Eloise Holloway Klink

I think that perhaps I am discovering why I have always had a persistent measure of fear of being alone in any strange large city. I have even had recurring dreams of being in this miserable circumstance where all were too busy and uncaring to even give me instructions how to get back to my own home. It surely must be because I had the good fortune to grow up in a little town where in most every block there was a familiar friend or relative — and where a big share of the uptown merchants were related to my families. This was easy to understand since so many of my ancestors had been early settlers of this region and had come from large families.

My mother, Lulu Strieby Holloway (1874-1971), used to tell me that her father, Henry Strieby (c. 1831-1918), used to play with some of the native Indians across Syracuse Lake at Indian Hill. He had remembered seeing how they disposed of their deceased relatives by stretching them across high limbs of the trees. He had also observed that their little babies, tucked in their papoose boards, were of such a stoic nature, that he never heard one cry when he was around. I’m sure Grandpa Henry must have known our Syracuse founders, Mr. Crosson and Mr. Ward, very well, for I found his name on the abstract for the house my husband, Dial Rogers, and I bought at 200 S. Lake Street about 1956. It verified some facts about either Mr. Crosson or Mr. Ward. It was also interesting to note that this lot had once been sold for a price of only $4 in that early time — quite a contrast to prices of lake lots of this time.

On my father, Everton Eugene “Gene” Holloway’s (1868-1940) side, there were many early settlers also. In fact, his father, Edwin Forrest Holloway (1838-1918 – Civil War veteran) wed to Barbara Ellen Miles (1848-1933), was elected the very first clerk or secretary of the Syracuse town board when it was incorporated. He even drew up the incorporation papers. He was such a beautiful penman, that our later clerk, Ernest Buckholtz, used to meet my sister, Jessie Holloway Zerbe (1893-1972), often on the street and remark about the beautiful penmanship of our grandpa, with all the artistic flourishes he used. This artistic talent was used in painting and decorating buggies of that era.

He was also a musician who used to play the violin for all night square dances in a big bar at “Cranberry Hill” north of town. I faintly remember hearing that he had played the bugle and the drums, also, during the Civil War, as did his brother, Eli Holloway (1843–1889).

The first officers of the newly incorporated Syracuse was sort of a family affair for my father, for his grandfather, Evan Miles (1812-1892), was elected as the first president of the town board. It is interesting to read in the Syracuse History Volumes, written by Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Sharp, how one of their urgent problems to be solved by these new board members was to find Solomon-like solutions to unrestrained farm animals running over people’s property. Incidentally, these Miles and Holloway officers and their families all lived in the historic house at 200 E. Pearl St., which I still presently maintain and cherish for memories of all the many loved ones of both ancestors and progeny who have walked in, and out, of its doors for so many generations up to this time. I’d like to know how old this house is and who built it, but as so often happens, I didn’t ask enough questions when I had the chance. There is no abstract, just a quit claim deed, which I’ve heard had something to do with Grandma (Barbara) Ellen (Holloway)’s more opulent brother, Preston Miles of Milford, in owning it and turning it over to her. However, our town’s present outstanding genealogist, Jack Elam, has found indications that this (dear) house might have been the one that once stood where the first brick schoolhouse was built across from the Church of God.

Neither do I know who built my parents’ home next door at 206 E. Pearl St., where my sister, Jessie, brothers, Hallie and Burdette, and I were born. But I did know that when I was sent from this house to go uptown as a little girl (C. 1910-1915), I would meet a lot of friendly faces. First, I would pass the Landis house (the present Grieger house) then the houses of my closest neighborhood playmates, Nellie, Harry, and Alice Mann, and across the street the house of Waneta and Frederick Beery. The library was not yet on the corner, for a house was still in that place. Then I was up to Main Street and facing the new beautiful school house with the older one still back of it. Going west past the drugstore (I think Mr. Mann or Mr. Green ran it) and later the post office, then Mr. Hoffman’s jewelry store. Then I’m not sure if “Henny” Sloan’s friendly little restaurant was next or not, but I do remember coming to a vacant lot and section of sidewalk which was not made of cement yet, but was still made of boards, before reaching the Grand Hotel on the corner. Here was an inviting door with an intriguing little bell on it to announce the customer and to summon the dear little lady with the white hair and the protruding goiter on her neck who lived in the back room. She would show us the most beautiful array of penny candy that young eyes had ever looked upon. And with her infinite patience, she would help us figure out how our few pennies would stretch the farthest. I’m sure I always included my favorite choice of the stick candy with a ring on it.

Going past the Grand Hotel and across Huntington Street on the corner was Uncle Will Strieby’s big general store. Besides being a practical shopping center, this was one of the most popular social centers of the town. Every Saturday night, some of the country folks would bring in their butter and eggs, etc., to sell to the grocery department in the rear, look around, or buy something in the front dry goods department and then park on the long benches up front and visit for hours. These gatherings were also popular on band concert nights, usually on a Wednesday.

As a little girl, I was always very impressed with all the tinsel Uncle Will used on his constructed arch to display his Christmas handkerchiefs and other store items. Another happy memory of him and the store is that of my mother asking him to bring back a pair of black patent leather button shoes with white suede tops for me when he went to Chicago on a buying trip. In a day when most of us always wore black buttoned shoes, the white ones were kept just for Sunday school, where I would proudly walk down Harrison Street to the Trinity Evangelical Church where we attended.

The upper floor of Uncle Will’s store also holds many memories. I remember it as first being an opera house where I have a faint recollection of my sister, Jessie, receiving a prize for the “most popular lady” contest. And another time of seeing her on the stage singing “Carolina in the Morning” in a home talent minstrel show, which was so popular in that day. I think I was five or six years old when our school class dressed as fairy dancers in a school program held there, and I was awe stricken by the size of such a big room.

Later, the upstairs became the meeting place of the Knights of Pythias Lodge. Their yearly banquets, with entertainment and dancing, became one of the social events of the year. Sometimes my sister, Jessie, would play the piano and either her husband, Wade Zerbe, or Ken Harkless would play the drums for these dances. At this later time, I didn’t think these upstairs rooms seemed nearly as big as when I was a little tot. Still going west in the middle of this block (north side) even before I was born, there had been one of our first drugstores owned by Grandpa Ed’s brother, Eli Holloway (Millard Hire’s grandfather). This had been another popular meeting place in earlier days.

Ken Harkless had an early photo showing this block of the 1800’s. In an early issue of the Syracuse Journal, an item entitled “The Musical Holloways” told how my Grandpa Ed and Uncle Eli (both Civil War veterans) and my father, “Gene,” would often play their musical instruments (between drug sales) and indulge in many a songfest which included songs like “Marching Through Georgia” and “Listen To The Mocking Bird.” At times, my Aunt Elizabeth Holloway Haney was said to charm the gathering with cute little dances. Sadly, Uncle Eli did not live very long (so I can remember only Aunt Joan). It was said that his health had been ruined by the terrible ordeals of the Civil War. His son, Roy Holloway, had died young also, a hero aboard a ship in the Spanish American War. But these Holloways were progenitors of many descendants of varying musical talents that have developed down through the years. The article by Ira Howard, I believe, included some of the following names: Sarah Holloway Potter McLaughlin of Milford, sister of Uncle Eli and Grandpa Ed, had a daughter, Maude McLaughlin, who became Milford’s talented music teacher for many years before retiring and helping our present outstanding publishers of the present The Mail-Journal, Arch and Della Baumgartner.

I can’t resist mentioning another Milford cousin, Aunt Alice Miles Felkner’s daughter, Esther, who was so well known for her piano playing for the Warsaw and Milford early theaters for many years. Uncle Eli’s musical talent was also passed on through his daughters, Chloe Hire and Winifred Riddle. Millard Hire was the recipient of many national honors for leading superior bands and bugle corps and his daughter, Sasha, was trained as a singer. Winifred’s grandson, George Riddle, is an outstanding musician, actor, and dancer of New York City, who at the present time as been receiving “rave reviews” in the eastern papers for his clever characterizations, singing, and dancing. Grandpa Ed’s musical talent sifted down through the generations of their daughter, Elizabeth, and my father, “Gene.” Aunt Elizabeth and husband, Otto Haney, moved to Florida in the 1900’s where many of their children carved out musical careers. Daughters Prudence and Maxine were pianists. In fact, Prudence just recently retired as pianist and organist for her church after some 70 years. Her brother, Ralph, had the distinction of being hired to tune the piano of our famous inventor, Thomas A. Edison, at his estate in Ft. Myers, Fla. My father was a talented cornet player. He can be seen in the early pictures of our Syracuse band. I can remember being held up in Mother’s and Grandmother’s arms to get a glimpse of him on the high platform of the bandstand in the main square. He was also adept at doing a soft shoe dance and singing clever little songs while accompanying himself on the guitar. One of my favorite’s was “Brian O’Lynn,” which he used to sing to amuse me. There were many other clever songs in his repertory, along with the more serious ones my mother and grandmother used to sing to us, such as “The Three Babes in the Woods Who Were Lost,” “Twenty Froggies Went to School,” and “After The Ball Was Over.”

My father (Gene Holloway) had held various jobs, including work in the town’s early barf’d factory or “cooper shop,” working on a cement dredge, owning the early theater. But he always returned to his real vocation of being a professional guide on Lake Wawasee for wealthy fishermen. Some of these included the Colonel Eli Lilly families of pharmaceutical fame; J. C. Penney, originator of the present chain of stores; and John Ellsworth, whose big store flourished so many years in South Bend. So, I am sure that these noted tycoons had heard the very same amusing songs that my ears had heard. It would have been natural for him, when the fish weren’t biting for a long spell, to occasionally burst out with a few of his little choice ditties to fill in those hills.

To follow through with his musical talent being passed on in varying degrees, mention should first be made of my sister, Jessie. When no more than about 15 years old, she played the piano for the early Wawasee hotels, such as Vawter Park, Sargents, and later The Spink Wawasee Hotel for dinner music and dances. She also played for The Theatorium, the first Syracuse movie house. Like her cousin, Esther Felkner, she was very adept at quickly changing the theme of her piano music from a sad scene to the tempo of the galloping scene of the horses. My brother Hallie’s daughters, Marilyn and Maxine, were both excellent piano players. With a lesser talent, I hesitate to mention that as a girl I was able to fill in as a pianist and soloist for a number of years at our Trinity Evangelical Church. I tried to nurture this talent in my daughter, Beverly Klink Lockwitz (1927 – 1992), who might have excelled in it, but like many others, became more interested in other pursuits. Her two sons, John Albert Lockwitz III (wed to Katherine Lakner), and Miles Eugene Lockwitz, (wed to Linda Smith), wanted no part of music lessons. So, if any remainder of Holloway musical talent in my direct family line ever comes to fruition, it will have to come through my great-granddaughters, Lisa Ann or Jennifer Sue, daughters of John Albert or Kristy Lynn, daughter of Miles Eugene Lockwitz.

To go back to the uptown business scene of my childhood days, just west of Uncle Will’s store was the Beckman Furniture Store, then next was the movie house. Its front entrance was reserved for papers, magazines, tobacco, candy, and of course, a popcorn machine. Here is where my future brother-in-law, Wade Zerbe, worked (before he later became a manager of the telephone office). This is how my father was influenced to buy this “Theatorium” around the year 1911, I think. My mother then sold tickets, my father collected them, my brothers, who both later became rural mail carriers, were taught to run the movie projector, rewind the reels, and splice the broken films together with a smelly mixture of ether and banana oil. This was sometimes done while an impatient audience would start to stomp their feet because of the delay. Of course, Wade was the experienced operator, while Jessie played the piano. The movie crowds were usually quite large because this was in the era of the prosperous days of the cement factory boom on Medusa Street. A large number of Hungarian people had moved into town to work in this plant, and they helped to “swell the crowds.” At this time of their infancy, the movies were very entertaining. It was the day of the “two-reelers” of comedians, such as Charlie Chaplin and the weekly installments of breath-taking serials, such as “The Perils of Pauline,” featuring Pearl White and “The Red Circle,” starring Ruth Roland, I believe. I can remember watching the audiences laughing or wondering what the next episode would do to rescue poor Pauline. This serial was the catalyst which inspired a popular song of the day, “Poor Pauline.” These movies all seemed to be of a fascinating and wholesome nature, which were enjoyed as entertainment, yet part of the world wasn’t ready yet to accept them as such. Sensing this, even at my young age, I was somewhat troubled by an uneasy feeling of perhaps being a part of something not quite right, even wondering at times, just what my minister and teachers might be thinking about me. I’m sure I might have more easily guessed if they had been more like some of the types that are shown today. So, it was with rather a feeling of relief that after a few years, our theater was sold to another cousin, Phyllis Miles. She in turn sold it, but the building itself, still owned by my father, was burned in the 1925 fire which burned much of that block. At any rate, as a “fringe benefit” of theater exposure, I had enjoyed singing “Poor Pauline” when our neighborhood kids would “play show” in the haymow of our barn which stood on the back of our lot, beyond the garden and chicken park, like most all the rest of the neighbors had at the time. Grandma Ellen’s lot next door even had an extra building —a “smoke house,” as well as the barn where Grandpa Ed painted the buggies. These were later torn down after she sold the back half of her lot to Wade and Jessie to build their bungalow.

Continuing uptown locations (continuing west on north side of Main Street), just west of the theater was Brainard’s Variety Store and at the end of the block was the Holten Hotel. Across the alley was Dr. Bowser’s fine brick house and office below. At that time, there was also Dr. B. F. Hoy and Dr. Ford as town doctors. I believe the dentist was one Dr. Hontz, soon followed by Dr. Otto Stoelting, who first rented a room above our theater and paid a small portion of his rent by straightening my teeth. We hadn’t yet heard of orthodontists. Directly across Main Street from the Bowser house was the (freestanding) brick building now housing the license bureau which was the post office. Upstairs was Blanche Wingard’s Hat Shop with all her pretty plumes and flowers. When the post office was moved, there were restaurants in this building for many years. Going east across the alley on this south side of Main Street was the hardware of E. E. Strieby, another relative. His name, along with Uncle Will’s, is on the cornerstone of the uptown school which was torn down, both having been school board members. These names keep company with the superintendent of the school, Charles Bachman, who was the son of Aunt Jane Miles Bachman. In this Strieby Hardware was one Sam Akers, a jolly portly built clerk who always had some clever remarks to cheer one up for the rest of the day.

Going east was the Hoch Drugstore. Then, I think, the L. A. Seider Grocery was next. This is where a bag of candy was given when charged grocery bills were paid. It made me wish that my parents would stop paying cash for our groceries. Then we would pass the continuous-running barber shop of the amiable Bushong generations. Continuing east was a building on a higher elevation with a series of steps to enter. It was a butcher shop run by two brothers, Daniel and Frank Klink, who had come from Edon, Ohio, around 1903. Little did I know then as I would roller skate past this building or stop to buy scraps for our kitty cat, that I would become the high school sweetheart of this Daniel’s son and that this Orval Klink (1903-1969) and I would marry and be the parents of a precious daughter named Beverly Klink, who in turn would marry her South Bend College of Commerce sweetheart, John Lockwitz. Nor at that age, how could I imagine the years would slip by so fast and that I would become old enough to have two grandsons and three great-granddaughters, all equally precious to me?

Then at the east end of this block, as I remember, was the grocery of other relatives, this belonging to Ed Miles and his son, Elmer. Above this building (with a steep outside stairway) was the home of a Beardsley family who operated a photography shop. Continuing east across Huntington Street was a small butcher shop, facing west, owned by Millard Hire’s father, Wesley, wed to my cousin, Winifred Holloway. Next door east was the bank where everyone knew Silas Ketring was an officer there.

I’m not sure of the order of occupants in the next building. I do remember that the Wingard Clothing Store, which had been next to the recently torn down Connolly Building at the very east end of the block, moved into this place for many years, since Wade Zerbe and Melburn Rapp worked quite some time for Blanche Wingard before the Bachman store (Uncle Will’s) originally moved there when the new Pickwick Block was being developed by W. E. Long. However, I am very sure that in the middle of this block was another grocery store run by Aunt Katharine Kindig’s son, William, and his wife, Mae, the parents of attorney Joe Kindig, who moved to Nappanee. After many years, the Kindig Store was sold to John Greiger, then Byron Connolly, and it still houses Bales Butcher Shop at 106 E. Main St.

Then came the building which housed the first location of the Wingard Men’s Shop next to the corner Connolly Dry Goods with Dress Shop (upstairs). I remember a kindly Warren Eagles working with the Connolly’s and I have the feeling they were related. Then east across the alley there were either two or three houses in the part of the block where our Carnegie Library was later built. As was before mentioned, our library was first located in the east side of the basement in the school building. I remember a lovely Mrs. Knorr as the librarian. When I mention our school across from the library, it completes my imaginary revisiting tour of the two main uptown blocks of our business section. Yet I am omitting the east side of the first block of South Huntington Street which had some businesses, but my memory is not clear about their locations or when they came and went. The only one about which I do recall was a tea room called “The Sign of the Kettle,” started by other relatives, Zelta Strieby Leacock and Irene Macy Strieby, in the present Love Furniture Store (later the Revolving Closet). My memory is more vivid about my early impressions of our beautiful classic-styled brick school building. Even before I was old enough to attend, it became a favorite place to visit. It happened that my dear mother’s sister, Aunt Launa Strieby, wed to William Jones (parents of the late trustee Madison “Mattie” Jones) lived in the basement of the school eight months of the year as caretakers. So my mother and I often visited them there. I was always delighted to go because it gave me the opportunity to write on the blackboard of the basement’s first grade classroom, so close to their apartment that big blackboard was almost my idea of heaven in those years.

Little did I realize then that after I had graduated and attended Ball State Teachers College (now university) and had taught a year at the Moore Country School, that I would be teaching a fifth grade directly above this room in 1924-25 and writing much more serious things on that blackboard. Nor did I realize that later in 1935-36, I would be teaching my own little daughter, Beverly, in a third grade in the room directly above Mrs. Knorr’s library room, which I liked to visit. At that time, I was being impressed by hearing how this big furnace room, quartered farther back in the basement, had such a big boiler that if Uncle Will didn’t watch it very closely, it might even blow up this whole school. I was also starting to see and realize what a beautiful character my Aunt Launa was. During all the many years with the school, besides helping with her husband’s maintenance, she was led by her kind heart to be comforting some child at all hours of the day. She was truly filling the shoes of “today’s” high salaried school nurse, psychiatrist, counselor, sympathetic substitute mother, and seamstress, who was constantly sewing up garments to help a certain few little scantily clad children to keep warm through the winter months each year. It was common practice for teachers of all grades to send ailing pupils down to Mrs. Jones with sore throats, headaches, etc., until school was dismissed, before the day of school nurses was ever considered. She graciously, and modestly, filled this need without a bit of “fanfare” or recognition, which in my more mature years made me recognize that she was one of the loveliest “unsung heroines” of her day. So, when I was old enough to be sent to school (not really, for I was only five years old when I somehow entered the first grade) I had this comfy feeling of knowing Aunt Launa was in the basement and in the superintendent’s office was Grandma Ellen’s nephew, Charles Bachman.

There always remains a special attachment to one’s classmates and the teachers who were so close to us in those formative years. My teachers included: Mr. Bachman; Latin teacher Lillian Hammon (whom no one ever disliked), who also taught us home economics over in the old school building back of us; W. C. Gants; math teacher Court Slabaugh, who coached teams in that same older building; and Lucy Miles, who made us appreciate Shakespeare, even though we thought we never could. At that time, Calvin Beck and Guy Bushong were upper grade teachers, while Irene Sprague and her sister, Jessie, taught fifth and sixth grades, respectively. Somehow Carrie Shannon taught my class for the second, third, and fourth grades consecutively, and our beginning first grade teacher was a Miss Cook who taught us in the basement room. Later years, in the lower grades, came more familiar names of teachers that younger people remember, including: Ruth Rapp, Lulu Seider, Ruth Meredith, Mary Gantz, or a Benson, and Edna Hess, who had the talent and foresight to start a class for students of varying learning abilities. This does not include all the names of the fine teachers who entered those doors. Nor does it include the name of one J. P. Dolan, to whom we owe so much in the very, very early years for organizing and starting the school system of Syracuse. My love affair with this school deepened every year as I attended it; every year as I taught in it; and until the day I was so saddened to hear it was destined to be torn down.

I can hardly think of this school without picturing what so often happened on the quite steep hill beside it on Harrison Street. In the winter, teen-agers would start at the top with sleds and rather long toboggans, and gather such fast momentum that they would land many blocks south on Harrison Street. I know that my two older brothers, Hallie and Burdette, were usually among them. I think Ken Harkless, Millard Hire, Phil Bowser, Orrin Klink, Jerry Hoopingarner, “Beanie” Howard, Dallas McClintic, a Dewart boy, and a number of others I don’t recall, were often among these daring riders, also. I have a hazy remembrance of my brother, Burdette, talking about a near-catastrophe on one snowy night. In the days around 1910-16, cars were not as much of a hazard as horses and buggies or wagons were if they suddenly appeared from an east or west direction. So, guards were usually placed at least on the corner of Main Street to signal a safe time to start downhill. But on one evening, when Burdette was guiding the toboggan, signals became mixed up, and an unexpected horse and wagon appeared at the corner of Main and Harrison Streets. So, it was only by the grace of God and my brother’s fast maneuvering, was he able to steer the toboggan between the sets of wheels of the wagon at this great speed, to avoid a very sad catastrophe. It always reminded me of one of Mr. Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not” stories.

Another connotation that the school hill always brings to mind, is the Memorial Day celebration in the spring time. School superintendent Mr. Bachman would have all of us children lined up along this hill with our flower bouquets, ready to decorate our soldiers’ graves after the bands and other marchers would come up from the southern starting point. I was given the privilege of decorating my dear Grandpa Edwin Forrest Holloway’s grave. He, of course, was a Civil War veteran, and other children were also given that same privilege to choose the grave of a relative to honor. That gave it a much more warm and personal meaning and appreciation of our ancestors who were willing to risk their lives for our precious country.

So, as I come to the end of this trip down “Memory Lane” in early Syracuse, I think I’ve solved my mystery. Growing up in Syracuse just “plain spoiled” me for liking big strange cities. I’m still too much in love with Syracuse!