Feature articles in Grandview ThisWeek Newspaper
Weekly Moment in Time Column

February, 2011 - August, 2011

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August, 2010 - February, 2011

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	Lola Celli
	February 23, 2011 will mark the 65th anniversary of the disappearance of 24-year-old Lola Celli. She was a teacher from Logan County visiting her parents and was going shopping for nylons that fateful morning. She was last seen leaving her parents' home on 3rd Avenue, walking towards the bus stop at Cambridge and 3rd Avenues. A massive search in eight states turned up no clues. Locally over 150 high school boys were recruited to search along the Scioto River and in the quarries. This newspaper photo is of Grandview High School boys walking down Grandview Avenue to search for Lola (inset). The day she disappeared one witness reported seeing her in a car on Olentangy River Road arguing with a man. During the spat a red shoe was either thrown or dropped from the window. Lola was wearing red suede shoes. No shoe was ever found and the case remains open with Lola officially listed as missing. You can read more about this historic Grandview cold case on the Historical Society web page at www.ghmchs.org/PDFs/VIEWPOINTSOct08.pdf
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	Frank Marzetti
	Frank A. Marzetti was an usher at the Grandview Theatre from 1943-1949. He is pictured here in his usher's uniform standing at the theatre entrance in July of 1946. The feature film showing at the time was "Because of Him" starring Charles Laughton and Deanna Durbin. Frank graduated from Grandview High School in 1947 and served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He and his wife operated two neighborhood theatres, Marzetti's Studio 35 and the Linden. They also produced and marketed Marzetti's Popcorn Fritters and Popcorn Balls. Frank died on July 18, 2010, at the age of 81.
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	GHS Orchestra
	The 1924 Grandview High School Orchestra is pictured above, seated outside of the main entrance to the high school. Eighteen students were members of the orchestra at a time when the GHS enrollment was approximately 150 students. The orchestra was a student organization from the very beginning of the high school. They played for all the commencements and student plays, and made appearances in the community. The GHS orchestra as a student organization is not mentioned in the yearbook after 1962. It is not clear when or why the orchestra transitioned to a band which differs from an orchestra due to the lack of stringed instruments.
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	Foettinger Furs
	This Foettinger Furs post card was mailed to a resident at 999 Grandview Avenue in May of 1948. It advertised retail furs and cold storage for furs at a minimum cost of $2 per season. The price included insurance plus free pickup and delivery. Foettinger Furs opened at 1629 West First Avenue in 1931 and was a fixture in the area until the mid 1950's.  The building still exists near the southeast corner of Oakland and First Avenue. Its west side wall is the proposed site of the recently unveiled Grandview mural designed for the Grandview Arts Council by Mike Dexter. The post card is from the Columbus Metropolitan Library collection.
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	John Havlicek
	In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower established the President's Council on Youth Fitness to address what he saw as "physical weakness of American youth" as compared with kids from Europe. Students received badges or pins for completing different exercises in the fitness test. One of the tests, which scared many 50s and 60s children, was the rope climb. An 18 foot long 2" thick rope hang from the rafters in many gyms around the country, and kids had to climb to the top while being timed. In this 1962 photo, Grandview Heights student Ronnie Tyne climbs the rope, supervised by student teacher John Havlicek. Havlicek was a member of the sensational Ohio State basketball team that won the 1960 national championship, and he went on to a stellar career in the NBA. He was known to have brought his OSU teammates to Grandview to talk with the GHHS basketball team as well, and he was the featured speaker at the 1962 Grandview homecoming ceremony.
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	Custom Coaches
	This 1974 aerial photograph is looking east across Dublin Road, at Cardigan just south of Fifth Avenue. The arrow points to the location of Custom Coach. Custom Coach was founded in 1955 at this location at 1400 Dublin Road by Miles Elmer. Mr. Elmer was from Clintonville, and owned a company called Agricultural Laboratory, Inc. which made products for Monsanto. One of the products was a low-suds laundry detergent, now known as "all". Elmers modified a trailer so that he could travel with his family to sell the product, and this led to his new business modifying large bus shells for luxury travel use. The bus at the lower left was a modified 1952 Flxible bus using the Custom Coach "Land Yacht" conversion. The bus at the lower right was a 1964 Flxible that was modified for A.E. Knowlton, the Ohio businessman and benefactor for whom the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State is named. Custom Coach was internationally known, creating conversions for rock bands, politicians, world leaders, sports figures, and industries. The company was sold in 2002 to Farber Specialty Vehicles and moved the following year to Reynoldsburg.
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	1922 Spread
	The spread is a common event for Grandview parents and students. This image shows pages from the "Spreads & Entertainment" section of GHS Graduate Alleyne Higgs' 1922 Memory Book. Eighty-nine years ago student social activities were much more formal by today's standards. The handwritten invitation and place cards are for a party held at the Williams' residence on October 25, 1921. Notations in the margin indicate that the 12 girls that were invited "had a wonderful supper and played guessing games all evening and were home by 9:30."  It is interesting to note that the guest lists for all of the parties recorded by Alleyne her senior year showed that none were co-ed. Also note the 2-cents stamp on the invitation envelope.
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	Village Little Theatre
	The Village Little Theatre was formed in the Tri-Village area in 1937 and was open to anyone interested in producing or acting in amateur shows. This sketch of the cast and technicians was published as a promotion for the 1939 productions of "The Flattering Word" and "Monkey Paw".  Mary Hindman, a member of the company's art staff, drew it, and the sketch includes over 45 individuals associated with the theatre. Resident John Boardman, on the top left, was president of the organization.  Typically two productions were staged semi-annually, a week apart, presumably to afford an opportunity to showcase more local talent. The Village Little Theatre is known to have celebrated its twentieth season in 1957. The date that it disbanded is not known to the Historical Society trustees.
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	Boulevard Presbyterian Church
	This 1952 photograph shows the Boulevard Presbyterian Church when it was dedicated in January of that year. The building was started in 1950 and completed in December of 1951, nearly twenty six years after the congregation was organized. Before this sanctuary was built on the corner of Virginia and Northwest Blvd. services were held in what was known as the "Little White Church", a frame building that was nearby on the property. It was dismantled in 1958 to make room for the education annex, where the Sunday School classes and preschool are held.
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	Elmer Bené
	Elmer Bené, pictured here in 1922 when he was a sophomore,  was the catcher and captain of the first Grandview High School baseball team. Students did not immediately embrace baseball as a GHS sport. They only won a single game, against Canal Winchester, the first year the school fielded a team. The players apparently did not have official uniforms as Elmer's hat has a "P" on it. Other pictures in our archives of the 1922 pitcher and first baseman confirm that their uniforms were a hodgepodge and anything but uniform. After a disappointing first season there was no baseball team in 1923. By 1924 the students rallied around Elmer Bené and an outstanding freshman pitcher named Roy Ohnsman. By the time Roy graduated the team was winning most of their games.
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	LAL at Buckeye Lake
	Buckeye Lake was built in 1826 as feeder lake for the Ohio canal system. After the canals were abandoned the state legislature made it a public park in 1894, and it became an extremely popular tourist destination well into the 1960's.  It was a favorite venue of Grandview Heights High School students for class picnics, sorority house parties, and sailing. The top picture show members of the GHHS LAL sorority standing on the Buckeye Lake boat dock in the summer of 1946. The picture below shows them sailing away on the Northern Star and Evening Star tour boats. The 1940's were considered the heyday of Buckeye Lake. Fifty thousand people used to visit the park each day to enjoy the amusement rides and the famous entertainers who performed there in the Crystal Ballroom nightclub.
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	Kropp Residence
	This distinctive home was built in 1909 near the northwest corner of Lincoln and First Avenue by William Kropp, a Columbus shoe manufacturer. It was located just west of the First Community Lincoln Road Chapel. In 1945 the church purchased the house and used it in various capacities as a pre-school, teen center, church offices, and the home of the Tri-Village Trading Post. The home was demolished in October 1977. The image and information was obtained from, Reflections on Our Heritage: A History of First Community Church by Jacqueline Day Cherry published in 2009.
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	Wendell Paddock
	Professor Wendell Paddock is pictured here with his wife Jessie around 1950. They moved to Columbus from Colorado in 1909 when he was hired as a professor in the OSU Horticulture Department. Prof. Paddock was the author of several books, including a famous treatise on growing fruit trees in the arid western United States. He retired in 1940 as the department chair. Over the years Paddock planted a wide variety of regional wildflowers to bloom throughout the season, and was called the "daffodil man" because of his impressive array of daffodils growing near his home on the southwest corner of Bluff and Westwood. Wendell died on February 19, 1953.  Every spring for nearly a century Grandview residents have enjoyed the daffodils spilling down the bluff below 1085 Westwood.
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	Bradley Skeele Books
	Phillip and Nancy Skeele and their son Bradley were early residents of Marble Cliff; their residence was 1492 Roxbury Road. Bradley was born in 1901. His memoirs about life in Grandview and Marble Cliff prior to WWI are featured on the GHMCHS web page under the "Grandview Reminiscences" link. Bradley's son, Bob, of LaConner, Washington, recently donated to the historical society the three, one-hundred-year-old books shown here. The two smallest volumes on the left, The Humpty Dumpty Elephant Book and Cinderella and the Sleeping Beauty were Bradley's Christmas gifts in 1905. The Perfect Tribute was a gift from Bradley to his mother, and is a 1910 edition of the poignant story of Lincoln drafting the Gettysburg address and his relationship with a dying Confederate drummer boy in a Union hospital. The latter is timely, given that this year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.
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	Edison Presentation
	Happy 100th Anniversary Edison Elementary! The cornerstone for what was initially known as the Grandview Public School was laid in 1911. You are invited to attend a presentation given by the Grandview Heights/Marble Cliff Historical Society trustees Wayne Carlson and Tom DeMaria that will trace the early history of our community's oldest school building still in use. It will be Tuesday May 17, at 7:00PM in the conference room of the Grandview Public Library.
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	Grandview's Gullies
	The "desert" or "gullies" pictured in this undated photograph was an area located north and west of the Grandview Heights swimming pool. It was a plot of eroded, sandy soil south of Bluff and west of Woodhill Drive where the Jamestown condominiums are presently located. Its origins are unclear but the ridges suggest erosion from run off from the higher elevations of Wyman woods. This undated picture features what appears to be a group of school children and their teacher on a field trip. Please contact the GHMCHS with any additional information regarding this Grandview landmark at tdemaria@columbus.rr.com
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	Richard Wingfield
	Richard Wingfield is one of this community's fallen soldiers that will be honored at the annual Memorial Day Service May 26.  He was one of the youngest Grandview Heights High School alumni to die during WWII. Wingfield graduated in 1944 and immediately enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He was assigned to the USS Orestes and was killed along with 44 of his shipmates during a kamikaze attack in the Phillipine's Mindoro Bay on January 1, 1945. He was only eighteen years old.
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	Lucile Osborn
	Lucile Osborn, 94, attended the recent Edison 100th anniversary program at the public library and brought her third grade class photo from 1924 to share and donate to the GHMCHS. She is standing in the back row, the fifth child from the right. Lucile’s teacher, Miss Nellie Strapp, is pictured on the far left. There were thirty students in Miss Strapp’s classroom.  The students are standing in front of their elementary school (current east wing of Edison) on Fairview Avenue. The high school is in the background and had opened a year earlier. Lucile started first grade when she was five and graduated from GHHS in 1934. She is one of the school’s oldest living alumni.
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	Grandview High School Construction
	This photograph is dated October 3, 1922 and shows the Grandview High School under construction. Looking north from the rear of the high school, the photo shows buildings lining Fifth Avenue in the far distance and cars parked along Third Avenue to the left of the shed on the right. Workmen are building the foundation and a large stack of drain tile is in the foreground. The photograph is labeled "Grand View High School, L. L. Leveque Co. Contrs" and was presumably commissioned by them. The high school had twenty two rooms, was designed to accommodate six hundred students, and cost $290,000.
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	Field Day
	The premier social event in the Tri-Village area from 1915 to 1925 was the annual Field Day Celebration held on a Saturday in mid June. It featured a parade along First Avenue, games, all sort of contests, and a community dinner. Neighborhood streets prepared floats and competed for prizes. The competition was fierce and as many as 1,500 people participated in the parade. Pictured here are residents of Broadview Avenue. The date of this photograph is not known. The women are dressed as geishas and are being pulled in rickshaws by the men. It is obvious from this and other photographs that considerable effort went into the design and costumes. First Avenue was not paved and the tracks visible in the road were for electric streetcars.
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	Camp Fire Girls
	The Camp Fire Girls organization was founded in 1910 by Luther Gulick, M.D., and his wife, Charlotte Gulick, as the first non-sectarian organization for girls in the United States. By 1916 the Grandview Sciole Chapter (for Scioto and Olentangy) had 23 members. This photograph shows a Campfire Ceremonial at Camp Lazarus in 1941. None of the participants are identified. The girls are equally divided between those wearing middy blouses and those wearing Native American regalia, and greenery has been hung across the room and lit candles are on the floor. The organization became co-ed in 1975.  The GHMCHS would appreciate hearing from former campfire members about their experiences in the Sciole Chapter. Please e-mail your comments to tdemaria@columbus.rr.com
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	Robert G. Hexter
	In 1927 Robert G. Hexter and his wife Hazel founded Grandview Cycle Store. He was joined by his son Robert J. "Heck" Hexter in the operation of the store, while Hazel took care of the paperwork and prepared lunch for the employees. Robert G. (shown in the inset lower left) mostly worked on bikes, and Heck worked on lawn mowers in the store on First Avenue. Heck's son Robert R. later took over the store and moved it to the corner of Fifth and Broadview when the Grandview Library purchased the building on First for their expansion.
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	Bonita Jamison
	Bonita Jamison was hired as a Grandview High School foreign language teacher in 1921. She was a graduate of Otterbein College and also received an M.A. from Columbia. She was appointed the vice principal of the high school in 1923 and in 1924 she became the district’s high school principal. She served with distinction as an administrator as well as French teacher until 1931. The recent hiring of Dawn Sayre as the new GHHS principal finally broke the eighty-year cycle of hiring all male high school principals after Miss Jamison left the district. Ms. Sayre was formerly assistant principal at Hilliard Bradley High School and officially starts her job August first.
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	William T. Eaton
	Grandview community leader William T. Eaton and his wife Emma are shown here in 1916 in the front yard of their new home at 1413 Wyandotte Road, at the corner of Third Avenue and Wyandotte. Their son Ted was a well-known Grandview High School student personality, active in the Brotherhood of the Rook, and later becoming a prominent insurance man. In 1919 the Community Church in Grandview (later First Community Church) started a local newspaper, called the Community News and Eaton became its first editor. After it was taken over by Curtis F. "Squire" Ricketts it was renamed the Tri-Village News. In the background of the photo is the home of William Carlon at 1392 Wyandotte. The curve in the street at Third and Wyandotte is apparent over Emma's shoulder.
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