Abstract
Margaret Hostelley shares her memories growing up in Cleveland, including trips to the West Side Market and other near west side businesses, family ties to Saint Wendelin Parish, visits downtown and to Euclid Beach Park, and changes in the Ohio City and West Park neighborhoods.
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Interviewee
Hostelley, Margaret (interviewee)
Interviewer
Souther, Mark (interviewer)
Project
Cuyahoga County Fair
Date
8-10-2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
29 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Margaret Hostelley interview, 10 August 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 907003.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/899
Transcript
Mark Souther [00:00:01] Welcome to the County Fair interviews. Today is, if I can remember correctly, August- [crosstalk] August 10th. My name is Mark Souther. I’m interviewing Mrs.- Please state your name.
Margaret Hostelley [00:00:15] Hostelley.
Mark Souther [00:00:17] And your complete name.
Margaret Hostelley [00:00:19] My name? Margaret Hostelley.
Mark Souther [00:00:22] Margaret Hostelley?
Margaret Hostelley [00:00:23] Yes. My maiden name was Medvik.
Mark Souther [00:00:26] Where were you born?
Margaret Hostelley [00:00:28] I was born in Cleveland. In fact, I was born in the house on 2116 West 32nd Street.
Mark Souther [00:00:36] What is your earliest memory of your neighborhood?
Margaret Hostelley [00:00:44] I think probably we- I’d go shopping with my father to the West Side Market. And every Saturday morning it was a ritual. And he had his own- He would take the same old Market bags and visit the same stands. And of course we’d go to the one, they had the lunch meat. We’d get the free slice of bologna. And that was the highlight of the morning. And walking down the street because he had lived in this house for quite a while, so he knew all the neighbors. So it took longer to get there than to get home because he would stop at all the neighbors because they’d always be outside and talk and visit with everybody. And I remember that. I also remember the parades and that was a big highlight for me of the year. The parades on Memorial Day that came, marched down our street and they went up to the. The Monroe Street Cemetery and that was a big highlight. And usually all the kids in the neighborhood would follow the parade at the end and go up there and they would have a ceremony at the cemetery.
Mark Souther [00:02:00] How did you get to the West Side Market?
Margaret Hostelley [00:02:03] We walked.
Mark Souther [00:02:05] Oh, you walked?
Margaret Hostelley [00:02:06] Oh, yes. We always walked.
Mark Souther [00:02:07] Oh, from 32nd?
Margaret Hostelley [00:02:08] Right. [crosstalk]
Mark Souther [00:02:13] What was- Do you remember any of the names of the vendors that your father particularly liked to buy from?
Margaret Hostelley [00:02:19] Yes, Steve Check. And he used to buy meat from him. And we now buy- We’re still shopping at the Market and we now buy meat from his son.
Kim Hostelley [00:02:32] And well, Dad, because Dad told me the story that when Grandpa first, when you guys got married, that Grandpa took Dad down and pointed out all the vendors. You go and you take, this is my son-in-law, and you go take good care of him. So then my dad did the same thing. And then I go now with my dad and I bring people and I’m like, so we go to the same people, right?
Margaret Hostelley [00:02:59] That’s right. My husband was born or lived on West 28th Street in the projects, but I guess he never went to the Market with his mother. So when we got married, my father took him down and introduced him around.
Mark Souther [00:03:17] When you were going to the Market, was the interior of the Market very much like it is today? Or do you remember any differences in terms of the way the vendors were set up?
Margaret Hostelley [00:03:31] No, I remember it just pretty much how it looks today. Our one favorite stand was the cookie stand, which is not there anymore. I don’t even know where it is. It was in one of the corners. But we had a big family, relatively big, and we never- My father was a blue-collar worker and we couldn’t afford the real fancy cookies. But she always had broken cookies that you could get a whole huge bag full for a dollar. And that was our, that’s what we had. Once in a while he would spit, splurge and get us the real whole cookies, but not too often.
Mark Souther [00:04:05] Where was your father originally from?
Margaret Hostelley [00:04:08] From Cleveland. He was born in Cleveland.
Mark Souther [00:04:11] And your mother, was she from here?
Margaret Hostelley [00:04:12] No, she was from Pennsylvania. But her family, her sisters had all moved up here and then she also came up here after her parents died.
Mark Souther [00:04:22] Where did your father work?
Margaret Hostelley [00:04:23] He worked at Cleveland Twist Drill on East 49th and Lakeside. In fact, they were very big about hiring family. They were not unionized at that point. And my brother- My older sister worked there first and then I worked there and then my brother and my younger sister and we all worked there. And it was, at that time, it was a very nice, good place to work.
Mark Souther [00:04:49] What job did you hold there?
Margaret Hostelley [00:04:51] I was a clerk in the accounting department.
Mark Souther [00:04:56] How did you get there? Did you drive or did you take public transportation?
Margaret Hostelley [00:04:57] My father drove because he was still working there and he worked there until he retired and he started half an hour earlier than us. The factory started earlier, so we all drove together and then he would of course wait in the evening, the extra half hour till we get out.
Mark Souther [00:05:19] Thinking back to growing up in your neighborhood, do you remember any particular businesses other than going to the Market that your family would go to?
Margaret Hostelley [00:05:27] We lived right next door to a grocery store. Yes, we did. Well, when I was very little, the people who owned it, their name was Check, I believe. And they moved to Florida when I was about three. And when they moved, she gave me was that Raggedy Ann and Andy, her little dish set with the cup, saucer, bowl, and the whole thing. And I still have the plate, looks a little shabby, but I still have it. And then the people by the name of Nagy took over and they ran it until we moved away, which was in about 1952 and they still had it and they just had a, it was right on the corner of West 32nd and Chatham. And I drove by there recently and it was so sad. Because when I remember it, the yard was beautiful. She had beautiful climbing roses over a little arbor. And there wasn’t big lawns or anything. You had just little patches of grass. But they were always so well manicured. And they just kept it up so nice.
Kim Hostelley [00:06:38] Paper rags guy.
Margaret Hostelley [00:06:40] Oh, the paper rags man. Yes, right. That came by on this with his horse and carriage, right. And collecting all the old, anything you had. And we had- And we used to always save our gum wrapper- Well, the tin foil. We would peel the tin foil off the gum and roll it and try to make ball, a big ball out of it till you get enough. And he would buy it. And there was somebody in the neighborhood, the older brother of one girl, worked for a florist. So he always got all this foil. And we were a little jealous that he could get something really big to sell to this paper rags man, you know, when we couldn’t.
Mark Souther [00:07:20] What did he do with the material?
Margaret Hostelley [00:07:22] I don’t know. I believe salvaged it or- I don’t know what they did with it. But they collected everything. Old clothing, old furniture, everything like that. I also remember the iceman. We were very modern. I remember we had a regular, an electric refrigerator. But my girlfriend and a couple of the other families on the street still had the old ice boxes. And they would come with their truck, huge blocks of ice. And just if they were really nice, and all the kids would gather around it and he would chip some off in the summer and give it some. A big chunk of ice. And it was the best tasting ice you can imagine. But that was interesting. They had- Carrying these big blocks of ice into the house.
Mark Souther [00:08:19] Well, I was just going to comment, actually, that the paper scrap man, in a way, is sort of like an early version of recycling.
Margaret Hostelley [00:08:27] Yes, that’s exactly what it was. That’s right. And the mothers would, the parents, sometimes, I don’t recall my parents did, but my girlfriend’s mother always threatened her every time she misbehaved. That she was going to give her to the paper rags man when he came.
Mark Souther [00:08:45] I wanted to ask you sort of a different question about your memories of going downtown. Maybe you could think back to your first memory of going downtown.
Margaret Hostelley [00:08:57] Well, I must have been quite young because I just barely remember taking the streetcar down. And I do remember going down the, you know, the tunnel over the bridge. I don’t remember.
Mark Souther [00:09:08] Superior.
Margaret Hostelley [00:09:09] Yes. Right, right. And we did not go downtown a lot. We did not shop downtown a lot. Our big place to shop was Fries and Schuele’s, Fries and Schuele’s, it was a department store. It’s on West 25th, right across from the Market. I believe it’s now condos or something. And they had pretty much everything there. Or we did shop at Sears on West 110th and Lorain. That was another place. Occasionally if we went downtown, it was pretty much limited to Bailey’s basement. That was- That was it.
Mark Souther [00:09:50] Where was Bailey’s basement?
Margaret Hostelley [00:09:54] It was- No, I believe it was Prospect and Ontario. Big Bailey’s department store.
Mark Souther [00:10:00] I’ve heard the name. [inaudible]
Margaret Hostelley [00:10:02] Right. They have a big picture of it over there.
Mark Souther [00:10:07] You mentioned the streetcar that went through the tunnel. Do you remember ever looking through the floor of the streetcar when you went over it?
Margaret Hostelley [00:10:16] No, I don’t remember that. I remember the seats. I remember like wicker somewhere, and I don’t know if it was in the back of these benches or-
Mark Souther [00:10:27] The reason I ask is because I just went on a Flats tour earlier today and someone mentioned when we were approaching the Detroit-Superior Bridge, that you could actually see through a grate through the car and through the track below. You could actually see down to the river and the ground below. So I was wondering for that reason.
Margaret Hostelley [00:10:47] I don’t remember. If we were going over the river, I probably sat there with my eyes closed. [laughs]
Mark Souther [00:10:57] So do you remember going downtown ever during the Christmas season to see any of the lights or the displays?
Margaret Hostelley [00:11:07] One year we did. My father took us and my uncle took his daughters and we went down to one of the Cleveland Press Christmas parades and we didn’t go down there too often.
Mark Souther [00:11:24] What years were we talking about? I forgot to ask.
Margaret Hostelley [00:11:27] Okay, well, I was born in 1941 and I moved over to the West Park area in 1952. So that’s the years.
Mark Souther [00:11:39] Did you stay in that- Did you stay then in the West Park area through the 1950s or did you move-
Margaret Hostelley [00:11:45] Yeah, I stayed there till- Well, I got married in 1961 and then our first house was in that same area and we moved there through 1965. And then we moved out to Parma Heights.
Mark Souther [00:12:02] How is it different living in Parma Heights from living- Thinking back to the first neighborhood you grew up in, how would you compare and contrast life in the two places?
Margaret Hostelley [00:12:20] Well, maybe thinking of it from my children growing up there compared to the way I grew up, everything was so much closer when I was growing up. I could walk and it was- It was safe. It was still safe. You could walk all over. My sister and I. The big thing, every Saturday we’d go down to the West 25th Street area. They had dime stores, Kresge’s and Woolworth’s, and we can shop around and things like that. And my favorite spot during the summer, I would go to the library. I was very fond of the Carnegie West Branch Library. It’s my favorite place. And there was a playground there. And you could just, you know, say goodbye to your mother in the morning and leave and just be gone all day practically. You know, show up for lunch and show up for dinner. With my children, they had a much bigger yard to play in, but I was driving them everywhere. Sometimes they could take their bikes up to, like, the Parma Heights Library or the swimming pool or that. But mostly it was a lot of driving, so they missed out on that. I think it was missing out on something.
Mark Souther [00:13:35] In a way, it sounds like West 25th Street was sort of your downtown.
Margaret Hostelley [00:13:39] Yes, it was. Yes, it was.
Mark Souther [00:13:42] Do you remember the other stores in particular along West 25th when you were living there, besides the dime stores?
Margaret Hostelley [00:13:51] Well, there was Mary’s Bakery. That was a biggie for us.
Kim Hostelley [00:13:59] Fridrich’s Bicycle.
Margaret Hostelley [00:14:00] Oh, Fridrich’s Bicycle. That wasn’t- Well, that was on Lorain, around West 41st, West 40th. And. Well, they’re still there. And we’re still buying our bikes there.
Mark Souther [00:14:11] I bought my bike there.
Margaret Hostelley [00:14:12] We bought- [crosstalk] Right. And we went down and we bought our children’s bikes there. And my grown son just bought his children bikes there. So.
Mark Souther [00:14:21] What about Mary’s Bakery? What kind of, was it?
Margaret Hostelley [00:14:24] It was an ethnic bakery, right. It wasn’t- We were Slovak. And so they always had, at Easter time, they had the special Easter bread, like that.
Mark Souther [00:14:43] You mentioned you’re Slovak. What particular traditions did your family observe that were particularly Slovakian?
Margaret Hostelley [00:14:51] The Christmas Eve special dinner and Easter morning. We would have, well, breakfast or brunch with my grandfather. We lived in a double house and my grandfather, my uncle, lived downstairs and we lived upstairs. So we would always, those were the two big special days.
Mark Souther [00:15:13] What kind of meal was the Christmas dinner?
Margaret Hostelley [00:15:16] It was Christmas Eve, and because we’re Catholic and we couldn’t eat meat, it was, wasn’t real exciting for a child. But there were these little bread, little hard, round. They looked like the donut holes of today. They were about that size, but they were bread. And you would coat them with poppy seed and honey and then they had split pea soup. And we always had the Easter or the Christmas wafer from church that was blessed. And we would all have one of those that you ate with honey. And that’s all I remember from. I don’t think I ate too much on Christmas Eve.
Mark Souther [00:15:57] Did you wait for dessert?
Margaret Hostelley [00:16:00] I don’t think there was dessert.
Mark Souther [00:16:01] No dessert?
Margaret Hostelley [00:16:02] No, I don’t think so. You had to wait till Christmas Day for that.
Mark Souther [00:16:05] What did you have on Christmas Day, then?
Margaret Hostelley [00:16:08] I don’t remember. We probably had- I don’t think we had turkey because my father wasn’t particularly fond of it. My mother always made the traditional nut rolls and poppyseed rolls. That was our dessert. We probably had ham, I would think.
Mark Souther [00:16:30] Which church did you go to?
Margaret Hostelley [00:16:32] St. Wendelin’s on Columbus Avenue. In fact, my father also went there because he was born in 1913. So he was- He also went to school there.
Mark Souther [00:16:46] Was it primarily or exclusively Slovak?
Margaret Hostelley [00:16:50] It was a Slovak parish. And there would be one of the masses on Sunday was said in Slovak. And growing up going to grade school there, we had to learn a lot of the Slovak prayers and say them.
Mark Souther [00:17:07] Were there a lot of people, a lot of Slovak people in your neighborhood? Or did it, how big was the parish? Or did it draw from a large area?
Margaret Hostelley [00:17:17] No, it didn’t draw from the large area. It was- I don’t know what the boundaries. What the boundaries were, but. Right. Our area, our neighborhood was Slovak, probably. Maybe I would say better than 50%. It was thinking of all the people my father would stop and visit. And sometimes he would talk to them in Slovak, you know.
Mark Souther [00:17:45] When you moved ultimately to Parma Heights, was there a lot of sort of shifting of the community of Slovaks to Parma Heights and to Parma that you were aware of? Or was it- Or did it get very diffused to the point you really couldn’t connect with-
Margaret Hostelley [00:18:03] My grandfather died in 1951, and then we moved away in 1952. And at that time, a lot of the people and a lot of their friends were moving to Parma. I think that’s where all the Slovaks were. Moving from that area and then moving to Parma. But my parents chose to move to stay in Cleveland and move to the West Park area. And then when I got married and when we moved away from that area, moving to Parma Heights was, I mean, there was no special significance to that. My husband at the time was an auditor and audited Parma Hospital. So he would always ride up and down the streets. And he just happened to find a house. So that’s how we just ended up there.
Mark Souther [00:18:47] Are there any particular memories that seeing the pictures outside here made you think of that you like to share today?
Kim Hostelley [00:19:01] What about Euclid Beach Park?
Margaret Hostelley [00:19:02] Oh, Euclid Beach Park. Right. That was- We spent a lot of summers there. Nickel Day. And then Cleveland Twist Drill, where my father worked, they had their company picnic there. Every year. And that was a lot of fun because the company arranged, you know, just rented the park, I think, for the whole day. So you went on any ride and did anything you wanted. And they had all kinds of games and special activities set up and dancing at night in the ballroom. They had a live orchestra.
Mark Souther [00:19:34] So they rented the whole park for one company?
Margaret Hostelley [00:19:37] Right. I believe, I mean, it seemed like that maybe they let other people in, I don’t know. But it was- Yes, right. We had special tags, you know, that identified us as being part of this group.
Mark Souther [00:19:53] I mean, there were probably not many long lines.
Margaret Hostelley [00:19:57] Well, there was always a long line for Over the Falls and Thriller and some of those special rides then.
Mark Souther [00:20:06] Can you describe those rides? Because I’m not familiar with them.
Margaret Hostelley [00:20:08] Oh, Over the Falls. It was a boat that went through tunnels, and ultimately you climbed up a very large hill and just came right down. I think that was probably the highest hill in the park that you would come down. So I was not allowed to go on that until I was much older. And the Thriller was a coaster. They also had two twin racing coasters that were a little milder than the Thriller. The other big one was the Flying Turns. It was just several cars linked together. And you just went around almost in a tube. And it was centrifugal force that held you. There was no track. You were just held onto the sides of the tubes.
Mark Souther [00:21:03] What about the rocket ship that we see?
Margaret Hostelley [00:21:05] Oh, right. Yes, I saw that. Yes, that reminded me of that. I remember going on that. And that was a very nice, calm ride with the music. And it almost went out over the lake, or you could see the lake. And that was very nice.
Mark Souther [00:21:22] Wasn’t there, I’m trying to think. Well, I guess it’s East Coast Original Frozen Custard now all over the place. Wasn’t that started at Euclid Beach?
Margaret Hostelley [00:21:32] It was very similar. I don’t know if- I mean, I’ve tasted the East Coast Custard now, and yes, it definitely was very similar.
Mark Souther [00:21:41] Weren’t there any other foods that you remember from Euclid Beach?
Margaret Hostelley [00:21:45] Just the popcorn balls, the Humphrey popcorn balls, and the candy kisses. I think that’s it.
Mark Souther [00:21:57] I wanted to ask if Emma has any questions she’d like to ask.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:22:01] I was just wondering if you could say a couple of words. You mentioned earlier that you continued to go to the West Side Market up until today. And so I was just wondering if you could kind of talk a little bit about the changes that you’ve seen the neighborhood go through. Maybe not necessarily the Market. But your old house. Say, driving by, what changes have you seen over time?
Margaret Hostelley [00:22:27] Frequently we’ll go for a ride because sometimes we’ll go down to- We like to go to Heck’s down there and have, you know, stop to eat, and we’ll drive up and down the streets. And the way they had my house, it was a double house in front. And then my grandparents in 1926 built another double on the very same lot in back, so, so our yard shrunk considerably. And then they rented out that. So they had rental income. And it wasn’t much of a yard. Little square patch of grass. Well, now, I was looking on the internet and I noticed they’ve divided that up into two lots now so that they’re owned separately. They’re not part of the one lot, and they gave that a separate address now. But some of the houses down there have been torn down. Stork’s Baby Furniture was right on the corner of Lorain and West 32nd Street, and that’s been gone. And that’s where I even bought our children’s bedding from down there when they were babies. And I think the library is still there, which makes me very happy, because I drove by there. In fact, I went in there one day. And St. Mary’s on West 30th is no longer there. It’s all part of the St. Ignatius complex, and they’ve taken that down. Two of our sons went to St. Ignatius, and now my grandson’s going to St. Ignatius. But other than- I mean, just like any neighborhoods, it’s just gotten very old and, you know, a lot of it in decay. And my favorite store in the corner, the lot with all the flowers and the grass is just, you know, very, does not look very good anymore.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:24:22] I don’t know about the years, and so it might have been gone before your time, but did you ever go to Puritas, being a West Sider, Puritas Springs Park, too? Wasn’t there an amusement park out-
Margaret Hostelley [00:24:36] Yeah. Yes, there was. There was one. And I remember going there. We didn’t go there very often. If we were going to go anywhere, we went to Euclid Beach, especially during the summer. On Sunday, they would have their nickel days where everything, every ride was a nickel. So we didn’t go to Puritas Springs very often. But I do remember it, and I remember the coaster being overlooking that long hill down Puritas Hill.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:25:05] Is there anything else that you would like to tell us?
Margaret Hostelley [00:25:16] I’m hoping that maybe you could steer me to some resources. I’ve been trying to research our family history. And I know I have little names and little bits of information from when my grandparents came. My grandfather came from Czechoslovakia and worked on the Nickel Plate Railroad. And I remember them living once on Jerome Court. And I’ve been searching all over for the street and trying to, going through census records and everything and trying to find some- So we have a long history down in there. My grandparents came over here. They settled there and died there.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:25:57] What year did they come from?
Margaret Hostelley [00:25:59] Well, and that’s what I’ve been trying to find. I don’t even know if they came through Ellis Island or not. I haven’t been able to find them. I just want to. I was very little. My grandfather told me he came when the president was shot. [crosstalk] So we think it was when McKinley was assassinated. So that’s all I have to go on there. They didn’t talk much. And now, of course, I’m sorry I didn’t ask more.
Mark Souther [00:26:27] There should be manuscript census records for 1910, ’20, and now ’30 has been released.
Margaret Hostelley [00:26:35] Right. But so far I haven’t been successful in finding, you know, the record yet. That’s from back then, of course, their name, I’m not sure even what their name was. I believe it was changed. My mother always said it was changed, you know, from when they came over.
Mark Souther [00:26:54] Have you also tried city directories?
Margaret Hostelley [00:26:57] No, I haven’t had a lot of time to put into this. I am retiring at the end of September, so I hope- In fact, I have a friend who told me she would go down to the Western Reserve Historical Society because she’s done some research down there. And then it used to be on Franklin, the County Archives. [crosstalk] I’d been there once. In fact, I found the card of their house because I put some- When my parents died, had all the pictures. So I made albums for each of my sisters and my brother. And I went down and found the card from the house when my grandparents bought it. And even, you know, down there at the archives. So I know they do have a lot of stuff. I still have the original, the contracts that when they built that second house back in 1926. And it’s all in Slovak, though, you know, the contract that they had signed to build the house and the cost and everything. I just saved some things like that. But it was a very nice place to grow up.
Mark Souther [00:28:03] I have a question actually about the church, you mentioned, was in the neighborhood. Did that church follow the movement of Slovaks out to Parma or into the suburbs elsewhere, or is it still there?
Margaret Hostelley [00:28:18] It is still there. They do have now- The school has closed, but I, the one time I believe they did have a Montessori school in there, and I believe now they have a Hispanic Mass. So it’s still going. The parish is still active and still going.
Emma Yanoshik-Wing [00:28:43] Can we get your daughter to introduce herself?
Kim Hostelley [00:28:46] I’m Kim Hostelley.
Mark Souther [00:28:53] Okay. Well, thank you.
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