Testimonials For the Camp

One emotional & one practical testimonial for the Cleveland Girl Scout camp, circa 1937 - still strangely relevant today

Abbie Graham, author of "Ladies in Revolt"

"I approve of the sort of campaign you are running in behalf of camping. I might buy a square inch of the proposed acreage..... one that would give footing for the young eyes to discover the excellence of an adolescent moon. Or I might purchase an apple tree whereof some incipient Eve might eat and awaken to a knowledge of her own stupendous importance. Or I could use words to seek to arouse potential contributors to realize the unusual opportunities which the Girl Scouts are now offering Clevelanders".

Junior League bulletin

"Safety Director [Elliot] Ness and his crime prevention bureau were troubled by the reports of juvenile delinquency in a city district. THey sent out an SOS to the Girl Scouts to organize troops in the district. Modern law enforcement officers realize that what the juvenile gang spirit requires is direction into constructive channels.

But to cope with city streets, the Scouts must have camps where girls can learn the way of simple, adventurous activity out-of-doors during the adolescent years. Harold L. Madison, chairman of the camp planning committee for Cleveland Girl Scout Council, says: " If the children of a large city are to build healthy bodies, wholesome minds, and appreciative souls, the camp becomes a nessessity. It is the one organized channel available to large numbers of children"

Now, after years of searching, the Girl Scouts have found what Mr. Madison characterizes as "the most desirable campsite within a hundred miles of Cleveland". Their necessity is urgent is urgent since the present site is woefully inadequate.

The proposed site covers 243 acres at West Richfield, southwest of Brecksville. It is 22 miles equidistant from the Public Square, Lakewood, and Cleveland Heights, and its well-constructed dam provides it with two lakes. It is not raw land but is already equipped with buildings remarkably equipped with buildings remarkably appropriate to the uses of the Scouts; a lodge for eating and recreation, a mill house for crafts, an 11 room heated house for winter weekends and a boat house.

The Scouts ask us to consider these facts:

1. Permanent possession of this site witll make it possible to train 1400 more girls each year and to take care of younger girls.

2. The new camp will be open 52 weeks in the year.

3. Present facilities make it impossible for all the agencies for girls to serve more than 10 per cent of the girls in Cuyahoga county.

4. Cleveland is the only city in the region that does not have its own Girl Scout camp.

5. Figures from Akron, Dayton, Cincinnati, Toledo, and Columbus show that the cost of the camp and its nessessary equipment is less than those cities have had to pay for a similar set up.

The goal for the Camp Fund Campaign is $60,000; part for the land purchase, the balance for the necessary remodeling, the erection of tents and other necessities to operate the camp on a year-around basis. Mr. Warner Seely is chairman of the campaign: Mrs. Benedict Crowell , vice chairman.

Since the soliciting organization is not a large one, Interested Junior League members will be doing their Scout-leader friends a very great favor if they don't wait to be called on, but step right up with their contributions.

Who Donated Camp Crowell/Hilaka?

With the revelelation that Mr. Guy Renkert's family had donated the land for Great Trail Camp and was still keeping an eye on making sure it was used properly, lots of people have been asking "who donated the land for Crowell Hilaka? " Here is the answer:

Instead of getting a land donation and then deciding to put a camp on it, the Cleveland Girl Scout Council was looking for a place that they could turn into a camp. The main qualification was that it have a lake large enough for swimming and boating.

One description of the camp search said that real estate agents kept showing them abandoned farms with creeks that " could easily be dammed up to create a lake" and that they were all getting tired of crawling underneath barbed wire fences.

When they found the Kirby property in 1936, they were thrilled. Two lakes, a boat house, dining hall, main house ( to be used for camp staff and adult trainings) and the farm buildings. Plus the mill was so pretty it would inspire arts & crafts.

The property was valued at $85,500.00 Kirby said he would take $48,500.00 for it because of it was for the Girl Scouts. The committee figured that they needed to raise $60,000.00 because in addition to buying the property, they would need to set up campsites and outfit the dining hall.

They decided that Eleanor Garfield would start by heading up the "special gifts" division of the fund-raising campaign. ( I think this means asking the wealthier citizens for large contributions. As the wife of a US president's grandson, she probably had the society connections needed to pull that off. ) There was a Scout family division and a Public division. They planned with the media to get continuous coverage of the campaign which would run from February 9 to February 26 (1937) . They got endorsements from a star-studded list of respected pillars of the community*. They developed a brochure explaining why the Girl Scouts needed the camp and why the place they had chosen was so perfect.

The official campaign kicked off with a dinner and entertainment at the University Club of Cleveland. Mr. Kirby attended, as did Mrs. Benedict ( Julia) Crowell. Girls enacted a "pantomime" called "Camping through the Calendar" . Following the event, newspapers and community bulletins kept up a steady stream of reports on how much money had been collected and encouraging people to give more.

5,050 individuals donated toward the purchase of the camp. Amounts ranged from 10 cents to 10 thousand dollars.

Donations came from "every corner of Cuyahoga County". The youngest donor was seven years old.

At the time, there were 3,626 Girl Scouts in the Cleveland Council.

So the answer to the question of "who donated the camp?" would be "the people of Cuyahoga County."

*

Endorsements for purchase of a camp for Cleveland GS Council 1936 / 37 came from

Eleanor Rooseveldt

Lou Henry Hoover

Elliot Ness

Junior Leauge of Cleveland

Charles H. Lake

Mrs. R.N. Rutledge

Mr. & Mrs. Max Hellman

Rabbi Abba H. Silver

Dr. A Caswell Ellis

Mrs. F.W. Reindel

Mrs. E.L. Shupe

Paul Bellamy

Mrs. Robert H. Jamison

Mrs. Frank L. Session

Fred Ramnsey

A.G. Knebel

Edward D. Lynde

Rabbi B.R. Bricker

The camp planning committee was headed by Harold L. Madison, director of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Mary Colley, age 15, was selected as the "representative Girl Scout" pictured on the campaign flier.

Opening Banquet

Mrs. Carlton W. Bonfils was chairman of banquet arrangements

Mrs. Alexander C. Robinson was program chairman, assisted by:

Mrs. John A. Kiggen Jr. ( publicity chair)

Mrs. Stanlee Orr ( chairman of hosteses)

Mrs. Fred Harroff

Mrs. J. Jones Hudson

Mrs. E.A. Fisher

Mrs. George Jones

Mrs. Normal Siegel

Mrs. W.A. Roberts

Mrs. F.O. Fleming

Mrs. Howard Dingle

Mrs. Edwin Parkhurst

Proffessor Henry Miller Busch of Cleveland College was the keynote speaker

GS Troop 89 (captained by Mrs. Clifford Jorns) and GS troop 120 ( captained by Mrs. William C. Russell) took part in the " Camping Around the Calendar" skit.

Girls Jo Anne Galberach, Elizabeth Izant, and Peggy Camplejohn were pictured in the Plain Dealer laying logs on a pretend fire in the skit

Mrs. Clifford E. Jorns - author of skit lyrics

additional entertainment by radio stars Delma Lee and the Kay sisters

a motion picture by Mrs. Warner Seely of the new campsite was shown

According to the Cleveland NEWS, the following accepted invitations to sit at the speakers' table:

Mayor & Mrs. Harold H. Burton

Mr. & Mrs. Edward D. Lynde

Mr. & Mrs Hal Griswold

Mr. & Mrs. James R. Garfield

Mr. Harold Madison

Mr. George Green

Banquet attendees pictured in the Cleveland Press report:

J.B. Kirby

Mrs. Benedict Crowell

Menry M. Busch

Mrs. Henry Friede

Mrs. Hal Griswold

Harold L. Madison

Miss Grace Courtade

Miss Mary Driver

Miss Fay Stein

Miss Jean Warwick

Mrs. Stanlee Bates

Warner Seely

Mrs C Bonfils

George E Greer

Mrs Rudold Garfield

Mrs B.F. Quate

Miss Ann Wright

Stanlee T. Bates

support also came from

Mrs. Cleaveland Cross

From the Financial Report of the Capitol Account Drive. Cleveland GS Council February 26, 1938

Campaign Executive Commitee

Mrs. Henry Friede , Comissioner

Mr. Warner Seely, General Campaign Chairman

Mrs. Rudolf [Eleanor] Garfield, Special Gifts Chairman

Mrs. B.F. McQuate, Public Division Chairman

Mrs. Clifford Jorns, Scout Division Chairman

Mr. James B. Garfield, Treasurer

Camp Construction Committee

Mr. Morris A. Black, Chairman

Mr. Alexander Robinson, III

Mr. W.F. Schickler

Mr. E.A.Fisher

Mr. Gilbert R. Osterland

Mr. James B. Kirby

Mr. Henry Friede

Dr. R.W. Markwith

Mr. Harold Madison

Mr. John Homer Kapp

Special mention was made to Glidden & Co., The Electrical League, The Ohio Edison Co., Walsh & Co., and the newspapers for their invaluable publicity

The estate of Mr. & Mrs. James B. Kirby became the property of the Cleveland Girl Scout Council on April 7, 1937

The deed for the property was formally presented at the dedication ceremonies held at the camp on June 20, 1937. ON this date the camp was named in honor of Mrs. Benedict Crowell. Garfield Lodge was dedicated August 9th. Kirby house was dedicated on August 17th.

403 different girls between the ages of 7 and 18 attended the first summer camp sessions. From September 1, 1937 to February 26 when the first financial report on the camp was written, the camp was in "constant use" . 16 troops comprised of 252 girls camped on the weekends, 260 girls were served during 3 snow days. 8 conferences and training courses served 238 adults

Cleveland GS council -1937

Miss Anne Wright, Director [ CEO ]

[ the following are what today we would call the board officers ]

Mrs. Henry [Linnea] Friede, Commissioner

Mrs. B.F. McQuate, first deputy commissioner

Mrs. Stanlee T. [Margaret] Bates second deputy commissioner

Miss Grace Cody , third deputy commissioner

Mrs. Morris A. Black, corresponding secretary

Mrs. John H. Kapp, recording secretary

Mrs. John Pavlik, treasurer

Mrs. Bennett Chappele, of Middleton, OH; regional chairman

information for this history snippet comes from the 1938 CGSC report / 39 clippings provided by Farnham Publicity Service 1937 /

courtsy, archives of the GSNEO history committee

For newspaper articles and other information about the campaign to raise money to buy Camp Julia/Crowell, click here.  But be warned:  This is a 46-megabyte file, and it's going to take a long time to download.

The Sapsford Farm and the Determined Children

The Sapsford farm was located somewhere around the middle of camp.  The remains of the farmhouse are up near the stables.  If you were driving in from the stable entrance on Oviatt Rd., just past the barn, on the left side, is a clump of trees and bushes that obscure the old foundations.  The Kirbys bought the Sapsford place to add to their estate - so it was included in the parcel sold to the Cleveland Girl Scouts in 1937.

I was googling around & found this reference  http://www.ohiofarmmuseum.com/?page_id=75  which looks to be a collection of oral history   - Lynn

The SAPSFORD FARM -- The DETERMINED Children

The Sapsford family farm was on Oviatt Rd. in Richfield Twp. Summit Co. They raised their children, Chalice, Blanche, Clyde, Ray and Ruth during the Depression. Quietly, some people called the children crazy. More openly they were known as “determined”. Many stories are still remembered of their many escapades. 

 Just to the west of their farm, on Rt. 303, is West Hill. It’s one of the longest, steepest hills in northern Ohio. Back then there were a number of flat areas carved into the hill so that the horses pulling wagons up the hill could stop and rest without the wagon pulling on them. One day, the brothers decided it would be a good idea to “sled” the hill. They took one of the farms’ buggy running gears that had no seat or shafts and tied a rope to the front wheels to steer with. One of the brothers sat on the frame and the other pushed the buggy off. As it went screaming down the hill, it hit the “flats”, launched into the air and kept flying on down the hill. By the time the buggy and brother reached the bottom, they were completely out of control, missed the bridge over the river and landed in the water. It was a wonder he wasn’t killed.    

In that same river there was a place to ford. The family had a horse who was trouble so when they hitched it up to a buggy, they kept the check rein tight so the horse couldn’t lower it’s head. One time the children went out for a drive. They crossed the river and the horse was thirsty. The children forgot to loosen the rein and the horse couldn’t reach the water so it simply lay down in the shafts, turned the buggy over, and got a drink. It took a lot of work to unhitch, right the buggy and pull it from the ford.     

One of the kids was out riding a horse one time. But the saddle girth wasn’t fastened tight enough. Slowly the saddle started to slide around the side of the horse, with the child in it. An upside down ride was inevitable. Grandma was watching but couldn’t do a thing about it. She just turned away and walked into the house saying, “Those kids are going to kill themselves one day.”

 Another time. the boys dad told the boys to go get the horses in from the back field. Many hours later, dad had to go get the boys and horses. Ray and Clyde had taken a bottle of hootch (probably gotten from Sam Nemer) and were passed out in the field. Severe consequences awaited them.   Of course, the boys weren’t the only ones to get a nip. One time Ruth got into the hard cider. For years after the family kidded her about the time Ruth kept telling everyone she heard the canaries singing.

 When the girls made up their minds to to something, they did it. Growing up in the Depression, there was no money to go to town. The girls wanted to visit Akron so they simply got up early, walked the 18 miles, saw the sights, did a little shopping, and walked home. Never thought a thing of it.  Years later one of the sisters got a job at a tractor repair shop in Richfield. This wasn’t really considered ladies work, but that never stopped her.Unfortunately it didn’t go so well for her. She was out mowing with a tractor to see if it was fixed. She backed up under a tree, hit a branch and broke her neck. She died shortly after.

 As the “kids” grew older they continued their “determined” ways. When Ray was older, he walked out on the back porch one morning. A skunk was there to greet him. Well, he wasn’t going to have that, so he kicked the skunk off the porch. His family had to bury all the clothes he was wearing and it was quite awhile before the porch was put to full use again.

Ray also had a small cannon he liked to shoot off on special occasions. But one day it seemed like a good idea to just let fly with it loaded with gravel. -You know, just to see what it would do. Unfortunately, all the dish towels had just been hung out on the clothes line to dry. That was the day the towels became holey.      

Chalice later lived “in town” near Richfield Center. She wanted to build a garage, but her husband didn’t want to help, so Chalice made all her own cement blocks and built the garage herself. She used the outhouse behind the house until her passing in the mid 1980’s.                                

Landscape Forensics

A collection of vintage photos of Camp Crowell/Hilaka, provided by council historian Sunny Baddour, is now on line at http://www.flickr.com/photos/65282355@N00/sets/72157626948137609/ .  In reply to the announcement of this link on the Friends of Crowell/Hilaka mailing list, Kathleen Bradley wrote:

"I notice the trees on the dam got quite big in some years- not allowed anymore of course for safety reasons. The lake seems much lower in many of the pictures, too.  Most of the girls in the photos seemed older.  Do you think they were all campers or were some counselors?"

Lynn replies:

I don't know - that's part of the fun of looking at these- the more you look, the more you notice, and then the more you question.   It's like working a puzzle!  

I showed the series of Kirby House gardens to a friend who is very familiar with the camp.   After he stared at them a while, and flipping back & forth between them,  he pointed out that the one with the woman standing on the right was taken much later than the other three.  

How can he tell?   There is a small room added onto the back of Kirby House that isn't in the other,  and that reeds have grown up in the middle of the pond.

   Does this make a difference to anything?  Probably not --- but the act of figuring it out  - that's fun!   And I bet this kind of landscape forensics would be intersting to girls  if presented correctly. MOst of the time when I camped there with troops we were so busy with  our planned activities,  the kapers, the sight-seeing to obvious places, that we never thought to look.   But I bet there is a tremendous amount of history / mystery there, Mostly on the south,  but probably some lurking in the woods of the north.
      This spring,  Suzanne Czaplicki found and pointed out the remnants of garden architecure behind North House:  If you stand at the fire circle with the porch to your right, there is an almost hidden path on the left that goes down to the water.   A small creek feeds into the lake .    there are stone foundations on either side of the creek: there had been a bridge there at one time.   It must have been mostly decorative -- You can hop over the creek - but imagine the elegant & myserious Mrs. Neal strolling along this garden path.    I keep thinking that there had to be a boat landing around there somewhere.
      Suzanne also noticed that upstream of the creek is a bridge that is still there!    It goes over a culvert & connects North House lawn with the back of Spiff's Garden.  I have been told that the site of Spiff's Garden was, at one time, a clay tennis court.  The owner builder of Amity was the son of the owner/ builder of NOrth.  If so -the tennis court was right in the middle for both sets of families to use. Makes sense - as does the size & shape of the Garden.

     My current lanscape archeology pursuit concerns the possible existence of an ice house on the south side.   ONe of the things in the GSNEO history committee archives was a report that a girl wrote about the camp that meantioned an ice house. It's also on a map.  I can't remember if the girl drew the map or if the map was separate.   Anyway.  Both seem to indicate that the Nature Hut that hangs off the side f the hill was it.   Which can't be right.   
    First,  for those not familiar with an ice house  It's where people got blocks of ice in summer before freezers were invented.   It got filled during the winter when slabs of ice would be cut from a nearby pond.   The sides of the ice house were heavily insulated.  As layers of ice were stored,  layers on more insulating material ( like sawdust) would be packed around them. and between the layers.
    OK, so we got the pond.    We know that Kirby had electricty early on,  but the rest of Richfield did not. Kirby did not need the income from an ice business, but it might have been something he worked out with a neighbor. ( He also didn't need the income from a farm, but he had one anyway).  However : Ice is Heavy.   No one is going to haul it up a hill.  Also , the way the Nature hut hangs off the side ofthe hill, it is hardly insulated.  
    But -   just below the nature hut is a garage. The garage is set back INTO the hill and is on a level withthe road which runs right alongside the pond.    PLus, if you look at pictures of Kirby house, you can see that there used to be a garage underneath the back porch kinda by the giant oak tree.  You can look at the pattern of the brickwork and see that the original garage door opening was bricked in ( just like the one at Coach House).  
    THEORY ( ok, really hypothesis)   The original garage was the garage; and the current garage was originally an ice house.   This still does not explain the nature hut.  Laura G says she was told it was a house for a worker.   Couldn't have been Kirby's main farme manager, because that person lived in the Oviatt Farm house.   But it was something before it was a nature hut.  It's sitting there right in the middle of one of those vintage pictures.  Hmmmmmmmmmmmm..................

Memories of Mable Smith

Kerrin Winter-Churchill contributed this memory of Mable Smith, for whom a shelter at Camp Crowell/Hilaka is named:

My mother went to work for the Cleveland Girl Scout Council in 1949. Like all Girl Scout staffers of the day, she went to Camp Macey, in upstate New York for a month of intensive training. When she came back to Cleveland, she shared an office with Mable Smith. Mrs. Smith was not a volunteer.  She was a paid, professional employee of the Cleveland Girl Scout Council, which officiated over Chagrin, Bedford, Richfield, Elyria, and those districts in the Westpark area. My mother was a Field Director.
Mable was the Director of Camps. It was she that scheduled troops at the various campgrounds.  She met regularly with the staff that trained the leaders. It was a different world back then.  Imagine: every single person who worked at the Girl Scouts had to go through training at a special camp up in New York. Another of Mable's responsibilities was to take the staff out on nature hikes. They would go out with "A stick and a bundle" (which was also the name of the instructional booklet that Mable and my mother wrote and published) to teach about wildflowers and medicinal plants. Other hikes would be all about identifying animal footprints and wild birds. Mom said that so many people would want to go on these walks that they would have to schedule additional days.

I have learned so much about nature from my mother, always identifying plants and birds. My mom told me tonight that Mable taught her so much about this.  So it has been handed down to me, and to my sister's children, and beyond. I am sure there are hundreds of other families handing down Mable Smith's legacy in the very same way.

Second from Left, my Grandmother, Berta Phanholzer-Schmoter playing 

in Rocky River with her fellow "Campfire Girls" in 1919... by this 

time, the Campfire Girls and other such organizations were taken 

under the wing of what was called "The Cleveland Girls' Council."

1951, My mother's fellow Cleveland Girl Scout Council staffers - from 

left to right,   Gene "Billy" Hill, visiting GS from South Africa, 

Sammie Green, Director of Public Relations for the Cleveland Girl 

Scout Council and Virginia Payne-Wentworth, Director of Leadership 

Training (left GS in 1958 to pursue a career as noted children's 

author.) Note from Lynn:  I believe that this picture is taken on the road north of Kirby House. That would be the roof of Cricket's Corner  on the right,  the Kirby garage on the background.

In 1950, Mable and my mother rented a rustic limo, filled it with 

supplies, hooked a trailer with more supplies and set off with a 
couple extra girls for a long weekend of primitive camping in the 
Mohican Wilderness. They had all been studying a manual on primitive 
camping and this weekend was to prove to themselves they could 
survive by roughing it, if they really had to. They set snares for 
food, dug their own latrines, learned to sterilize water by fire - 
speaking of fire, they learned how to make it without a match. Mom 
said they "had a wonderful time."

From Left to right  "unknown",  Field Director, "Little Lois 

Smith" , Executive Director of the Cleveland Girl Scout Council,  
Helen Tolman Murray and Lois Schmotzer (later Smith) Field Director 
of Chagrin, Elyria and West Park Districts.

Mable Smith at far left of camera - (older glasses and plaid jacket) 

and the rest of the Cleveland Girl Scout Council - taken by my mother 
Lois Smith) at Mable's home in North Royalton a year before Mrs. 
Smith died of cancer.

My core Girl Scout troop, Troop 180 - led by our wonderful leader, 

the late, Mrs. Lucille Manica and Mrs. Lois Schmotzer Smith - we were 
state Canoe racing champions of Ohio Girlscouts  in 1974 .

Kneeling, first row - left to right, Kerrin Smith (now Winter 

Churchill) Linda Dyson and Denise Besida.  Standing, left to right, 
Lynn Geragach, Lucille Manica, Cindy Platt, Jan Carter (brunnette) 
Doctor Susan Schuckert, (Susie), Kristin Smith (Sullivan) and Mary 
O'Neill.

Julia Crowell's Husband

There is very little information available on line or at sources such as the Western Reserve Historical Society about Julia Crowell, after whom the south half of Camp Crowell/Hilaka was named.  But there is a lot about her husband, Benedict.  Benedict Crowell was in charge of miliary procurement during World War I.  That meant that he coordinated the entire American effort to manufacture and transport all of the materiel used by the American forces in that war!  After the war, he wrote extensively about how he did it, and about how the US armed forces should prepare themselves forthe next conflict.  And during World War II, while he did not have an official position that we know of, he was a close advisor to Secretary of War Henry Stimson. 

Below are a speech and two articles found in the Western Reserve Historical Society archives.  The speech and one article are biographical, and the other article was written by Benedict Crowell in 1921 about "Modern Preparedness".  You can click on an image to display it sized to fit on your screen, and then click on it again to display it in its original size, where you will be able to read the text more easily.

Jim Kirby's letter

One of the things in the Mother Lode was a letter from Jim Kirby to the Girl Scouts describing what they had purchased, and how to take care of it.  Here it is:

The Mother Lode

A box recently arrived at the GSNEO History Committee office.   Sunny took one look , saw what was in there,  and gave me a call.  

Where it has been all these years?  She says they didn't have all this information available to them when they wrote "A Promise Kept"   - but hey - better late than never!    

I couldn't resist immediately sharing the letter from James Kirby himself!   Some of the information is not new - but I never had a source to really confirm.  I like that Kirby capitalized the names of trees!   I like that he called his workshop " the power house" .  I especially am happy to hear how sturdy the dam is!!!!!!!

The most surprising thing to me is that when the Girl Scouts bought the property, the mechanism for the self-clarifying lake was still operating!!!   I wonder if the old council ever realised what a unique structure this was & tried to maintain it?   I wonder if anyone ever took care of the ballbearings in the millwheel per Kirby's instructions?   

Stuff I want to find out more about - evidently there was some sort of farming operation still going on.   a chicken coop?  extra barns?  whooa!  what's up with those?   I'm more pumped than ever to do some archeology!!!

Next up:  the official description of the land when the council was getting ready to buy it,   the campaign to raise the money , old maps.  Tons of stuff about the early council.  Poor Sunny had to pry my hands off the xerox machine and drag me screaming out the door.  She promises to let me back in if I promise to behave.

Some of it I will summarize instead of repeating everything  - but Rob has agrred to scan everything so it can be posted on the history blog!

Lynn 

Celebrity Endorsements

Purchase of the Kirby estate to be a Girl Scout camp was SPECIFICALLY endorsed by:

• Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin Roosevelt
• Lou Henry Hoover, wife of former President Herbert Hoover
• Eliot Ness, crimefighter

Eleanor Roosevelt said:

"I was very much interested to hear whatthe Cleveland Girl Scouts are planning to do, and I wish them every success in their campaign for funds with which to buy a camp site.  I think camps for girls are very valuable and are greatly needed."

Those of you who have run programs at camp about solving mysteries, Crime Scene Investigation, etc - you were more appropriate than you knew.    Elliot Ness was the saftey director of Cleveland.  He noted that there was much less juvenile crime in areas where there were organized Girl Scout troops.  He supported the purchase of this camp!!!!!

Here's the introduction of "Elliot Ness: The Man Behind the Myth", a biography written by Marilyn Bardsley:

Ever since Eliot Ness first published The Untouchables in 1957, the public has fallen in love with the adventures of this authentic American hero. His book was a runaway best seller because it was the exciting true story of a brave and honest lawman pitted against the country's most successful gangster, Al Capone. The television series that followed in the 1950's and the Kevin Costner movie in 1987 built fancifully on the same theme. Then again in 1993, the television series has been remade for yet another generation to watch Eliot Ness battle it out again with the Capone Mob.

Every school child knows what Eliot Ness did for two years in Chicago, but what happened to him afterwards when Al Capone went to jail? Almost nobody knows. Does that mean the young hero retired to a quiet life?

Not by a long shot! With a new group of "Untouchables," Eliot Ness went right on fighting the mob for another decade: staging daring raids on bootleggers and illegal gambling joints, catching criminals with his bare hands, and generally putting organized crime on the run. After Capone, he broadened his crusade to include labor racketeers, crooked cops and the country's most vicious serial killer, the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.

So why didn't Eliot Ness write about his adventures after Chicago? Actually, he had planned to do just that, but he died of a heart attack just before the publishing of The Untouchables.

Ness's career in law enforcement continued for a decade beyond the Capone years, a decade in which his very considerable talents flowered. At the age of 33 in Cleveland, he faced the challenge of his career when he took over the corrupt and incompetent police force in a city that had become a haven for gangsters.
Never one to sit behind a desk and administrate, Eliot took to the street with a new group of trusted confidants, mostly undercover investigators and reporters, until he cleaned up the police force and put the mob chieftains behind bars.

Drawing on his master's degree in criminology, he turned the miserable Cleveland police force into one of the most modern, efficient and respected departments in the world. Crime in the city dropped 38 percent after he was on the job just a couple of years!

Eliot Ness was so much more than just the courageous guy who battered down the door of Capone's biggest brewery. It's time the American public knew about the rest of his accomplishments, which are at once exciting, inspiring and long lasting.

comment from Corey :
this is completely not related...but I'm currently working with the materials from Al Capone's hide out to add detail to my professor's home...after the hide out was shot out during their stand off, my professor's professor gutted it for architectural remnants...all his detailed windows and doors are in my professor's garage and he's asking a few students to hang the elements around his house...
...Lucy,  this is the contemporary history professor I was telling you about that specializes in mid-century modern and design in America between the wars...

comment from Lynn:

the wife of this proffessor donated her hand-stiched 1960's senior GS uniform to the Richfield Historical Society

History's Jigsaw Puzzle

Tracking down an unwritten history is like working a jigsaw puzzle - where all the pieces are playing hide-n-seek. Spent the morning at RHS. No particular objective. I have come to realize that in this small town where everything and everyone is connected to everything and everyone else, I might as well just go through and read everything.

Adeline Axtell ( who owned the driveway parcel) continues to be a mystery - altho there was plenty about her husband - the governer of the New Mexico territory - in the Cleveland Leader, November 5, 1878. After a lengthy tale of Axtell's western adventures, there is a final paragrph referring obliquly to the Oviatts. Then this: "One place of interest, which deserves more than a passing notice, is located at the foot of the hill upon which the West village is built. It is the cider mill, where the average Richfielder imbibes enthusiasm and patriotism. In proportion as the texture of the cider approaches that of a grindstone, the Richfield citizen becomes more patriotic. Much more might be written of this place, but lack of space and a great love of my fellow man bid me forbear."

The foot of the hill would be at Oviatt & 303, by the south entrance of camp. The cider press could have been across the street where the golf course is now - but there's that odd, unconnected reference to the Oviatts. So at first I thought this was a nice little mention of a place to get apple cider. But the more LInda and I talked about it, it feels like an "insider's" code. Kind of the way gossip columns used to hint at scandals without actually making an accusation. Maybe that last line is kind of a threat.

We know there was a sawmill behind the Oviatt farm house in 1834. Which mysteriously (and frustratingly) disappeared from the town records. Did they turn it into a cider mill - as in hard cider? The more the citizens drink, the more patriotic they become - as in generally more emotional? Hmmmmmmm. Well, it's a theory. But if these guys were running an unofficial tavern - maybe that will turn up in the archeology!

As usual, anytime anyone came in, Linda asked if they had any connection with the Girl Scout camp. Turns out that the reason Ed came in was to purchase on of the wooden millwheels from Green Cottage crafters that RHS still had on hand. It further turns out that Ed is one of our camp neighbors whose property adjoins Crowell HIlaka! We had a good time talking history & the need for kids to get out into nature.

Next - up to the Kirby Company on W. 114th to look through the last box of their archives. Most of the archives had been lost or destroyed and there is almost nothing left. The staff were very friendly and they set me up in a quiet room with a good cup of coffee. Tucked in between all the 1970's photos was three versions of this old picture:

There is no label, no name. The only context is that it was in the box of company photos. So its likely a group of employees. 1920's, early 30's? The guy in the front row 4th from the left in bow tie & jacket looks like it could be Kirby, and I would suspect a couple of the other front row bow tie guys are Scott & Fetzer, Kirby's business associates. I like to imagine that this is at camp. On the dam hill. We know that the Kirby Co held at least one picnic on camp land. But if that's a shadow of Kirby House on the far left, the giant oak tree is missing. Altho maybe it can't be seen from this angle. Or maybe this is a completly generic, insignificant hillside nowhere near the camp.

Not only are the jigsaw puzzle pieces hiding, but pieces from other puzzles are mixed in at random.
sigh. :-(

Lynn

History of the Outhouse

Even more than ghosts, the favorite fear of campgrounds to the uninitiated is......................the ominous outhouse (cue scarey music).

The dead of winter seems an appropriate time to tell outhouse stories. There was always the fear of dropping critical items down the hole. Especially your glasses. Or your flashlight. Or yourself. My biggest nightmare used to be that a monster from the depths would reach up and pinch me right when I was most vulnerable. Tips for outhouse issues will have to be a subject of a later article. For now, I present a historical perspective.
- Lynn

History Snippets: The Outhouse
by Ranch Harper
The Richfield Times
July, 1991

When electricity came to Richfield many people remodeled their homes to accomodate a bathroom. One old stalwart on a farm on Broadview Road north of town positively refused to install a bathroom in his home. He didn't think it right and proper to "do your business in the same house you ate in."

Modern day campers might think the pit toilets in many of today's campgrounds are similar to the old fashioned outhouse of yesterday. We old-timers can tell you - the only similarity is in the shape of the hole in the seat........

.......A couple of local carpenters have a little experience in outhouse construction. In Richfield's back.......A couple of local carpenters have a little experience in outhouse construction. In Richfield's back yard is Camp Julia Crowell, which belongs to the Cleveland Girl Scout Council. That 400-acre camp today encompasses the old Jim Kirby estate. Jim KIrby was the inventor of today's vacuum cleaner and is the uncle of Richfield's own Virginia Baumgardner.

It was the Buell Davidson Company that went into that undeveloped back country and constructed the first primitive outhouses for Camp Julia Crowell. In those days there were no electric lines running back there among the steep clefts and rocks with spring-fed streams and rocky hillsides covered with virgin timber and brush.

Harold Davidson and Johnny Gabriel were the carpenters assigned to construct those first nessessities. Harold said there were drawings or blueprints of the basic buildings to be constructed. Everything went fine until they discovered the prints did not show any specifications for the holes in the outhouse seats - nothing to indicate size, shape, beveled or sharp edges; no specs. Well, that didn't bother Harold who though usage in his younger days had acquired a "feel" for the proper size and shape for those old time nessessities. So Harold, taking saw in hand, proceeded to cut a beautifully bevel-edged hole of the proper shape and proportions. Johnny was profoundly amazed at what Harold had done and said, "What a memory, what a memory."

Benedict, but not Julia

I was all excited because I accidently found an entry on Benedict Crowell (husband of Julia Crowell)  in the encyclopedia of Cleveland history.  It cited its source as the Benedict Crowell file at the Western Reserve Historical Society.  So the next available moment, I was at WRHS library asking for the Crowell file.  I had just a limited time (lunch hour at work), so I decided to look at the picture file thinking there'd be a wedding picture.  There was NOTHING with Julia.  It was all military.  I feel unreasonablely grumble-some over it.  The librarien suggested that I contact the Cobb family (JC's maden name).  They are a prominent family - still around - may have something.  That may be - but it would be in a collateral line.  I may someday, when I get time.  I'm still chasing down Kirbys and Oviatts.

Real Cider

Dr. Alan Lee, an archeologist, wrote this in response to a history snippet:

Lynn,

Virtually all references to "cider" in C19th America, and elsewhere in the world to the present day, mean the somewhat alcoholic fermented juice of the apple.  The insipid apple juice that Americans buy as "cider" at the grocery store and serve to the kiddies at Halloween parties, is an artifact of prohibition times.  Today, sadly, so-called cider by law is pasturized by the producer beyond all possibility of fermenting into real cider.  It is illeagal for even the owner of a small orchard to market cider that is capable of fermenting.  I say this with regret because as a boy, in the late 1950s, I helped make cider with my grandfather, using our apples and our cider press, and still recall fondly the wonderful and changing complexity of flavors as the resulting beverage slowly aged and matured.

Just by coincidence, NPR ran an article on cider just recently.  Here is a reference:
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132054630/cider-winter-kitchen-s-secret-weapon

Gives a whole new perspective on "Johnny Appleseed", don't you think?

Regards,

Al