homes or maybe die off and now they don't want to come back. Now you got this big beautiful home that's just sitting there. Now it's year number two. Now you have squatters in there, you got vagrants in there. Then you had the whole crack epidemic that came. So with the crack at epidemic, with the homeowners dying off and the property became vacant, and then you have all this transient renters coming in. East Cleveland changed. So now it's not the way with the East Cleveland I grew up in because everybody on my street were homeowners, you know, and mostly everybody in my street had mother and father, you know, in the household. Now you, you don't have homeowners. You have renters and transients and group homes. [01:45:16] Because now East Cleveland's become a place of that group homes, transients and all this other stuff. Well, it, it, it change, you know, and then you, without that, you've got people that are maybe not so qualified to run the city, that are running for election for different positions at city hall. If you have a lot of, like I said, people that don't have invested interest in the city. I'm just here for the next six months until my lease run out and I'm leaving. They really don't care about voting. So you have a lot of people that are not voted. The actual people that probably are voting are people are still left here that still own homes, which is not many, you know. So you know, now, now when you look around, you have blight, you have vacant homes, you have, like I say, transient people. You have people. I used to live on this street, now I live on this street. Now I live move up, moved out to Euclid, you know, and then you, you got people who don't really, who win offices, get into positions, don't positions, don't really know that position. And now you got the East Cleveland now.

Nick Mays [01:46:32] So throughout the decades, right? So you have the late 80s going in 90s, 2000s, 2010s, etc, so you have a transformation going on. Socioeconomic, right, Infrastructure, right. But what about the spirit or identity of East Cleveland? Did that remain? Does that still exist? Was that sustained?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:47:02] That's sustained. That's why everybody comes home once a year. You still have love, you still have the connection that never left. Like I said, once a year everybody comes home and they still have the love for the city. They come in and, you know, they still feel connection to the city. But there's a lot of disappointment in what's become of the city. [01:47:39] And a lot of that I push back and say what become of the city is what's missing with the city is you. Because you took again, like I told you, you took your talents like LeBron James and you went to the south beach, you went to Florida, you know, and you didn't come back home. You didn't sow a seed into where you came from. The place that brought you so much joy, the place that brings you back every year, the place that you connect plug into once a year, you don't sow a seed into it, you know; and now you come back with disdain, but still love. [01:48:14] But what are you going to do to change it? You know, how are we going to do without you? Like I said, if people just tapped into their old home, if you bought some of the lots in East Cleveland or some of the vacant homes and some of the properties, we could collectively get together. Like Keith McLaughlin said, we get a core group of people that just come and buy a property in East Cleveland. We could change East Cleveland. We can make it the way it used to be. Because when you're a homeowner and you rent to people. You decide who is going to be your neighbor. [01:49:03] We decide who is going to live next door. To me, is it going to be a transient person or hell, really don't have a vested interest. Is going to be somebody, a mother with kids, a family, you know, what is going to be, what is going to be there? Certainly we don't. We don't need another group home, you know, we don't need that. [01:49:18] We need, you know, you know, something more, something different, you know, to come back in East Cleveland. And we could do that. Cleveland collectively.

Nick Mays [01:49:27] You said, quote, "when I see East Cleveland, I see home." And that you believe the city can, quote, "rise from the phoenix again," unquote. What gives you confidence in East Cleveland's ability to rise?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:49:49] Hope. Hope. Once you lose hope, or once lose hope, or once you lose hope about anything, nothing gets done. I've never lost confidence in the city of East Cleveland. I've been disappointed in East Cleveland, but I never lost confidence because I've always known for sure, for sure, for sure that East Cleveland is the low. It is low when you're dealing with real estate. You talking about location, location, location. I saw what happened to 105. I used to go down to 105, to the McDonald's down there. They used to have a movie theater down there on 105. It used to be Winston Casino. And every nightlife, they used to shake two sticks down there. I saw what. How that used to be, you know, literally, like this song, Broken glass everywhere. Well, that's just how it was. Now when you walk down there and you see how different it looks, how Cleveland Clinic bought out everything, how they beautified, made everything beautiful. I saw what happened down there, and I see what happened, what could happen here. So I've never lost hope for the city. I've always hoped for that. I've always hoped that good people came back into the government at East Cleveland. But I think it was just so much turmoil in the government that the people that could change it, that could do something, they just couldn't deal with the attitudes that were already there. [01:51:32] Because if you won, then you won against six other people. You know, there's a lot of smart people here, brilliant people in East Cleveland that want nothing to do with government because they see how it's been ran. But the problem is, it's when good people do nothing. When you sit back and you do nothing, it's just as bad as the bad people who do Everything, you know.

Nick Mays [01:51:58] Wow! Well in that same breath, what does revitalization, you know, mean to you? What kind of. Well, I'll just ask a question. There's development, external development revitalizations going on. Cuyahoga Land bank is one of those institutions or one of those. Yeah. Organizations. Do you support the external revitalization that's already taken place and more of it is coming to East Cleveland? [01:52:38] One, do you support it? And then two, complicated for us. I mean, what kind of development do you want to see or what kind of revitalization does East Cleveland need to be partners or at the table? I mean, speak to that.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:53:01] East Cleveland again. Location, location, location is everything. East Cleveland is one of the poorest communities that rest right next to a community that brings in a billion dollars probably in a year. You know, with their businesses, infrastructure, money, Case, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospital area, we're touching. There's no reason why that money don't trickle over, but it don't. [01:53:40] You know, I'm looking, Looking forward to. I'm not afraid of revitalization, and I think that people fear that because they fear gentrification. It's going to change. It's not. It's not going to look the same. You know, we're going to displace some people. You know, what about the homeowners that's there? What I do know is, is if we. We're already at the bottom, we're already here, we can't do anything but go up from now, from here. We can't go any lower. And we certainly cannot keep going on the same path of nothing because nothing from nothing leaves nothing. So what, what, what can we do? Yeah, it's scary. It's scary that people are coming in and buying a property. But again, I've said, I said for the last 20 years, why don't you buy the property up? Why don't you come back home? Why don't you get a family member to buy your property or buy your, your patch of land? Why don't you partake in the government in East Cleveland? Why don't you have a voice, you say nothing and then get mad because you live in Miami and you talking about the gentrification of East Cleveland makes no sense. What are you doing? What are you doing? I'm not, I'm not afraid of that. I know something has got to give. I know something has got to give. It can't keep going on the same way as it being. What is, what is it going to look like, of course, in my head, I would like it to be like it was when I came out of school. You know, everybody owned their home on the street. Everybody paid their taxes, everybody was invested in the school district. Everybody, you know, you know, partook in the city of East Cleveland; if you don't have homeowners, if you don't have investors, if you don't have anchor stores, if you don't have a tax base, if you don't have a grocery store--you just have a desert. I'm not opposed to partnering with other people to come in now. Yeah, you know, you have to mind yourself, you know, make sure that you're not, not signing, signing nothing over. But yeah, I want to be a part of that. You know, I want to own my home. [01:56:23] So when the investors come back and they build these new houses here in East Coast, I want to be a part of that. I don't want to down the street and see a whole street just knocked down and it's just vacant and tumbleweeds going down there; you know. No, I want East Cooking to be a sleepy little hollow that had the best school districts and, you know, each classroom was overflowing. But it's not that now. How do we get back to that? What does it take to get back to that? Good leadership. We need somebody to know what they're doing. We need somebody who has partnerships that can form partnerships with other people. You know, we need a good tax base. We need anchored stores to come come back. We need a grocery store. We need banks. We need people to come back into the city. How do we do that? I don't know.

Nick Mays [01:57:18] When you look at, in the political discourse about, or the media or the press about everything East Cleveland or even academia--a large percent of it is highlighting the negative. What are people--in all of that--what are they missing, however, about East Cleveland and East Clevelanders

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:57:48] What they're missing is. And that's true because every time I see something, even on YouTube channels, they specifically go down to the lowest part of East Cleveland. They find the worst streets in East Cleveland and it's on a loop. You know, they, you know, pan out to all the vacant broken glass houses, stray dogs, and it's the same streets. They just reinforce all the time. They never show the other side of east East Cleveland. They never show the Euclid society East Cleveland. They never show the big beautiful houses on Roxbury, Farmingdale, Idlewood. They never show any of that. They never show go Through Forest Hills. They never show the historical portion of East Cleveland, although the homes that I call the little gated community up there, you know, they never show that. They never go through Neela Park Park. They never explained about how Needle park, how GE decided to build their corporate here in East Cleveland. They never show any of that. Never go to the Farmer's market. They never talk about John D. Rockefeller. They never talk about any of that. You know, they always go to or, or, or, or the very first standard or Standard Oil gas station is in the city of East Cleveland. They always go to the lower end of East Cleveland and they make sure that they put that on a loop and they always show the worst of East Cleveland instead of the best at East Cleveland, all the time.

Nick Mays [01:59:31] So with that, what are or what do you think the biggest misconceptions or misunderstandings about East Cleveland or East Clevelanders?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [01:59:39] The biggest misunderstanding is that it is the worst of the worst. It's the worst place to be. You can't feel safe. It's Carjacker Avenue. It's like I say, broken glass everywhere. It's drug infested. It's--I remember my son, when my mother was dying, my son struck up a conversation with this one man in the waiting room at University Hospital. They sat there and he had somebody that was in intensive care. My mom was in intensive care. So he was kind of camped out, had his stuff, his computer games stuff there. And he talked to my son for the three hours we were there. And when we got ready to go, he looked at me, and of course he was white. And he looked at me, he said, is that your son? I said, yeah, he's a really nice kid. He's very mannerable. He's very well spoken. And you know what my son said? He knew that my son came from East Cleveland, that we lived in East Cleveland, that he was, you know, because they talked and he said, I mean, East Cleveland, I like the marching band. He was explaining. Then they start talking about game and everything. And my son said. My son said that he thinks that I'm a product, that he's amazed that I'm not a product of my environment. Because his perception of East Cleveland was so bad that when he, when he actually met my son and he saw, oh, he's such a. He thought that he was just this spectacular kid. He was just a kid, you know, that, you know, nothing, you know, over the top on. He was just a kid. But his perception of East Cleveland was so bad he just thought that I guess my son would be a thug or, you know, I don't know what he thought, but he was just amazed about my son. He was like, oh, he's so well mannered, you know, he speaks so well. Yeah, why wouldn't he? You know, we speak, you know, so, you know, just the perception. East Cleveland, we get the bad rap. It was this big Facebook debate about on a couple of days ago and this one lady was like, ah, this one guy was showing his apartment building right across the street from the Masonic Temple. I was talking about over there where the old Huron Road Hospital is. And he was showing that it's for rent. And you should have seen these laughing emojis on there, you know. Are you kidding me? For rent? For real? Really? You want to rent that out? You know, who wants to live in East Cleveland? Meanwhile, he showed the inside of the apartments. Inside the apartments were absolutely breathtaking, you know. And so, you know, this big discussion start going back and forth. I wouldn't rent a place in East Cleveland. Oh, it's so drug infested. Oh, this, that. And so, oh, it's just always something. They had all this document dialogue till the guy got on there. [02:02:43] He said it's funny. He said--this is a page about renting homes. I don't know how I got into a topic about how bad East Cleveland is, but that's what took over his whole page. Instead of them looking at the place to rent, they start the dialogue about how bad East Cleveland was. I wouldn't go through there. I wouldn't go through there. Hahaha. You know, it's just the, like I said, the, the mis, miss misconception about East Cleveland. It's bad everywhere, of course. And this one lady says, yeah, you know, I went to stay with my aunt's house and she stayed over there. She lives at the corner. The gas station is right on the corner, Sean, the house right behind there. And it was so many people just stand up there panhandling the drugs and blah blah, blah. There are certain pockets of East Cleveland for sure you shouldn't be in. Sure, but that's in Cleveland too. That's everywhere. But they don't shine a micro, they don't shine a spotlight on it and say, hey, in Maple Heights, you shouldn't be in this corner, you shouldn't be at that location. Because Maple Heights is Maple Heights. But East Cleveland is like third world. The same way that in the movie 147 shots, that movie where those three. The black Bonnie and Clyde got killed behind Kirk. Melissa and Timothy Russell and Melissa Williams--they were downtown driving in the car and one police said that they shot at them. So the police started chasing, they start running in their car. So they, on this high speed chase; they end up, they go through all these districts, through Cleveland, through Euclid, they end up in East Cleveland. Why? Jesus. In East Cleveland. But they wound up in East Cleveland and they got trapped up in behind Kirk.Because if you don't know the parking lot in Kirk, you can't get in, you can't get out. Can't figure out how to get out. So they wound up in the parking lot at Kirk. Police cornered them. Cleveland Heights, Cleveland and East Cleveland. Now the police gets out, jumps on the hood of the car and he shoots 147 shots into the car. Of course there was 147 shots shot into the car. He did over 40 of them. He stands and he's firing down only to find out neither one of them had a gun. They were just afraid. So they killed him. And you know what he said his defense was? He was afraid. He was afraid for his life because he was in the city of East Cleveland and he likened it to a third world country.

Nick Mays [02:05:17] Mrs. Hunt-sharply, what do you want future generations to understand about the East Cleveland you know and love?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [02:05:24] How it was, how I grew up, how it was self contained, we had everything that we needed. How there was candy stores, bakeries, gift shops, swimming pools, ice skating rinks, bowling alleys, best school district, the best streets, clean environment, safe. I want them to know how it was and how it can be. I want them to tap into East Cleveland. Like I said, I just want them to know how it was, you know, and not compared to how it is now. But I'm want them to know how it was and how it can be because we can go back to where. To where it was. We can. Or better matter of fact, we don't even have to go back to where it was. We can make it better.

Nick Mays [02:06:17] When it's all said and done. What do you want your legacy to be?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [02:06:26] Never thought of that.

Nick Mays [02:06:27] And you have a lot left. But nevertheless, where you at now?

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [02:06:32] Where I'm at now? My legacy. I never thought about that. I don't know. I really, I never thought about that. would I want to leave? I don't know. I, I really never thought about that.

Nick Mays [02:06:53] I don't know-- about your work, your humanity, your contribution to East Cleveland,

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [02:07:03] My love for East Cleveland. If there's nothing else. I want people to know that I love the city. My passion has always been to uplift the city. I've always wanted to. But like I said growing up, for me, I would say neck and neck. It reminded me of black rosewood because everything was here, so the dollar circulated within the community. We didn't have to go outside of the community and spend money. Our dollar was circulated right here, so it didn't go downtown or Cleveland suburbs. Everybody came here, so our money stayed here. My passion, like I say, my passion and love for the community, for the city. I hope to be remembered like my mom.

Nick Mays [02:08:04] Well, Mrs. Hunt, sharply thank you for your contribution to East Cleveland. Thank you for your contribution to this oral history project. I appreciate you.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [02:08:21] Thank you.

Nick Mays [02:08:22] And thank you for sharing some of your historical sources with us. I was really excited to see it and hear your take and allowing me to take some photos of it to use for my. For the writing of the scholarly article that I'm going to do on the powerful forces and individuals of East Cleveland.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [02:08:52] Thank you.

Nick Mays [02:08:53] Take care.

Sheila Hunt-Sharpley [02:08:54] Thank you. Bye Bye.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.