Rosemary Dickman was born on Saturday October 21, 1916 at 12:20 a.m. at 6220 Aspen Avenue in College Hill, Cincinnati, Ohio. (transcribed by her daughter, Kathleen McKinney)
Her parents were John Harry Dickman and Rose Brunner Dickman.
Rosemary had colic for three months and kept her mother up most nights. Colic is inherited since Rosemary’s first child, Kathleen also had it as did her daughter. This was during the war when Rosemary was staying with her parents at Westower in Cincinnati. She didn’t know what to do so she put her finger in the baby’s mouth and then felt ashamed that she had done that. Her mother Rose came in and turned the baby over on to her stomach and patted her on her back and was able to stop her crying.
Rosemary received many presents from people when she was born. One that she remembered was a gold harp on a chain that was given to her by a woman named Arabella Ruberry. Rosemary loved the name and loved the necklace so much that she sucked on it all the time until the chain finally broke. She said there was a picture of her when she was five with the harp on a blue ribbon around her neck.
Her baby book noted that she wore her first short dress at five months. That was unusual then since babies wore long dresses for a long time. Her mother called Rosemary her little sunbeam. She evidently laughed a lot. But Rosemary recalls knowing very well how to frown as well even though she was known for her smile. People used to tell her that her smile lit up a room.
She called herself Mae Mae Dick Dick. She evidently repeated words a lot since there were other ones she did similar things with. Her brother Brunner tried to get her to say things right. He didn’t like baby talk. Her name was very hard to say though for her and for others. Her younger brother Johnny, used to call her Roastmary. When she was older and took care of a little Jewish girl, the little girl would stand up in her crib and call Rosenberry! She couldn’t pronounce an “l” very well so she said things like “yook at the yake” for “look at the lake” since they lived near Lake Erie. She wanted to read very badly and like to pretend to read books. She read a book, “Yound the ying they go” for “round the ring they go.”
She loved dressing up which showed at an early age since by nine months she was hanging strings and ribbons around her neck whenever she found one. She had a life long love of costumes. As a child, she dressed up a lot and sometimes would over dress for events. She especially liked anything colorful. Some of the costumes that she had dressed up in and danced in she kept all her life.
Her brother Brunner was very important to her in an almost parent like way even though they were only four years apart. He wrote letters to her through out the year that she was away at college and told her what was going on at home. She supposes that her parents were too busy to write. They were not always agreeable though. They argued a lot all throughout their childhood and adulthood. Even into their 70s and 80s they argued. He was convinced that she should be interested in his ideas.
He was a Boy Scout and liked to go camping.
They used to play cowboys and Indians with neighbor children. There were a lot of children in the neighborhood so there was always someone to play with. This was on Marlowe’s Avenue in Cleveland, which is where they moved to when she was a year old.
Her mother wanted her to be as natural as possible so she often dressed her in overalls which were much more practical than frilly dresses. She climbed trees a lot. Her mother said she was more of a boy than Brunner was. She was more athletic than he was. She was always ready to go outside even though she loved reading. Although Brunner loved to camp, he also loved to read. He was more introverted. When children wanted him to come outside and play he often said no, since he wanted to stay inside and read.
They were both small children physically although Brunner was always very slight of build and Rosemary more husky. She thought she was perhaps, oh, five pounds heavier than someone else her age.
Mrs. Fiore, an Italian woman lived next door. Her daughter Eleanor was very slim and still is. When Mrs. Fiore would see Rosemary, she would pinch her bottom and say, oh, so nice and chonky! Rosemary and Eleanor corresponded all their lives or at least exchanged Christmas cards.
Rosemary and Brunner were both short but she never thought of herself as short. She thought of herself as no different than others even though they always put her in the front in group photos. She did turn out short as were her parents.
Her brother Paul was born when she was five. He died when he was six months old. It didn’t bother her since she hadn’t gotten close to him. He had cerebral meningitis so even if he had survived he would have had mental problems.
She was very interested in when she would get to go to school. Every time she saw a big red brick building she would announce to others that it was HER school. She started school when she was only 4 ½ so she was quite a bit younger than other children. Later on when she had trouble with math she used her age as an excuse. She was always slow with numbers.
John Harry junior was born when she was 10. He was a beautiful baby. Even though she had wished on every star and on every wishbone for a red haired baby sister, she was OK to find out that he was not. When her father came home from the hospital and told her that she had a baby brother she was fine with it.
Another friend of hers was Janet Bailey who later became Janet Tyler, an actress.
One time their street was being paved and there were lots of piles of gravel around with rather large rocks. She and her friend saw a strange creature come out of a house. She had a very strange hat on, red hair and freckles all over her body. They had never seen anything like that so they threw stones at her. That was Laura (Lolly) Dunstan. She ran home crying and of course her mother came and talked to Rosemary’s mother. She was punished by sitting in a chair in the corner for a long time. Not long before she had been spanked hard for something else and her mother swore she would never spank her again. She sat in the little chair in the corner for a long time.
One other time before that she had heard the word Wop some place so she called Eleanor Fiore and Wop. Eleanor told her mother who told Rosemary’s mother. She got a very hard spanking. After the spanking, her mother asked her if she knew why she was being punished and she did not know. Her mother felt very badly and swore she would never spank her again. She took Rosemary over to the Fiore’s house and showed her red bottom to Mrs. Fiore. They both hugged each other and cried and became good friends.
She loved going over to the Fiore’s house. Mr. Fiore used to give her Italian nougat, Torrone that came in little cardboard boxes. [note from Kathleen: now I know why she kept all those little Italian nougat boxes.] Mr. Fiore used to call her almond eyes. Mrs. Fiore used to bring in a tray of red apples cut and arranged beautifully for them to eat.
At her house, they knew that they could help themselves to anything in the kitchen. The sugar bowl was down low and her mother always knew when Brunner had been in the kitchen with his friends making sassafras or peppermint tea. They collected the sassafras from the Rockefeller estate, which was close to where they lived.
She’s not sure how they got in since there were guards but she thought that the guards didn’t mind as long as the boys behaved. One time they were trying to hit a bee with a stick and the guard stopped them and chased them off. The guards were Italian since there were many Italians in Cleveland. He said, don’t kill bees – they make honey.
Rosemary wasn’t afraid of bees or really any insects. She guessed that she must have been quite a tomboy and probably shocked other mothers and her teachers as well. They didn’t know what to make of her.
She loved to dance, to dress up and to read. She climbed trees and dreamt of being a ballet dancer when she didn’t know what one was since she had never seen a ballet. She did see a Spanish dance and loved their costumes. She had a chiffon scarf with poppies on it and a long black skirt that had been her Grandma Dickman’s She used to dress up in it with something else for a top and dance with the scarf. There is a photo of her in the outfit. She danced in the living room a lot. She danced to “three o’clock in the morning” and the “Roses of Picardy”. Her father had an extensive collection of records and when she and Brunner would come home from school they would play the records on their Victrola. Their father always bought good music. He loved attending shows of all kinds. They usually had records with the music on sale in the lobby afterwards and he always bought them. He had good musical taste. He took them to a lot of show at the Cleveland Auditorium.
That is where she saw her first opera – Eda. She loved it. He also attended lots of travel lectures. Her father was always ready to go to shows. He loved the theater and was very interested in it, good music and opera. Each summer they would go to Cincinnati to visit his mother and would go to the Opera at the Zoo. Yes, that sounds strange but that is where it was.
Her father was very well read and owned many books. He was a pushover for traveling salesmen who would sell him a set of encyclopedias even though they already owned a set. Their living room bookshelves had a complete set of Dickens, all of Mark Twain’s books and the Harvard Classics. There was a framed picture of Mark Twain above the bookcases that used to hold his law books.
Her father had many unique sayings. A couple of them were “Ever since God made little green apples” and “ye Gods and little fishes”. He really disliked swearing and anything that was crude or coarse.
He had black hair, which Rosemary inherited although she said hers wasn’t black, it was dark brown since after it was washed, in the sun it had some golden and sometimes red highlights.
Her father was 5’6” and thin when he was young. After he got married, he gained weight which he blamed on Rose’s cooking since she was used to cooking for a large family. He didn’t mind having the extra weight, probably because he was short. He started smoking cigars – it was the thing to do then for a young man. He smoked pipes for a while but preferred cigars and the best Havannas that he could afford.
He was afraid that Rosemary would have his nose, which was very large. Due to his darkness and large nose, he was very Semitic looking. Many people thought he was Jewish and Rose was Catholic. They thought that was very strange. Rosemary thought this was because the postman brought a newspaper to him that was Jewish from some of his real estate clients. Also, real estate seemed to be a profession that many Jewish people went into. Her mother got a Catholic newspaper in the mail. (note from Kathleen: Evidently the postmen didn’t think there was anything wrong in a little gossip.)
She felt a lot of social prejudice all of her life. When they lived in Cleveland, they moved to a larger house in a nicer neighborhood and real estate signs went up after they moved into the neighborhood. She thought it might have been part of the reason that they moved to Cincinnati. Brunner also looked Jewish.
Her mother, Rose, had medium brown hair and brown eyes. She had been the darkest of the Brunner children. People often asked her mother when she was small if she was her little girl because she looked so different from the rest of her brothers and sisters. Rosemary’s brother Johnny was probably blond when he was quite small with curly hair and blue eyes.
Rose loved all kinds of color as well as flowers. She was a qualified judge of flower arranging. However, she resented people being so rigid about rules so she lost a lot of enthusiasm for judging arrangements later on. She had a great ability to find flowers and leaves and arrange them as she walked along. She knew her herbs really well probably since she learned it from her family. She knew what herbs would help for burns, what feverfew was for and so forth. She learned more all her life. Most herbs she didn’t use herself medicinally. She loved wild roses and similar simple flowers. One of her favorite roses was Dainty Bess. Rosemary loved the same kinds of flowers too – simple flower forms. Rose loved iris, she painted them and many other flowers and many roses. She did lots for other people and gave them away.
Her mother, Rose was 5’2”. Rosemary measured 5’1 ¾ inches. Rose loved to refinish furniture. She knew different woods really well. And knew what furniture was made from. She loved natural things. She liked walnut because it was sturdy and easy to care for. She often found things in the houses that her husband Dick had purchased and would refinish them. When he purchased the Marlow’s Avenue house there was a lot of furniture left there.
Rosemary got all the regular childhood diseases.
Her mother had a very heavy bone structure. Rose was a very light dancer but when she got older and lived with her daughter in law, Mary Ellen, it was very difficult for Mary Ellen to lift her when she started having problems and needed help. She got her bone structure from her mother, who was very heavy. In later years she was paralyzed and they had to use straps to help her out of bed.
Rose laughed a lot. Honesty was very important to her. She couldn’t tell a lie. She used to play with Rosemary and made clothes for her dolls. They weren’t fancy but they were nice. She saved scraps of material always. She made a couple of patchwork quilts and some braided rugs. She remodeled clothing and was very good at it. She usually couldn’t buy material because it was too expensive. McCall’s magazine had patterns in it. Rose used them to make clothes for Rosemary. Rose’s children were very important to her. Brunner was born in 1912, Rosemary in 1916 and Johnny in 1927. She didn’t have any miscarriages but she had problems with pregnancies. Rose had a hysterectomy in the 1930s sometime. Rosemary was a very heavy baby and evidently caused her problems. Rose painted china and was always proud of it and signed them. She was proud of her heritage and proud of her father. She was very innocent and never snobbish. She didn’t like fancy things. She was very simple in her likes. She wrote verses all her life and they were very simple and almost child-like. She told a lovely story of how when she was in night high school, she went on a hike with some of her classmates. They never called each other by their first names but rather mister and miss. Rose did not go on to college but she took many classes during her life. She loved her home. It was always a very comfortable house but not fancy. Rosemary’s father Dick liked things more formal but Rose always wanted it more like a farmhouse. They lived in Georgian Hall for six years. Her father had many different jobs. Her mother put up with many pets around the house since she and Brunner were always bringing ones home. Rosemary had a bunny. It used to hop down the hall. In the evening they used to listen to the radio, to Fred and Gracie Allen and Amos and Andy. Rosemary had a cat that she used to put out the living room window when it wanted to go outside. She always went to the window when she wanted out and even taught her kittens to go out the window. They had dogs but only for a short time. They used to follow her brother Johnny.
Her mother wasn’t a great reader but she loved poetry and especially ones by Williams, a former teacher of hers.
Her mother had many best friends. They were friends all their lives. One of her friends was Emma Becker Methven. The family was Episcopalian. She was widowed at a young age. Her daughter Marilyn became Kathleen’s godmother years later. Another friend of hers was Agnes. When she died in Georgetown, Rosemary noticed that it aged her mother. She was good friends with her sister Elizabeth. They wrote to each other and kept in touch all the time.
Rose took care of Emma Methven’s kids a lot. They thought of them as the five little Peppers since they didn’t have any money. She knows that they got a lot of clothes from the church. Rose mended a lot of the children’s clothes. The Dickman family gave the Methven’s any of their old furniture. They had a big house. Rosemary remembered going over there for supper and they all had bean soup and it was very thin. But despite their lack of money they all had a lot of fun. She remembered that the girls could not afford to buy curlers for their hair so they used to use rags instead. Rosemary loved Marilyn. She was a good friend. She remembers that her mother was a housewife all the time she was growing up except for one time that she tried to make some money. It was sometime in the late 1930s. She tried to sell something and was not very successful. Her mother was a plain cook. She made very good soups and stews but was not the greatest baker. She did make good pies especially lemon and made very nice jellies. She used to make laundry soap by saving bacon grease. She was very frugal and never wasted anything.
One year, she made a coat for Rosemary out of one of her dad’s old coats. She took it apart, washed it, turned the fabric inside out and put it back together. Rosemary’s dresses were made from her mother’s old dresses. She had one dress that had cost $30 in the 1920s. Her mother often washed things that shouldn’t have been washed ruining some of them. Rosemary doesn’t remember ever disliking any of the clothes that her mother made for her.
Her mother was a very shy child and teenager. She came out of herself by caring for others. She cared for many young children. Rosemary remembers having many other children around when she was little and used to “adopt” them especially the girls as a sister. She used to read all her books to them including her friends. She figures that she probably bored them.
Her mother made a type of “health” bread during the depression that had a lot of things in it. It was very good. Her mother was very good at putting thing together and could fix anything. (Kathleen’s note: This trait seems to have been passed on.) Rosemary’s father was not very good at that sort of thing. One example of her creativeness was the year at Easter time, she took grape baskets and decorated them with cut up green paper. They showed them to their neighbors they were so pretty. Rosemary’s father got a lot of chocolate eggs to put in them. Rosemary learned how to sew from her mother at a very young age. She also taught her how to embroider but she doesn’t think that she did a very good job of it. She had stamped quilt blocks that they bought at the 10-cent store. Rosemary had some Kewpie dolls that she used to make clothes for. If she could get a dime she would buy a little china doll. She thought that her Uncle Paul (Rose’s brother) was wealthy since he would always give her a dime. All the neighborhood girls used to get together and play.
The boys including her brother Brunner, used to put up a tent outside and sleep out there. Rosemary loved to sleep outside too. Most of the other kids in the neighbor hood weren’t allowed to do that. She thought it was interesting that both of her girls like camping and fishing.
When they moved from Cleveland to Cincinnati they had to leave a lot behind that they could not take with them. Rosemary loved her dolls but she didn’t play with them very much. One Christmas she wanted a Bylow baby so badly but she got a Dream baby instead. She gave it to Jennifer, her youngest daughter many years later. Rosemary mentioned another doll she had that she didn’t have any clothes for and said she needed to make her some clothing. (Kathleen has that doll now. She has clothes and has been restored.)
Several weeks before the end of Rosemary’s life in 2006, her daughters Kathleen and Jennifer asked her some questions. The questions and answers follow.
1. What are you most thankful for?
The two of you. You are smart, good, my heavens, I’m blessed. I’m lucky that I have been able to enjoy life and apples and pears and colored leaves. You are fortunate to be able to do that also.
2. What is the most beautiful thing you ever saw?
A newborn baby.
3. What was your happiest moment?
Right now – being here with the two of you. You are both healthy, beautiful, good people. Not sneaky – you know what I mean. I don’t like girls that are devious. I ‘m happy that the two of you get along very well. I hope you always will. The Brunner girls fought over so much that Aunt Marie Brunner (who never married) gave things to Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul rather than give them to her sisters. She had two beautiful statutes from Bohemia that she gave away. I suppose they were pretty valuable. Uncle Harry got the dining room chairs because he didn’t fuss.
4. What is the funniest thing you remember?
My daddy – He played as a clown at my birthday parties.
5. What was your most romantic moment?
Going to the ballet Ruse de Monte Carlo. Your daddy bought tickets to all five performances and we sat in different places each time. He took me to Netherland Plaza for dancing a lot. It was expensive and a very fancy place. We would each get a gin fizz.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
New Discoveries
I recently went through some papers of my mother's and brought back another load from CA of things that belonged to my parents.
I found a drawing done by Herman Dickman of a landscape with a house. It was done on a scrap piece of paper that had been folded and had calculations all over the back. It has a small piece of paper at the bottom that says "drawn by Herman Dickman 1845. I had it framed and it is hanging in my living room. It is very well done and a shame that it was not on better paper. Still I am very happy to have something done by an ancestor. Later I was sorting through some letters and found a small card that Herman Dickman had signed his name beautifully on and written "When this you see, think of me". It is too small to frame so I'm not sure what to do with it.
I found a drawing done by Herman Dickman of a landscape with a house. It was done on a scrap piece of paper that had been folded and had calculations all over the back. It has a small piece of paper at the bottom that says "drawn by Herman Dickman 1845. I had it framed and it is hanging in my living room. It is very well done and a shame that it was not on better paper. Still I am very happy to have something done by an ancestor. Later I was sorting through some letters and found a small card that Herman Dickman had signed his name beautifully on and written "When this you see, think of me". It is too small to frame so I'm not sure what to do with it.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Dickman History
My father, (written by Rosemary Dickman) John Harry Dickman, which may not have been the name he was christened with (it may have been Joseph) but the records were burnt in a fire at the church, he told me, was born in an apartment in a building on Spring Grove Avenue on the east side of where the supports of the Western Hills Viaduct now stand.
Herman and Rose Gesser Dickman moved to Dayton Street (the middle class part) then later to Jasper, Indiana. Harry went to a one-room school there and took an examination for the next higher grade which enabled him to skip a grade. In Cincinnati, (we have a picture) he studied in English the half of the day; in German the other half.
Herman worked for Hauser, Brenner and Fath Cooperage Co. His work was like a wheelwright. He would take large barrels to factories and see that they were put in position. We have a picture of him with a group of employees. He was an excellent marksman with a pistol, being able to hit the center of a playing card at ten paces. They are buried in the “old” St. Joseph Cemetery, Sec. 15, in Price Hill on the south side of Eighth Street.
Harry was friends with Steve Hauser, whose grandfather, also Steve, would take the boys in a wagon from the west end out Colerain Pike to his farm at Poole Road and Colerain, now Farbach-Werner Park. The horse would pull in on his own to the watering trough at the Six-Mile House at the corner of Blue Rock road, across from what is now my law office.
While at Dayton Street, Harry went to the school whose principal was Lafayette Bloom. One day he was taunted by some boys and called “Sheeney” (Jewish) so he got in a fight with them. Being called to the Principal’s office, he didn’t want to tell the Jewish principal what the boys had called him, so he said they said he had a big nose. Bloom was a very good person and probably suspected what had happened, so he told Harry about Israel Putnam, who was a revolutionary war hero with a big nose.
Harry’s mother, Rose (or Rosa) was a very saving person[1] and saved enough money to buy a house on Miller Avenue in Cumminsville. There is a picture of her there on the front porch. Harry (Dad) did some experimenting with photography and developed his own pictures. He used a candle with a red shade for a darkroom light. Much later I used some of the same materials. About this time, he worked in a print shop, setting type and correcting proofs. He bought me a small printing press when I was about 12 years old. I printed some business cards for his company.
When the family moved, Harry had to be carried to the new place, because he was recovering from typhoid fever and was barely surviving. His friend Peter Albiez who studied law helped him and so Harry went to East Night High School (Woodward then) so that he could attend the YMCA Night Law School. On June 23, 1908 he was admitted to the Bar of Ohio.
When Harry married Rose Anna Brunner from Bellevue (previously from Georgetown, Ohio, where she was born), they moved to Laurel Avenue in College Hill, which was changed to Larch when Cincinnati annexed the area. While there, I was born on October 23rd, 1912 and several months later, Herman died of pneumonia at the age of 56. They lived on the second floor.
With his mother’s financial help, Harry built a two-family with living space on the third floor at 6220 Aspen Avenue. At the time, we were living on the second floor of a house on the east side of Hamilton Avenue south of North Bend Road; it is gone now. We lived on Aspen Avenue until 1916 when we moved to Cleveland – Milan Avenue. In the same year, we bought a Ford; black with red wire wheels (which he conned me into thinking I had picked out.)
We lived on the second floor on Aspen Avenue in College Hill. The Nyland family occupied the first floor. Helen Mary Nyland was close to my age and I remember asking her to marry me when I had attained the age of 4. She had long curls. Later the Treat family moved in with Gordon Treat, who was slightly younger than I. Many years later the Nylands visited up at the Georgian Hall Apartments.
Before we moved away from College Hill, which had joined the city with some help from Dad, who belonged to the College Hill Boosters, providing us with a picture in their newspaper, we had a momentous event. I was banished to my grandmother’s third floor room which she shared with her sister Josephine Saunders (Auntie) while Dr. Beaman (I believe was visiting. Someone announced that I now had a baby sister who was named Rosemary – from Shakespeare’s “Rosemary for remembrance”. This was October 21, 1916, just before we moved to Cleveland.
The move was during the first World War and the government was in charge of the railroads. The furniture had been shipped by train, which was common in those days and the box cars had been broken into on the way to Cleveland. Some property was lost and there was great difficulty in trying to recover compensation.
Dad was selling real estate with the Joseph LaRonge Co. where he was very successful, becoming Sales Manager, later on. He bought a house at 1873 Marloes Avenue in East Cleveland, a good suburb, one of the first to have a city manager form of government. I went to Prospect School and later to Shaw High School, in East Cleveland. At the south end of our street was the Rockefeller estate of about 1,300 acres. We could play there until Terrace Road was built and a high fence put up around the estate. Later the estate was subdivided and W.H. Kirk (who had been the superintendent of schools) Junior High School was built right where we had played around a giant oak tree. It was thought that John D. had objected to high taxes so he moved to New York State.
Next we moved to 16119 Oakhill Road about the time that John Harry was born August 4, 1926. Then came 1929 and the Great Depression.
Real estate business died completely. Dad had a $75,000 insurance policy; was not able to pay the premiums, so the agent foolishly (in my judgment) paid the premiums out of the cash value- a loan, which ate up the value. This would have been good enough if the Depression had lasted six months. He should have made it a paid-up policy for a lesser amount and it would not have been lost.
About 1930, we moved to Cincinnati, except me, because I had not finished high school at Shaw. I stayed with my Uncle Harry and Aunt Helen until a month later, when the school decided that I should pay tuition. Dad looked over the schools in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) and arranged for me to take English and Physics at University School, a college preparatory high school in Avondale, which I did, so I got in UC on probation without a high school diploma, courtesy of Dr. Talbert and his secretary, Dorothy Lauterbach, who became a friend of mine.
Dad got some backing to build houses on Snow Road, before we left Cleveland, but they were slow selling. The architect, Mr. Pollack, I think, who lived next to us on Oakhill Road, designed those, so Dad used the same plans to build houses on School Section and Homelawn Avenues in Cheviot with the help of Attorney Richard E. Simmons, whom I worked for later.
It was 1933 and the Depression finally came to Cincinnati and Dad and Frank Rack[2], in the winter, went around selling a device that was supposed to make the coal furnaces more efficient. It fit on the furnace door to aid the draft. If I remember correctly, it sold for about $5.00. There was a profit of about $2 or $2.50 on each one. Bread cost 10 cents a loaf, then.
Rosa Gesser Dickman died about February 1933 of pneumonia after she had suffered a broken hip following a cataract operation at Betheseda Hospital. She was at our apartment at 2836 Harrison Avenue in the Georgian Hall apartments which Dad had built with financing from Simmonds and Charles Broeman, a wealthy lawyer and oldtime friend. We had lived there rent free because Dad was managing the building.
I had been visiting her at her place on Burgoyne Street in Cumminsville on my way from the University and she left all her money to me by will. It turned out that she had been putting case in her trunk which we found to have over two thousand dollars tucked away in it. We knew that she had been taking in washing (there were no Laundromats in those days) but the amount that she had saved was astonishing. Dad asked me if I would agree to let the family use the money to live on and he would pay for my schooling at the University. I had no hesitancy about this arrangement even though I knew that tuition was free to city residents. Also I knew that the family really needed the money to live on. Rosemary was about 13 and Johnny was about 3. An automobile cost about $500, a suit $40.
Dad was building houses on E. Gordon LaFeuille Oskamp’s subdivision (EGLO Realty) at Westower and Veazey Avenues between Price Hill (Overlook) and Westwood. He built a house at is now 3020 Westower Avenue, setting the price at $12,750, saying that if it did not sell, we would move in.
The house did not sell by the spring of 1934, so we moved in just after I graduated from UC with a Bachelor’s degree. I had finished the fist year of law school and was interested in a young lady from Oakley. I made the trek from home to Oakley so frequently that the 1930 Ford almost knew the way by itself. We also had acquired a 1929 Auburn from the architect who lived at 16119 Oakhill Road. This was a most interesting model; it could be oiled by pressing a foot pedal.
Jim Seltzer, an engineering student, who also belonged to Sigma Phi Eta, my fraternity, went with Dorothy Kramer, who belonged to Alpha Omicron Pi sorority and because I had a car, they would get a girl for me who belonged to the sorority for a “data”. So for the big game with Miami on Thanksgiving, Dot asked Venda Tow to go with me on a “blind date” to the game. I went to 4216 32nd Street in Oakley with them and walked up to the door in a grey flannel trenchcoat that made me look like a reporter and rang the bell.
The door opened and there was “clear-eyed Athena”. We went to the game and I talked to her so much abut my life in Cleveland that she got the impression that I still lived there, so she invited me to Thanksgiving dinner at her house. I explained that I would be at home, but her generosity impressed me so much that I asked her to go out with me to a birthday party on December 10th at McClure’s friend’s house who was also a AOPI. Her name was Jeannette Merk. Unfortunately, Venda had a date with Bill Restemeyer for the Junior Prom, but agreed to go with me afterwards, which she did, to Jeanette Merk’s house.
Venda was not the usual sorority girl; she was not impressed with sorority life but she was such an excellent student that the group was anxious to have her membership. She graduated Cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
That New Year’s Day, she invited me to meet her friends at her house: Faye Bunnell, Ellen Perin, Ruth Levinson, Marion Unverzeagt (whose names are now East, Wilkinson, Jentelson and Johnson). I was not at my best, shall we say, because I had been at a party with the family at Frank and Loretta Rack’s house the night before and I had imbibed a fair amount from convivial cups. However, I must have just barely passed the introduction – V. had a problem with my condition because of her family, particularly Charles E. Tow, who are fond of adult beverages.
Venda’s mother was very understanding and must have liked me, as she continued to do all her life. She had come from Wayne County in West Virginia with her four sisters and seemed to resemble an ancestor called Granny Wilson, but who was called Little Fawn in Cherokee. Some of the male relatives who worked in the courthouse tried to erase all mention that they had a Cherokee ancestress. Such was the prejudice about seventy years ago and it is probably not completely gone.
Chapter Two
We can only go back to my great grandfather, Anton Dickman, who was from a town in eastern Holland with a name like Doorn, although that may not be in from what I remember.[3] He and three (or four) brothers came over to New York and one brother disappeared there. Anton came to Cincinnati and met some Swiss settlers who were going to the Swiss town of Tell City in Indiana. There was a young lady named Catherine Pulskamp whom Anton followed to Tell City and married. They had five children: George (Uncle Yatz), Herman (my grandfather), Josephine, John? and ?
Anton Dickman (his gravestone has an extra n) did construction work, constructing some buildings in Tell City. When Harry was a boy, Anton had a brickyard where men made the bricks by hand. Harry asked his grandfather about his left eye, which was gone. “I lost it dueling at Heidelberg” he was told. Dad told me that his granddad was probably joking about this, but he did not find out more about it.[4] The Dickman family were all over six feet tall, excepting perhaps Josephine.
Josephine married Joseph Bauer and had three children. Anthony (Tony)[5]; Maude, (who married Dr. Ralph Funkhouser, producing James Bauer and Mary Catherine[6] (Pud)); and Catherine. We have a picture taken on Tony’s farm near Columbus about 1930 with many members of the family on it.
Dr. Jim Funkhouser died a few years ago. He was the only person I encountered while I was in Italy during World War II whom I had known previously. He was with the 45th General Hospital in Naples, on Vomero Hill. He saw my name among the casualties and had me sent to his hospital. I had received some bomb fragments in my chin and right leg in farm country near Rome. The field hospital removed the small piece from my chin, but sent me to Naples, by plane. The surgeon told me while I was on the operating table that he couldn’t feel the small fragments in my leg, so there might be too much damage to try to find them. The Veteran’s Administration later in Cincinnati, took an X-ray showing them which designated me as ten percent disabled, sending me compensation. I had been concerned only with what would happen if the pieces (both small enough to fit on a dime) started to work out of the calf of my leg. Apparently they are still there. In Jim’s hospital in Naples, I was so glad to see my second cousin that it made up for the distasteful and only slightly bearable army life. Jim arranged for me to do some jobs such as helping the payroll officer while I was recovering and also took me to see the Aquarium.
At the time the relatives visited Tony’s farm, Jim and I had been camping there in a tent, pretending that we were Indians or Roman soldiers – not knowing that in 1944 we would both meet as American soldiers in Naples. Jim was versed in good literature and started me reading James Branch Cabell. We had gone up to Lake Erie with Jim Seltzer after stopping at Akron to see the dirigible Akron christened while visiting relatives of ours. Then we crossed the lake on the St. Ignatius steamer and went to London Ontario. It was all uneventful but it made us feel mature.
Years later, Venda and I visited Jim and Gene Smith Funkhouser on our honeymoon in 1939. They were living in a house on the grounds of the Virginia Northwestern State Hospital (for mental patients) where Jim was working, on his way to becoming a psychiatrist. Jim showed me various types such as an idiot-savant: one who could name the day for any date any year and others. Finally Jim rose to become Assistant Director of the State Board of Health of Virginia. Jim and I were always “simpatico” so I regret our lack of communication over the years. I do hear from his sister, Mary Catherine (Pud) Johnstone. Her son Drew visited us while going to UC[7] Pharmacy College. He is now a doctor like his father and brother.
Maude Bauer and my father were first cousins and fond of each other. So one time, Maude and my mother took a riverboat trip to Tell City to see the Dickmans. Each one had a small son still nursing (Jim and I). As an experiment, they switched babies, but apparently I, who was months older than Jim, objected.
I had begun to walk and climb which I did when I saw a ladder going up to the roof of a porch on a new house nearby. They had to climb up to rescue me, because I couldn’t figure out how to get down. I have a dim remembrance of the fuss they made about it.
The next time I visited Tell City, was when Maude was buried in the cemetery overlooking the beautiful Ohio river.
[1] Many of the things that have been passed down in our family are from Rosa. I have come to the conclusion if it is a family item and I don’t know where it came from, that it came from Rosa.
[2] My mom, Rosemary, dated one of the Rack sons. I remember when I was a child going up to Tip City to Frank Rack’s funeral with my family.
[3] My mother seemed to think that the name had been Dykman and was changed to Dickman when they came to this country. That may have been supposition on her part. I did find out that both Dykman and Dickman are common names in Holland.
[4] If we knew when Anton came to this country, we might know whether this oft repeated story could be true or not. Since Anton came from Holland and Heidelberg is in Germany, it does seem unlikely. However, when I was in Heidelberg, I found that dueling in Heidelberg had been very common then.
[5] Tony had three children. After both he and his wife died, John Harry and Rose took in the two youngest: Joe and Marjorie.
[6] Pud and Rosemary were very close friends all their lives.
[7] For those on the west coast, this UC is University of Cincinnati
Herman and Rose Gesser Dickman moved to Dayton Street (the middle class part) then later to Jasper, Indiana. Harry went to a one-room school there and took an examination for the next higher grade which enabled him to skip a grade. In Cincinnati, (we have a picture) he studied in English the half of the day; in German the other half.
Herman worked for Hauser, Brenner and Fath Cooperage Co. His work was like a wheelwright. He would take large barrels to factories and see that they were put in position. We have a picture of him with a group of employees. He was an excellent marksman with a pistol, being able to hit the center of a playing card at ten paces. They are buried in the “old” St. Joseph Cemetery, Sec. 15, in Price Hill on the south side of Eighth Street.
Harry was friends with Steve Hauser, whose grandfather, also Steve, would take the boys in a wagon from the west end out Colerain Pike to his farm at Poole Road and Colerain, now Farbach-Werner Park. The horse would pull in on his own to the watering trough at the Six-Mile House at the corner of Blue Rock road, across from what is now my law office.
While at Dayton Street, Harry went to the school whose principal was Lafayette Bloom. One day he was taunted by some boys and called “Sheeney” (Jewish) so he got in a fight with them. Being called to the Principal’s office, he didn’t want to tell the Jewish principal what the boys had called him, so he said they said he had a big nose. Bloom was a very good person and probably suspected what had happened, so he told Harry about Israel Putnam, who was a revolutionary war hero with a big nose.
Harry’s mother, Rose (or Rosa) was a very saving person[1] and saved enough money to buy a house on Miller Avenue in Cumminsville. There is a picture of her there on the front porch. Harry (Dad) did some experimenting with photography and developed his own pictures. He used a candle with a red shade for a darkroom light. Much later I used some of the same materials. About this time, he worked in a print shop, setting type and correcting proofs. He bought me a small printing press when I was about 12 years old. I printed some business cards for his company.
When the family moved, Harry had to be carried to the new place, because he was recovering from typhoid fever and was barely surviving. His friend Peter Albiez who studied law helped him and so Harry went to East Night High School (Woodward then) so that he could attend the YMCA Night Law School. On June 23, 1908 he was admitted to the Bar of Ohio.
When Harry married Rose Anna Brunner from Bellevue (previously from Georgetown, Ohio, where she was born), they moved to Laurel Avenue in College Hill, which was changed to Larch when Cincinnati annexed the area. While there, I was born on October 23rd, 1912 and several months later, Herman died of pneumonia at the age of 56. They lived on the second floor.
With his mother’s financial help, Harry built a two-family with living space on the third floor at 6220 Aspen Avenue. At the time, we were living on the second floor of a house on the east side of Hamilton Avenue south of North Bend Road; it is gone now. We lived on Aspen Avenue until 1916 when we moved to Cleveland – Milan Avenue. In the same year, we bought a Ford; black with red wire wheels (which he conned me into thinking I had picked out.)
We lived on the second floor on Aspen Avenue in College Hill. The Nyland family occupied the first floor. Helen Mary Nyland was close to my age and I remember asking her to marry me when I had attained the age of 4. She had long curls. Later the Treat family moved in with Gordon Treat, who was slightly younger than I. Many years later the Nylands visited up at the Georgian Hall Apartments.
Before we moved away from College Hill, which had joined the city with some help from Dad, who belonged to the College Hill Boosters, providing us with a picture in their newspaper, we had a momentous event. I was banished to my grandmother’s third floor room which she shared with her sister Josephine Saunders (Auntie) while Dr. Beaman (I believe was visiting. Someone announced that I now had a baby sister who was named Rosemary – from Shakespeare’s “Rosemary for remembrance”. This was October 21, 1916, just before we moved to Cleveland.
The move was during the first World War and the government was in charge of the railroads. The furniture had been shipped by train, which was common in those days and the box cars had been broken into on the way to Cleveland. Some property was lost and there was great difficulty in trying to recover compensation.
Dad was selling real estate with the Joseph LaRonge Co. where he was very successful, becoming Sales Manager, later on. He bought a house at 1873 Marloes Avenue in East Cleveland, a good suburb, one of the first to have a city manager form of government. I went to Prospect School and later to Shaw High School, in East Cleveland. At the south end of our street was the Rockefeller estate of about 1,300 acres. We could play there until Terrace Road was built and a high fence put up around the estate. Later the estate was subdivided and W.H. Kirk (who had been the superintendent of schools) Junior High School was built right where we had played around a giant oak tree. It was thought that John D. had objected to high taxes so he moved to New York State.
Next we moved to 16119 Oakhill Road about the time that John Harry was born August 4, 1926. Then came 1929 and the Great Depression.
Real estate business died completely. Dad had a $75,000 insurance policy; was not able to pay the premiums, so the agent foolishly (in my judgment) paid the premiums out of the cash value- a loan, which ate up the value. This would have been good enough if the Depression had lasted six months. He should have made it a paid-up policy for a lesser amount and it would not have been lost.
About 1930, we moved to Cincinnati, except me, because I had not finished high school at Shaw. I stayed with my Uncle Harry and Aunt Helen until a month later, when the school decided that I should pay tuition. Dad looked over the schools in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) and arranged for me to take English and Physics at University School, a college preparatory high school in Avondale, which I did, so I got in UC on probation without a high school diploma, courtesy of Dr. Talbert and his secretary, Dorothy Lauterbach, who became a friend of mine.
Dad got some backing to build houses on Snow Road, before we left Cleveland, but they were slow selling. The architect, Mr. Pollack, I think, who lived next to us on Oakhill Road, designed those, so Dad used the same plans to build houses on School Section and Homelawn Avenues in Cheviot with the help of Attorney Richard E. Simmons, whom I worked for later.
It was 1933 and the Depression finally came to Cincinnati and Dad and Frank Rack[2], in the winter, went around selling a device that was supposed to make the coal furnaces more efficient. It fit on the furnace door to aid the draft. If I remember correctly, it sold for about $5.00. There was a profit of about $2 or $2.50 on each one. Bread cost 10 cents a loaf, then.
Rosa Gesser Dickman died about February 1933 of pneumonia after she had suffered a broken hip following a cataract operation at Betheseda Hospital. She was at our apartment at 2836 Harrison Avenue in the Georgian Hall apartments which Dad had built with financing from Simmonds and Charles Broeman, a wealthy lawyer and oldtime friend. We had lived there rent free because Dad was managing the building.
I had been visiting her at her place on Burgoyne Street in Cumminsville on my way from the University and she left all her money to me by will. It turned out that she had been putting case in her trunk which we found to have over two thousand dollars tucked away in it. We knew that she had been taking in washing (there were no Laundromats in those days) but the amount that she had saved was astonishing. Dad asked me if I would agree to let the family use the money to live on and he would pay for my schooling at the University. I had no hesitancy about this arrangement even though I knew that tuition was free to city residents. Also I knew that the family really needed the money to live on. Rosemary was about 13 and Johnny was about 3. An automobile cost about $500, a suit $40.
Dad was building houses on E. Gordon LaFeuille Oskamp’s subdivision (EGLO Realty) at Westower and Veazey Avenues between Price Hill (Overlook) and Westwood. He built a house at is now 3020 Westower Avenue, setting the price at $12,750, saying that if it did not sell, we would move in.
The house did not sell by the spring of 1934, so we moved in just after I graduated from UC with a Bachelor’s degree. I had finished the fist year of law school and was interested in a young lady from Oakley. I made the trek from home to Oakley so frequently that the 1930 Ford almost knew the way by itself. We also had acquired a 1929 Auburn from the architect who lived at 16119 Oakhill Road. This was a most interesting model; it could be oiled by pressing a foot pedal.
Jim Seltzer, an engineering student, who also belonged to Sigma Phi Eta, my fraternity, went with Dorothy Kramer, who belonged to Alpha Omicron Pi sorority and because I had a car, they would get a girl for me who belonged to the sorority for a “data”. So for the big game with Miami on Thanksgiving, Dot asked Venda Tow to go with me on a “blind date” to the game. I went to 4216 32nd Street in Oakley with them and walked up to the door in a grey flannel trenchcoat that made me look like a reporter and rang the bell.
The door opened and there was “clear-eyed Athena”. We went to the game and I talked to her so much abut my life in Cleveland that she got the impression that I still lived there, so she invited me to Thanksgiving dinner at her house. I explained that I would be at home, but her generosity impressed me so much that I asked her to go out with me to a birthday party on December 10th at McClure’s friend’s house who was also a AOPI. Her name was Jeannette Merk. Unfortunately, Venda had a date with Bill Restemeyer for the Junior Prom, but agreed to go with me afterwards, which she did, to Jeanette Merk’s house.
Venda was not the usual sorority girl; she was not impressed with sorority life but she was such an excellent student that the group was anxious to have her membership. She graduated Cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
That New Year’s Day, she invited me to meet her friends at her house: Faye Bunnell, Ellen Perin, Ruth Levinson, Marion Unverzeagt (whose names are now East, Wilkinson, Jentelson and Johnson). I was not at my best, shall we say, because I had been at a party with the family at Frank and Loretta Rack’s house the night before and I had imbibed a fair amount from convivial cups. However, I must have just barely passed the introduction – V. had a problem with my condition because of her family, particularly Charles E. Tow, who are fond of adult beverages.
Venda’s mother was very understanding and must have liked me, as she continued to do all her life. She had come from Wayne County in West Virginia with her four sisters and seemed to resemble an ancestor called Granny Wilson, but who was called Little Fawn in Cherokee. Some of the male relatives who worked in the courthouse tried to erase all mention that they had a Cherokee ancestress. Such was the prejudice about seventy years ago and it is probably not completely gone.
Chapter Two
We can only go back to my great grandfather, Anton Dickman, who was from a town in eastern Holland with a name like Doorn, although that may not be in from what I remember.[3] He and three (or four) brothers came over to New York and one brother disappeared there. Anton came to Cincinnati and met some Swiss settlers who were going to the Swiss town of Tell City in Indiana. There was a young lady named Catherine Pulskamp whom Anton followed to Tell City and married. They had five children: George (Uncle Yatz), Herman (my grandfather), Josephine, John? and ?
Anton Dickman (his gravestone has an extra n) did construction work, constructing some buildings in Tell City. When Harry was a boy, Anton had a brickyard where men made the bricks by hand. Harry asked his grandfather about his left eye, which was gone. “I lost it dueling at Heidelberg” he was told. Dad told me that his granddad was probably joking about this, but he did not find out more about it.[4] The Dickman family were all over six feet tall, excepting perhaps Josephine.
Josephine married Joseph Bauer and had three children. Anthony (Tony)[5]; Maude, (who married Dr. Ralph Funkhouser, producing James Bauer and Mary Catherine[6] (Pud)); and Catherine. We have a picture taken on Tony’s farm near Columbus about 1930 with many members of the family on it.
Dr. Jim Funkhouser died a few years ago. He was the only person I encountered while I was in Italy during World War II whom I had known previously. He was with the 45th General Hospital in Naples, on Vomero Hill. He saw my name among the casualties and had me sent to his hospital. I had received some bomb fragments in my chin and right leg in farm country near Rome. The field hospital removed the small piece from my chin, but sent me to Naples, by plane. The surgeon told me while I was on the operating table that he couldn’t feel the small fragments in my leg, so there might be too much damage to try to find them. The Veteran’s Administration later in Cincinnati, took an X-ray showing them which designated me as ten percent disabled, sending me compensation. I had been concerned only with what would happen if the pieces (both small enough to fit on a dime) started to work out of the calf of my leg. Apparently they are still there. In Jim’s hospital in Naples, I was so glad to see my second cousin that it made up for the distasteful and only slightly bearable army life. Jim arranged for me to do some jobs such as helping the payroll officer while I was recovering and also took me to see the Aquarium.
At the time the relatives visited Tony’s farm, Jim and I had been camping there in a tent, pretending that we were Indians or Roman soldiers – not knowing that in 1944 we would both meet as American soldiers in Naples. Jim was versed in good literature and started me reading James Branch Cabell. We had gone up to Lake Erie with Jim Seltzer after stopping at Akron to see the dirigible Akron christened while visiting relatives of ours. Then we crossed the lake on the St. Ignatius steamer and went to London Ontario. It was all uneventful but it made us feel mature.
Years later, Venda and I visited Jim and Gene Smith Funkhouser on our honeymoon in 1939. They were living in a house on the grounds of the Virginia Northwestern State Hospital (for mental patients) where Jim was working, on his way to becoming a psychiatrist. Jim showed me various types such as an idiot-savant: one who could name the day for any date any year and others. Finally Jim rose to become Assistant Director of the State Board of Health of Virginia. Jim and I were always “simpatico” so I regret our lack of communication over the years. I do hear from his sister, Mary Catherine (Pud) Johnstone. Her son Drew visited us while going to UC[7] Pharmacy College. He is now a doctor like his father and brother.
Maude Bauer and my father were first cousins and fond of each other. So one time, Maude and my mother took a riverboat trip to Tell City to see the Dickmans. Each one had a small son still nursing (Jim and I). As an experiment, they switched babies, but apparently I, who was months older than Jim, objected.
I had begun to walk and climb which I did when I saw a ladder going up to the roof of a porch on a new house nearby. They had to climb up to rescue me, because I couldn’t figure out how to get down. I have a dim remembrance of the fuss they made about it.
The next time I visited Tell City, was when Maude was buried in the cemetery overlooking the beautiful Ohio river.
[1] Many of the things that have been passed down in our family are from Rosa. I have come to the conclusion if it is a family item and I don’t know where it came from, that it came from Rosa.
[2] My mom, Rosemary, dated one of the Rack sons. I remember when I was a child going up to Tip City to Frank Rack’s funeral with my family.
[3] My mother seemed to think that the name had been Dykman and was changed to Dickman when they came to this country. That may have been supposition on her part. I did find out that both Dykman and Dickman are common names in Holland.
[4] If we knew when Anton came to this country, we might know whether this oft repeated story could be true or not. Since Anton came from Holland and Heidelberg is in Germany, it does seem unlikely. However, when I was in Heidelberg, I found that dueling in Heidelberg had been very common then.
[5] Tony had three children. After both he and his wife died, John Harry and Rose took in the two youngest: Joe and Marjorie.
[6] Pud and Rosemary were very close friends all their lives.
[7] For those on the west coast, this UC is University of Cincinnati
List of Brunner and Dickman family locations
Graves of George Jacob Brunner and Katherine, on south side of West Fork Road just east of Gaines Road, in Green township, a few miles east of Taylor’s Creek. Last visited in 1996 – Katherine’s head stone was sunken and needed repair.
Michael Brunner, first wife Lizetta and son George graves on in Confidence Cemetary, near a small building, Georgetown, Ohio. (There are two Georgetowns in Ohio. This one is east of Cincinnati, just north of the Kentucky stateline.)
Old stone house on south side of Harrison Pike at Taylor’s Creek, built by George and his family right after they came to this country. Colerain Township. Sold by Katherine, 1893. House is no longer there but we have photos.
Ruckstuhl house on Wardall (Wardell) Avenue in Cheviot, near the Harvest Home Fairgrounds. Michael always visited there in the fall. He also visited Carrie Reif nearby.
Ashmore house on the south side of SR 125 about one block east of the Square where Michael and Elizabeth and family lived around 1900; did truck gardening there. There are records at the Courthouse or at the County buildings north of town. From here the family moved to Bellevue, KY after Michael burned his hands. (to the Voda house?)
Michael Brunner, first wife Lizetta and son George graves on in Confidence Cemetary, near a small building, Georgetown, Ohio. (There are two Georgetowns in Ohio. This one is east of Cincinnati, just north of the Kentucky stateline.)
Old stone house on south side of Harrison Pike at Taylor’s Creek, built by George and his family right after they came to this country. Colerain Township. Sold by Katherine, 1893. House is no longer there but we have photos.
Ruckstuhl house on Wardall (Wardell) Avenue in Cheviot, near the Harvest Home Fairgrounds. Michael always visited there in the fall. He also visited Carrie Reif nearby.
Ashmore house on the south side of SR 125 about one block east of the Square where Michael and Elizabeth and family lived around 1900; did truck gardening there. There are records at the Courthouse or at the County buildings north of town. From here the family moved to Bellevue, KY after Michael burned his hands. (to the Voda house?)
Friday, August 3, 2007
Photos from Spring Grove
Here is a photo from Spring Grove cemetery when we scattered Rosemary's ashes on her parent's graves - John Harry and Rose Dickman, and her brother's grave - Brunner Dickman.
Photo from left to right is: Kathleen Seyler McKinney, Jennifer Seyler Jacobs, Trina Dickman Winter, John Harry Dickman Jr., Dan Dickman.
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