Abstract
A longtime resident of the near west side of Cleveland, Stella Golch discusses her youth and employment in Cleveland. A longtime department store employee, Golch observed many of the changes that Cleveland underwent from the 1960s. Golch details memories of her neighborhood while criticizing the rapid changes taking place in Cleveland.
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Interviewee
Golch, Stella (interviewee)
Interviewer
Hons, Justin (interviewer); Yanoshik-Wing, Emma (interviewer)
Project
Ingenuity Fest
Date
7-14-2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
20 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Stella Golch Interview, 14 July 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 905008.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/274
Transcript
Stella Golch [00:00:00] I did. Except for the one when it started to rain out there. Right now? Yeah, it started to rain and we were out there by the catch 22 and started to come down. There was no protection underneath it. So.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:00:16] Sound is all good. So if I could just get you to say your name and also the date. It is the 14th today.
Stella Golch [00:00:23] All right. My name is Stella Paula Golch, and today is July 14, 2006.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:00:31] Excellent. Are you from Cleveland originally?
Stella Golch [00:00:36] No, I’m from Louisiana. I was born in Hammond, Louisiana, and I came here when I was two years old. We were living on a farm and my father was working for the railroad. And then he was transferred to Cleveland and that’s why we moved to Cleveland. I think it was two or three years old as what the picture shows, that they took a picture of us and that’s where we’re from. Yeah.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:01:05] What area? When they moved to Cleveland, what area did they-
Stella Golch [00:01:09] Well, it was my older sisters came to Lorain, Ohio. My older sister was one of my sisters, was born in Lorain, Ohio. And then, like I said, I was born in Louisiana and my brothers were born. I had two brothers that were born in Cleveland. And then we lived off of Palm Road. It was 3903 Palm Road was the address in Cleveland. It was like west side of Cleveland. And then we moved to 32nd Street. And then from there I got married. And then. Yeah.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:01:49] Did you stay on the near west side?
Stella Golch [00:01:51] Yes, we did. Yes, we did. And I remember a lot about the west side to go into school. I went to a Hungarian school because that’s the nationality we are. And I went to a school called Saint Emeric’s, and it was Hungarian. But when I first came to Cleveland, we couldn’t speak English at all. And then we went to Saint Emeric’s. It was a Hungarian school also. But then they taught us English.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:02:23] Would your father speak English working on the railroad or was he still primarily-
Stella Golch [00:02:29] No, he spoke broken- Well, he spoke good English. But my mother, she spoke English and then transferred, went into Hungarian because she didn’t speak English very well. You know?
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:02:43] Was there a good-sized Hungarian community in the area of Cleveland that you moved to?
Stella Golch [00:02:49] Well, no, the Hungarian is really on the east side by Buckeye and stuff like that. But around our area there was all kind of nationalities, so. But that was all right with us. With those kids, we learned English from them and things like that. Yeah.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:03:08] Was Saint Emeric’s- Was it on the east side then?
Stella Golch [00:03:11] No, it’s on the west side. It’s the school right behind the market. West side Market? Yeah. There was a Hungarian. There was a school there called Saint Emeric’s and that was behind the West Side Market.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:03:25] Do you remember going to the West Side Market when you were-
Stella Golch [00:03:28] Oh, God, yeah. There used to be the West Side Market. I remember they had the live chickens behind the West Side Market, and my mother used to go there all the time for the chickens and stuff like that and the eggs. And then they had another across the street. It was like a market. And they had the sawdust. I remember the sawdust on the floor and going into the market, then the fresh meats and at the- Yeah.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:04:05] How long was that market done?
Stella Golch [00:04:10] It hasn’t been- The one across the street wasn’t there very long because right after that they had the Fries & Schuele’s over there. It was a department store then. Yeah. And I remember the Kresge’s down there and the Woolworth’s and the Neisner store and Red Robin’s was down 25th. Giant Tiger’s. Yeah, the stores was down- Yeah. Now they don’t have any of that. Everything has all changed now.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:04:41] With all those stores in your neighborhood, did you and your family come downtown?
Stella Golch [00:04:48] Not too much. Not too much. It was mostly on West 25th where all the area and the action was. Once in a great while, my dad would bring us downtown when they had, like, the Christmas stuff in the window at May Company and Higbee’s and Sterling Lindner Davis. I remember that. And a big Christmas tree in the hallway of Sterling Lindner Davis in the beginning of the- Yeah.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:05:17] How about as you got older, you stayed in the neighborhood?
Stella Golch [00:05:22] Yes, I did.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:05:23] Did you later come downtown, did you work?
Stella Golch [00:05:27] Yeah, I worked downtown. I worked at- Well, I worked at the Yellow Cab Company, and that was on Superior Avenue. Superior 14th, 13th and Superior. Now it’s down in, almost like in the Flats. But I worked at Yellow Cab. But before I worked at Yellow Cab, I had worked at Kelly Plating, which was on the West Side. It was a plating company. And then from there I worked at Yellow Cab Company for almost six years. And the reason I didn’t work Yellow Cab anymore, because I was in the hospital. And then they just didn’t let us work at the cab company because I was really ill. But I worked at Top of the Town. I remember the Top of the Town and the restaurant at the Top of the Town where the Ohio Bell used to be, right on Superior Avenue over there. And I worked there. And then from the top I had a lot of places I worked at Sterling Lindner Davis. I worked at Higbee’s. I worked at May Company. So I was all over downtown. I worked down there, but like my family, my mom and dad, you know, they stayed around the area.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:06:49] What were some of the jobs that you had at the department stores?
Stella Golch [00:06:52] Well, I worked in men’s clothing. I worked in women’s clothing. I worked in the office. I made the advertisements up for the paper and stuff. I did all that. Excuse me. I did all that and then did some typing for the offices.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:07:13] Was there much difference between the different department stores?
Stella Golch [00:07:16] Yes, there was. Like at Sterling Lindner Davis was altogether different than the May Company and Higbee’s. In the May Company, I was, like, down a basement and in a small office where I had to lay out the advertisements on the sheets. In Sterling Lindner Davis, it was a bigger office and I had more room. I had a locker and everything else. In May Company, you had to go, like, go up, I think it was the second floor on the elevator to the lockers and stuff, then get back to the basement again, there was a big difference in the work area.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:07:59] How about in the shopping area in terms of what they sold or who they sold?
Stella Golch [00:08:04] Oh, yeah. It was altogether different because I think Sterling Lindner Davis put out their products more than the makeup company did. They had more better displays than the May Company or Higbee Company. Higbee Company. Just like they had the glass thing, just put the things on top of the counter, underneath the counter. Sterling Lindner Davis. They decorated it and they just made a big display. Like if you were in the perfume department, they had the perfumes out and then they had. I mean, yeah, most of them have samples now, like made companies. Is Kaufmann’s now in Parmatown? It’s not made companies no more. And they do have the displays, but it just seemed altogether different than what it was. You know what it is now? What years did you work downtown from 1977? No, it was 1968 and then till I retired, you know.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:09:18] When did you retire?
Stella Golch [00:09:20] Well, I retired in ’68. Well, I had the five girls. I was still working for the cab company then I had my surgery, I think, in 1990. I mean, in 1986 is when I- My. Yeah.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:09:42] Can you describe for me some of the changes that you saw? I mean, coming down on a regular basis?
Stella Golch [00:09:48] Oh, there’s a lot of changes. There was really- I mean, like May Company and Higbee’s, like I said, had all those displays around Christmastime in the window. They had the little dolls that were moving and Santa that was there. They don’t have that now. They have just clothing in the window. Or maybe they have a little tree, but they don’t have, like, the train around a tree and all that going like they did. I used to bring my kids down every Christmas, and then they had Easter displays in the window. They don’t have that anymore. It’s just like plain- There’s nothing down here, really. There is really nothing down here as when we were growing up.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:10:33] When did you see the change? Can you pinpoint? Was it something very gradual or did it kind of just happen?
Stella Golch [00:10:43] It just happened. [laughs] I mean, here you got the displays in the window. Next time you come downtown, they had nothing. What’s going on with the displays? And we asked the guy, you know, we come in and we ask, what happened to displays? Oh, we don’t have that no more. We’re having different things. They had, like, clothing, the mannequins in the window and with the clothing on and stuff. But that’s not for kids. Kids came down to enjoy the displays for Christmas and Easter and everything else. And I remember they used to have, on the May Company downtown, they had this big Santa up there and a big sled up there where Santa- They don’t have that no more. They don’t have anything down at the Old Stone Church and the tower or anything that they used to have. When my kids and I were growing up, it just like now they’re having this Euclid Corridor and everything else. All this is all changing. And it’s not like the town I lived in when I came in. That’s how I feel. There’s a big change in it altogether.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:11:54] What is it about Cleveland? What do you think it is about Cleveland that makes it so unique now?
Stella Golch [00:12:02] All the building. All the stuff they’re building down here and trying to get people back into the city, actually, because everybody is moving out into the suburbs. And I think that, you know, they’re trying to build us back up again. If they would just let it alone, they would have left it alone. More people would have been down here than it is now. Because, like, now you have this Ingenuity. You don’t see many people down here for that. And it’s really- I’m just giving an example. If they would have had this quite a while ago, like when they were going up, and they would have had the Ingenuity, and then they would had all these displays in the windows and stuff, people would have came down more. All these shops are closing. All the stores are closing. There is- There’s a lot of stores down here that are closing. It’s just not the same anymore.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:13:05] Do you, either through the RSVP program or other things, do you come, have you been downtown for other festivals?
Stella Golch [00:13:10] Yes, I work at the Palace Theater and stuff, you know, Playhouse Square. And I came down. They had the WDLK luncheon down here. I’ve been down here like for about five years for that. You know, I missed it this week. And they have the shows like on the square up here on 14th Street. There’s a big screen. They have it. I still come down here, but, you know, I do. I enjoy it, especially my working at the Playhouse Square, because I can see different theaters, you know, different cultures and stuff that is coming back again, like the operas and different things that are coming. They are bringing a lot of things back again that they had before, but it’s gradually coming back.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:14:09] Did you ever go to Playhouse Square or spend any time in that area years ago?
Stella Golch [00:14:14] Yeah. When my kids were smaller, they used to have English operas down in Palace and State Theater and like they had the Christian plays down in there and stuff. And my kids would always go to it. And then they would go to the- I would take ’em to the art museum and other museums down on 86th and Euclid. We went east, west, north, south, and we went all over. I taught my kids more cultural things than anything else.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:14:52] Are your kids still in the area?
Stella Golch [00:14:54] Well, I have three daughters. No, four daughters that’s in Arizona and one daughter over here. Right. My one daughter that’s in- Well, she’s not in Arizona. Well, her home is in Arizona, but she’s in Massachusetts. She’s in the service. And then I have three others that are living in Arizona. And then the one that’s staying with me. You know? With my grandchild, with my grandson. But I don’t think I leave Cleveland for a while because I have too many grandchildren here. [laughs] And I’m back and forth now.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:15:38] Is there anything else? Any memory that you want to-
Stella Golch [00:15:41] Yes. Getting back to the West Side Market. I remember my mother used to take a wagon. She used to have this big red wagon with the sides in it with the six wheels. And we used to go to the market and load that up and bring it home. I think that was so enjoyable when I was little. And I remember all that. And then another thing I remember is when they had Euclid Beach and Puritas Springs. They used to have the Euclid Beach Park. My dad used to take us. And then Edgewater Park. My father used to go- We used to go swimming down there. My dad used to take us down there. All those are just good memories about Cleveland over here.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:16:29] What was your favorite ride or your favorite activity at the Euclid Beach?
Stella Golch [00:16:37] I used to like the Funhouse where the guy and the woman were standing outside laughing and a laugh in the dark. He was sitting in this little tub thing and it went to the dark and like monsters used to come out at you. I used to love that. And then they used to have the roller skating and dancing at Euclid Beach and then at Puritas Springs Park. I remember all that. And then I remember going down- Is it? Behind Saint Emeric’s they used to have a hill and we used to go down there. Well, you can’t go down there now. We used to not, you know, after school, take cardboard, sit on the cardboard and go down the hill, slide on the hill like sleds that you can’t do it anymore because now there’s tracks. And then the Cuyahoga River is down there. And then the kids would just go right into the thing. But we used to do that. We had a lot of fun.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:17:36] Excellent. Well, thank you, Stella.
Stella Golch [00:17:39] Yeah. And I remember all that. That. But the best thing I like is the market and where the fresh vegetables and-
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:17:47] Did you have a favorite treat? Was there a stand that used to have a-
Stella Golch [00:17:51] Yeah, they used to- There was a lady outside of the West Side Market that used to make pure horseradish. And I used to love to see her. I mean, she’d have the tears in her eyes. And I used to tell my mom, get the fresh horseradish, because I eat the horseradish now, but it’s not the same. They mix that, all that chemical in it. But it was the pure horseradish and I loved it. And I used- That was my- And I used to laugh at her because her eyes used to be so red. And I used to say, well, my mother said, you know, you’re not supposed to do that because God’s going to punish you for laughing at that lady. Your eyes going to get red. One day you might get it area where your eyes are red and it’s gonna hurt you. But my favorite thing was the market, actually, and the Fries & Schuele’s and the dime stores. And I worked at Woolworth’s and Kresge’s also when I was in the seventh grade at Saint Emeric’s and I went there after school. I was 13 years old, and I went to work there and really loved it. That was about it, you know? But I remember a lot of things. I mean, I just- Cleveland was good when we first moved here, and then, I mean, it’s still good. I’m not condemning Cleveland because I still live here, but it’s just the idea that there’s too many fast changes and fast things going up, that people are not really- Some of the people are not interested in all this that are building up. They rather have the old things back again. Because I have talked to a lot of people. In fact, this evening, I talked to a lot of people out there, and they said, this is not- Some of the older people that saw me said, this is not what we’re used to down here. That’s it.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:19:49] Well, thank you again.
Stella Golch [00:19:51] Okay.
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