Scribal Terror

Cincinnati flood of 1945

"Powers Street"

Interested in beer? Here's what your Felsenbrau would have looked like when you ordered one at the No-Name Restaurant.

South Cumminsville 1945

Six years before I was born. This is the neighborhood I spent my early childhood in. We left when I was nine, but I still remember walking up Herron Avenue -- we lived at 3836 -- to Powers Street and across that bridge in the second photo every day on the way to school. I imagine my dad took these pictures from our third story window, so you can't see my house. We lived on the banks of the Mill Creek. In summer it stank like an open sewer, which is one of the reasons we moved. My parents and grandparents lobbied the city government constantly to have it cleaned up, but I thought it just smelled like home.

I also thought that the name of the creek was the Milk Rick. I believed that a "rick" was a type of stream. It was a land flowing with milk and sewage.

Wait, I've found it. Here's my house. Unfortunately, by the time I came along the clapboards had been replaced with asphalt siding, the salt-and-pepper kind Do you remember asphalt siding? It was a "shotgun" house -- one room wide, three rooms long, three stories high. My mother's parents lived on the first floor, we lived on the second, and my father's mother lived on the third.

Cincinnati Gas & Electric 1945

I wonder if this is the front side of the same building (photo taken by Derek Jensen in 2005, Wikipedia). The grille-work over the door looks the same.

Cincinnati flood of '45

The note on the photo above says, "Hamilton Ave. near Knowlton St. looking South to R.R."

"Looking toward Union Terminal"

"Eastern Ave.?"

"1945 from back porch Herron Ave."

"Powers Street"

Do you have any further information about any of these pictures -- including any details of historical interest? Put it in the comments, please!

Anyone may feel free to use photos from my family collection as long as they remember to credit me (Gail Hapke) and Scribal Terror as the source.

Oil this water

For generations, my family lived in Cincinnati, the "Queen City," on the banks of the Ohio River, and they experienced lots of flooding. Actually, they lived closer to the Mill Creek, a tributary of the Ohio, but it flooded when the Ohio did before floodgates were installed. This is one of a number of photos in my family collection from the 1945 flood (in this case, the aftermath). I hope no one took the sign too literally.

Do you have any further information about this picture -- including any details of historical interest? Put it in the comments, please!

Anyone may feel free to use photos from my family collection as long as they remember to credit me (Gail Hapke) and Scribal Terror as the source.

Campaign buttons from yesteryear

I found these in an old jewelry box. There's little room for doubt about my family's party allegiance back in the day. We were urban blue collar union Democrats. Eisenhower vs.Stevenson was the first election I remember -- my mom was handing out leaflets for the League of Women Voters -- and Humphrey was the only candidate I ever campaigned for (though I was too young to vote). The FDR button is about the size of a dime, the Stevenson about the size of a nickle, and the Humphrey a little smaller than a quarter.

"Urbana money"

According to a City of Urbana website, in 1933

When Illinois [closed] its  banks in the depths of the Great Depression, the Urbana Association of Commerce [issued] "Urbana money," which [was] used for a month and [kept] the local economy alive.

Apparently local merchants guaranteed that when the banks reopened, the "Urbana" money could be exchanged for the real thing.  My daughter learned about this in school. As she says, the money was orange and "looked like Monopoly money."

Pictures from DepressionScrip.com, thanks to Jonathan

Down memory lane

 

If you can remember your mom in a real heavy-duty girdle (with stocking clips and straps), you were probably born in the forties or fifties. This one is made of pure rubber, with ventilating holes that left raised polka dots.