My Town Monday | Jennette Marie Powell

by Jennette, September 5, 2011

Ever since I can remember, Labor Day has always included the Holiday at Home parade and festival. I grew up in Kettering, the south Dayton suburb where it’s hosted, and remember setting out lawn chairs to watch the parade a few times when I was little. Other times, especially when it was really hot or rainy, we watched it on TV.

Dayton History in the 2011 Holiday at Home Parade

Dayton History had a nice showing in this year's parade

So I knew the event had been around since at least the early 70’s. Curious, I looked up the official website to find out when it all really began. Initially called Kettering Day, the first event was held in 1959 and hosted by the Kettering YMCA for a membership drive. Community leaders got involved and encouraged the Y to add a parade and program of events, and it was so well-attended it was a foregone conclusion it would become an annual event. Eventually, a contest was held to find a new name, and community leadership chose Holiday at Home because it encourages residents to stay home and have fun around here, rather than travel. Although it’s centered in Kettering, all are welcome, and many other south-side communities are involved.

The Millennium Falcon in the 2011 Holiday at Home Parade

The Millennium Falcon was the coolest float in this year's Holiday at Home Parade

Public events begin the day before Labor Day, when the festival begins. It includes an arts and crafts show with vendors all around, food, and live entertainment.

The parade is the capstone event, and begins around 10 AM on Labor Day. The Holiday at Home parade is the largest in the Miami Valley. Area residents stake out parade-watching spots as early as the day before by setting out lawn chairs (which amazingly, as far as I know, don’t get stolen). The parade attracts an audience of over 10,000 people, and that’s not counting those who watch on TV. School and community marching bands, veterans’ organizations, civic groups, nonprofit organizations, and local businesses participate, with floats, performances, or vehicles in the parade. My husband’s AMVETS chapter’s riders’ group rides their motorcycles in the parade.

What's Star Wars without the Cantina? Jabba the Hut's in residence, enjoying a live jazz band from Fairmont H.S.

After the parade, which ends around noon, the festival goes on, with more food, arts and crafts, and entertainment. There’s also a fantastic classic car show, which is by invitation only and includes some sweet rides you don’t always see at the cruise-ins throughout the summer.

All in all, it’s a good time, and sure beats driving through Labor Day traffic.

If you live in the Dayton area, do you go to the Holiday at Home festival? Or watch the parade on TV? If you’re from elsewhere, what do you do on Labor Day weekend – does your community give you a reason to stay home?

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by Jennette, August 29, 2011

The other day, my husband, daughter and I rode our Harleys up to visit some friends in Columbus, and had the chance to partake in some tasty history there at Schmidt’s Sausage Haus. Located in historic German Village, Schmidt’s is a well-known foodie landmark, thanks in part to the Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food. This is what led us there as well.

We arrived at Schmidt’s around 2PM, hoping such an off time would result in an easy in. We had a half hour wait for our party of five, so we went and checked out Schmidt’s Fudge Shop, across the street, where an integrated paging system would alert us to our table being ready. Once we were seated a half hour later, to the minute, we learned that a half hour wait time at any time on a Saturday was short. Our server told us the typical Saturday wait time, even at 2pm, was two hours!

DH and I pose in the photo frame stand outside the restaurant

However, once we were seated, the wait time was almost nothing. My husband, daughter, and both our friends chose the Autobahn Buffet, which featured four types of sausage, sauerkraut, chicken, potato salad, and tons of choices for traditional salads. The latter was especially appreciated by one of our friends who, in a twist of irony, is vegan. She’d insisted it was no problem to go to Schmidt’s, when we asked, as she’d figured she could get a side salad then something at home later, if need be. No worries – she found plenty to fill up on in the salad bar! Schmidt’s also has Mountain Dew, which is always a plus for me. 🙂

To my surprise, my meal arrived just a few minutes after the others had loaded up their plates at the buffet. I had the Hoffbrau Schnitzel, which was pork tenderloin with mushroom gravy. Yum! But the best part was dessert – our group minus my vegan friend split two of Schmidt’s legendary half-pound cream puffs, which were featured in coconut that day – my favorite! There were four impending food comas afterward, which we managed to shake off by going bowling. Good weather, good ride, good time, good friends, good food. Can’t ask for a better Saturday!

There are a couple other restaurants in Columbus that have been featured on Man vs. Food, which is one of my family’s favorite shows, so we plan to visit those in the future. Dayton has yet to be featured on a show like this. Has your hometown had any local eateries featured on a national TV show, and if so, have you been there?

by Jennette, August 22, 2011

History on the Hill

They’ve been busy adding new features, exhibits, and fun things to see at Dayton’s Carillon Historical Park these past couple of years. Just this past weekend, the park opened several new exhibits, including the Carousel of Innovation. Last summer, they opened the History on the Hill exhibit in the old carriage house, and created a series of trails and steps on the bluffs behind the building. History on the Hill begins here.

Overlooking the Great Miami River, the bluffs were created as part of glacial recession from the last ice age. The Dayton area sits on the terminal moraine, which is the farthest point south reached by glaciers during the last ice age. The exhibits inside the building provide some drawings and details about this, as well as more recent history. For example, the park site belonged to NCR (The National Cash Register Company) prior to the park’s construction, and the area near the bluffs was used as a target shooting range.

Remains of a building on the trail The trail winds up the hill and around the parking lot, close to South Dixie Drive. It then leads past the neighboring Calvary Cemetery, to a picnic shelter of sorts called an Andirondack hut. In the early 20th century, the bluffs also housed a sanitarium, where smallpox patients were quarantined. The remants of a floor here might have been part of this building, I’m not sure.

The trails are a neat little walk (I’m guessing the entire trail is maybe a mile, probably less). If you go, make sure you wear good shoes – there are several steep areas, and one of the staircases isn’t completed. For these reasons, the trails themselves aren’t suitable for people with mobility problems, although there is a ramp up to the building.

Near the end of the trail on the west side of the exhibit building is a long, corrugated, black plastic pipe of about 30 inches in diameter. It goes down a steep slope alongside one of the staircases for probably a couple dozen yards or so. The park map calls this the Glacial Adventure. It’s not suitable to slide down, so I’m not sure of the reasoning behind that name. There are also several areas of the trail that are obviously not yet complete, as they’re blocked off by caution tape.

Despite its not-quite-completeness in a few places, History on the Hill is a fun little diversion and is certainly worth a look next time you visit Carillon Park.

If you live in the Dayton area, have you check out History on the Hill yet? If not, do you have something similar in your area?

More at the My Town Monday blog

by Jennette, August 15, 2011

One of the fun things about writing (and reading) time travel stories is the whole fish-out-of-water aspect, especially when someone goes into the future. There is one scene in Time’s Enemy, my newly-released time-travel novel, where a character from the 1930s comes forward to modern times. When she asks for a drink and is handed a can of Mountain Dew, she’s understandably perplexed at what to do with it (and initially thinks it’s moonshine, LOL).

Anyone remember drinking beer or pop (“soda” for you non-Midwesterners) from a can like this? Younger folks might not, but in the sixties, seventies, and into the early eighties, this is what you got if you bought beer in a can, or got a Coke, Pepsi, etc. from a machine. Of course, I also remember pop in glass bottles – you know, where you bought a six pack at Kroger and paid a deposit of $.05 – .10 per bottle, which they returned when you took the bottles back to the store.

But back to the cans – before they were like this, they required a can opener, like is still used today to open larger cans of juice, although those are now mostly replaced by bottles. The can opener had a sharp point on it, and poked a triangle hole in the edge of the can. A second hole was needed to admit air.

Dayton inventor Ermal Fraze

The pull tab shown on the can to the right came about in the early sixties, after Dayton tool-and-die maker Ermal Fraze went on a picnic, and forgot to bring a can opener for the drinks. According to the stories, he ended up prying cans open on a car bumper (???), then went home and devised a can with a built-in opener – the pull tab.

The pull tab was eventually superceded by the now-familiar push-in top in the eighties, but it was the pull tab that helped push cans to edge out glass bottles in popularity as a beverage container. Fraze’s legacy lives on today in the form of full-top pull tabs that are still commonly used in canned snacks like peanuts. Dayton Reliable Tool (now DRT Mfg.), the machine shop he formed in the 1940s, is also still in business in Dayton today.

Do you know of any cool little details that we take for granted today, that originated in your hometown? Please share!

More at the My Town Monday blog

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverage_can
http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/fraze.html
http://www.heartlandscience.org/manuf/poptop.htm

Photo of beer can via Wikipedia, public domain
Photo of Ermal Fraze via Heartlandscience.org

by Jennette, August 8, 2011

The Dayton area has always been fortunate to have a fantastic library. For two centuries, the library has been a vital part of our community.

The very first officially-recognized public library in Ohio, Dayton’s first library was started in 1805, in the home of Benjamin Van Cleve. Back then, it was a pay service. The library moved several times and was even closed and all its books sold, on at least two occasion.

Photo of The old Dayton library The precursor to today’s Dayton Metro Library was built on the current library’s property in 1888. This building was also home to a museum, which included natural history and Native American artifacts. The museum later became the Dayton Museum of Natural History, and eventually was renamed the Booneshoft Museum of Discovery. The museum was moved into its own location in 1955, and the library continued to serve as such until it was demolished, and the current building built, in 1961.

Today the libaray continues to be a happening place, with 20 branches located throughout Montgomery County. It’s unusual to drive past the two branches near me and not see the parking lots nearly full. In addition to traditional books and periodicals, the library began carrying music on tape in the seventies, which eventually expanded to VHS videos and audiobooks on tape, then Music CDs, DVDs, and audiobooks on CDs. Dowloadable ebooks and audiobooks were added via Overdrive in the early 2000s – more on that in a future blog post. Programs for kids, teens and adults – on book-related subjects and otherwise – are popular.

Dayton Metro Library The library is once more outgrowing its downtown location, and has proposed an ambitious expansion plan in an effort to stay relevant and serve the community. Changes in technology – especially in book publishing – are creating a shift in how consumers patronize the library, and the usage of services has shifted to a lot more computer use, more online checkouts of e- and audiobooks, and more demand for meeting space, as opposed to shelf space for paper books. Studies have focused on cities like Fort Wayne, Indiana, where a new, expanded library has played a key role in revitalizing a stagnant downtown.

But the best part of the library remains the same – whatever book or written material you’re looking for, the library probably has it – and if they don’t, they have partnerships with a public libraries all over Ohio, and chances are, you’ll find it there. As has been the case for as long as I can remember, there’s no charge to have a book you’re looking for, transferred to your local branch if they don’t have a copy there. Loans for (and transfer of) materials from participating Ohio libraries are also free.

I got my first library card around age 6 or 7. Having lived in the area all my life, I’ve often taken the library for granted. But I’ve had friends who’ve moved out of the area to larger cities, who tell me their libraries don’t have near the selection Dayton’s library has.

What about you? Does your hometown have a great library? Do you use its service, or are you even aware of all your library offers? (I admit that if I were to try to list them, I’d probably miss a few.)

Historic photo via Dayton Metro Library www.daytonmetrolibrary.org
1960’s photo – unknown

by Jennette, August 1, 2011

Dayton, Ohio is no stranger to murder – just watch the news, and it seems there’s one almost every day. But a hundred years ago, murder was a novelty, and a trial for such, a spectacle people came to see from miles away. Yesterday afternoon, Dayton History reenacted such a case in the original Old Courthouse, that still stands at Third and Main today, giving us a chance to see what it might have been like, and even participate in the trial, over a hundred years later.

Dayton's Old Courthouse in the early 20th century

Upon entering the courthouse, Dayton History staffers gave the audience a sheet of the text of actual newspaper articles printed at the time. They were printed on yellow photocopy paper, which was amusing considering some of the yellow journalism within. 🙂

In September of 1896, 20-year-old Albert Frantz was accused of murdering Bessie Little, the 23-year-old woman he’d been seeing, whose body was found in the Stillwater River. There were a lot of suspicious circumstances leading up to the verdict of whether Miss Little had committed suicide, as was initially thought, or if she died by another’s hand. Witnesses described how Bessie was caught “in a compromising position” with Mr. Frantz in her parents’ barn, which led to him putting her up in a hotel soon after (there were few living options for single women in those days). It also came to light that she’d seen a doctor, and had been declared pregnant, and Mr. Frantz supposedly wanted to marry her, but was unable due to being underage – and his parents refused to give consent.

At the hotel, they found a letter from Bessie, addressed to Mr. Frantz’s parents, begging them to let their son marry her. But the most telling evidence was found on a newly-constructed bridge, that crossed the Stillwater into what was then a lightly-populated part of town: blood on the bridge itself, and a track mark from it that looked like a buggy had been driven through it.

Last weekend's reenactment

Mr. Frantz had been planning to take his sweetheart for a ride the last evening she was seen alive.

Other evidence was produced throughout the trial, which in reality, reconvened throughout the next three months. One item was the woman’s skull! It had been kept in a jar of alcohol at the police office, after her body had been exhumed from her resting place in the potter’s field in Woodland Cemetery, when her manner of death was first called into question. When the skull was brought in, the “bailiff” opened the courtroom’s windows, due to the undoubtedly-horrendous smell! The reason the skull was unearthed was probably the biggest factor in the ultimate determination of the court: Miss Little had been shot in the head through the ear, twice.

The prosecution and defense both presented their closing statements – both waxing rather melodramatic at times – then the jury (which were picked from the audience) went to deliberate. As in a modern, Ohio court proceeding, the jury was instructed to issue a guilty verdict only if the prosecution was able to “remove all reasonable doubt.” I was guessing they’d say “Not Guilty,” because despite the evidence, the state hadn’t removed all doubt. When they issued their verdict, the jury agreed, and the “judge” told the defendant he was free to leave.

The Dayton History staffers handed us another sheet of newspaper articles on the way out, containing the results of the trial: Guilty of First Degree Murder! It turns out that, after a series of failed appeals, Mr. Frantz became the fourth person in Ohio to die by electric chair, almost a year later.

Can you imagine that quick of an appeals process now? Or presenting the actual corpse as evidence in a trial? (Thank goodness for modern photography and videography!) And interestingly enough, do you think the modern-day jury was more compassionate, more discerning of the evidence, or maybe just more hard of hearing? (There was a lot of echo in the courtroom, and yes, it was hard to hear sometimes.) Anything fun like this reenactment in your home town? Please share!

Note: This program will be presented three times next weekend, August 5, 6, and 7 – Details at DaytonHistory.org.
Want to learn more about this case? Check out Spilt Blood, by Curt Dalton (one of the researchers for the reenactment)

More at the My Town Monday blog

Historic photo via Dayton History

by Jennette, June 20, 2011

Newcom Tavern was not the very first structure built when settlers first traveled up the Great Miami from Cincinnati, but it was one of the first built shortly after, when Dayton was first settled in 1796. In addition to being the new town’s hotel, tavern and meeting place, Newcom’s Tavern was also the city’s first post office, church, general store, courtroom, and jail. The proprietor, George Newcom, served as Montgomery County’s first sheriff after Ohio gained statehood in 1803. Early defendants were held in a dry well as they awaited their hearing in court, until the town built a proper jail the following year.

Newcom Tavern - interior Newcom’s Tavern originally stood at the corner of Main and Water Street (now Monument Avenue), near the river. In 1965 it was moved to Carillon Historical Park, where it stands today. It houses period furniture and exhibits including clothing and tools. The park hosts a Tavern Dinner a few times a year. Park personnel prepare historically accurate meals in the neighboring Morris House, then serve dinner in the Newcom Tavern. I’ve never been to one of these, but I hope to change that soon!

Do you know what the oldest building is in your town, and have you been inside? Please share!

More at the My Town Monday blog

by Jennette, June 6, 2011

Dayton, Ohio is not the place to go for fine dining. Don’t get me wrong – we have four-star restaurants here (I think – LOL), but the vast majority of our local eateries are chains. Marion’s Piazza is no exception – it too, is a chain, but it’s a local chain, and one of the few food things unique to our area. As such, it’s one of my go-to places to take out-of-town visitors.

Marion’s is a thin crust pizza, but not what I’d call New York style – the crust is crispy. Its other distinction is one that a college friend from the Cleveland area immediately noticed, that until then, I had no idea was unusual (and maybe it isn’t, now). Because when I brought the pizza to our table, he looked at it with an utterly baffled expression. “It’s cut in squares.”

Me: “Um, yeah?”

My friend: “I’ve never seen a pizza cut in little, bitty squares.”

Me: “They don’t do that in Cleveland?”

My friend: “No!”

Must be a Dayton thing, because our other local pizza chain, Cassano’s, also does thin crust pizza cut in little, bitty squares.

Marion's Supreme Flavor-wise, Marion’s is like no other. There’s not a lot of sauce. While there are plenty of toppings, they’re not piled on. It’s not spicy – even the sausage is very mild. And that’s one of the best things about Marion’s. The sausage has a really good flavor, and it’s crumbled over the entire pizza – no big chunks. Many of my out-of-town friends I’ve brought to Marion’s insisted on making it a regular stop on subsequent visits, and one friend from Cincinnati even used to get a whole, large pizza to take home for later whenever she came up here. Marion’s pizza microwaves very well and tastes great, even though the crust is no longer crisp.

They have other stuff too, but I like the pizza so much I never order anything else. I usually get pepperoni, sausage and mushroom, although once in a while, I get ham and sauerkraut, which I thought sounded gross until a coworker gave me a piece to try. Awesome! Soft drinks are Pepsi products, a big plus for me (Mountain Dew!), but they also have Coke and Diet Coke. They have a great lunch special – half of a 9″ pizza with two ingredients, and a 24 oz. drink for $4.50.

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I can’t remember when I first ate a Marion’s pizza, but it was when I was a little kid. They’ve been around since 1965, according to their website, and their first location was at the corner of Shroyer and Patterson Rd. near the border of Dayton, Kettering, and Oakwood. By the eighties, they had seven locations, which are all still around. At the original location (and some of the others, I think) they have photos of famous people all over the walls. Most of these are performers who visited our area to perform with the Kenley Players, a now-defunct local theater group. Many of these people were from before my time, but I always recognized a few.

Marion’s doesn’t deliver – it’s mainly an eat-in place, although a lot of people call in and get stuff to go. All locations are spacious, good places for a large party or gathering. If you go, take cash – they don’t accept checks or credit/debit cards.

And my friend from Cleveland? He ate the pizza and loved it – and yes, he’s been back.

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