Suburban Pioneers

“Levittown gifted us with beautiful apple trees, with wonderful gnarled branches that were perfect for climbing.  I discovered many wonders of nature, [including] tadpoles and fish swimming in the stream along the willow-shaded bicycle trail.”  Susan Kirsch

 Levittown, PA

David Goldfield’s “The Gifted Generation” makes use of personal testimonies of 1961 Samuel J. Tilden High School classmates hailing from the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn. The progeny of Italian Catholics and Russian Jews not long removed from New York City’s polyglot Lower East Side slums, “these were not silver-spoon children,” Goldfield wrote; but “they grew up in a golden era” with opportunities facilitated by families, teachers, peers, and government programs affecting housing and higher education that made home ownership affordable and enabled collegians to graduate relatively debt free compared to today.  “Pioneers,” Goldfield’s chapter on postwar suburbanization, mentions intellectuals sneering at the proliferating subdivisions as sterile, segregated, ticky-tacky communities that, in their misguided opinion, would inevitably depreciate in value. Labeling places like Levittown “neatly manicured, fumeless, pleasantly monotonous bedroom towns,” Harvard anthropologist Peter Wyden admitted that “just about every kid likes it here.  To him it is a near-utopia with plenty of room, friendly faces, unlimited hordes of playmates, and no major menaces.” Most families, Goldfield noted, owned just one car that dad took to work or the commuter train station; therefore, “automobiles rarely disturbed bicyclists.”

Easton, PA, photos; below, third house in 5 years

Just a year older than Goldfield, I grew up in a rural Philadelphia suburb after living my first eight years across from Lafayette in the College Hill neighborhood of Easton, Pennsylvania (in 1950, the year my family left for Fort Washington, the industrial city’s population was 35,652, more than ever before or since).  According to family lore, I once sat down in the middle of busy Cattell Street because my parents wouldn’t treat me to ice cream and Vic had to nudge me along with his foot. In Fort Washington, I biked wherever I desired, crossing major arteries such as Bethlehem Pike, and had much more freedom to roam unchaperoned than kids today.  There were climbing trees aplenty and woods to explore as an escape from the world of adults.  Subdivisions were popping up in surrounding areas, but most residences on our street, Fort Washington Avenue, dated from the 1920s or earlier and varied greatly.  While most of my parents’ friends (the Mineharts excepted) were Republicans, I had black playmates and pals from working class backgrounds.

In eighth grade my family moved to a subdivision in Beverly Hills, Michigan, north of Detroit, where homes were new, split-level, close together and nearly identical.  I had a room of my own and a basement rec room where I played floor hockey.  I spent a summer playing wiffleball and Canasta at “Bink” Gowing’s house with best friend Paul Turk.  Major league pitcher Billy Pierce was a neighbor.  My chief concerns then were sex, cars, and rock and roll.  I started smoking – filtered cigarettes, that is, marijuana as yet unfamiliar to me.  My parents, having grown up during the Great Depression, valued security above adventure, but excitement was not lacking in my life. As a young adult, I rebelled against my parents’ WASP values but, if it is human nature to rebel against one’s elders, better loving parents like Vic and Midge.

Becca at Trojan Classic

Becca's fans at Trojan Classic

Jimbo and Miranda

Toni, a city girl from north Philly, at 74

We had a full house over the weekend to celebrate Toni’s birthday number 74 and attend Becca’s performance in the Chesterton Trojan Classic.  Miranda gave me a pre-birthday shirt purchased in San Diego and went with Sean on the South Shore to a Portugal The Man concert at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom.  On Sunday, Toni and I saw “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” at Memorial Opera House based on the Victor Hugo novel and featuring music from the 1996 animated Disney film.  Unfamiliar with the play, I wasn’t expecting such a dark portrayal of lust and intolerance toward nonconformists, in this case fifteenth century gypsies.  The production featured a huge cast, a 24-person onstage choir, and 15-member orchestra. Jeremiah Mellen, who has played the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast,” was brilliant as the deformed Notre Dame bell-ringer.  Playing villainous Claude Frollo was Scott Hayes, who has assumed roles as such heavies as Thenardier in “Les Miserables,” Pilate in “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and the Monster in “Young Frankenstein,” beamed upon receiving good-natured boos during the curtain call and motioned with his hands as if to say, keep it up.

Jeremiah Mellen and Scott Hayes (right)

 Steve McShane, Amber Wasz, Jimbo; photo by Maurice Yancy

Megan Reeves and Amber Wasz interviewed me for their bridge project after their contacts fell through:

(Megan) Dr. James Lane is originally from Pennsylvania. His father was a very big card player and taught him and his brother virtually every card game in the book: cribbage, gin rummy, poker, hearts, spades, SOB, solitaire games that you play by yourself, and of course bridge. His father was very competitive and would never let them win if they didn’t deserve it, whether in cards or sports such as ping pong or one-on-one basketball. He’d get frustrated with Jim’s mother when she wouldn’t concentrate. If she trumped his ace by accident, for instance, he’d get red in the face trying to hold his tongue.  Dr. Lane’s great-aunt Ida, a teetotaler who lived with them, played bridge with a group of ladies and sheepishly asked his mother if she could buy some wine when it was her turn to host the gathering.  Lane went to Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, during the early 1960’s; in the dorms and fraternity houses there’d be lots of card games going on. The type of bridge in college was more competitive and reckless and didn’t strictly follow the rules he was taught at home. Dr. Lane met wife Toni while in college and encouraged her to play bridge. 

(Amber) Knowing that Dr. Lane was a retired professor at IUN, I wanted to know about how he got on this path. When he was a child, he loved lawyer shows such as Perry Mason and thought that’s what he wanted to be. In college, he took a history class that interested him so much, that he went on a took every history class offered by this professor (William Harbaugh).  At some point the thought of becoming a teacher crossed his mind. At the time, he thought high school would be a good place to start, but because there was a draft for the Vietnam war, he continued his schooling until he earned a PhD.

(Megan) After Dr. Lane finished grad school he and Toni moved to Indiana. They were looking for some friends that weren’t academicians and found out about a duplicate bridge game that took place at Temple Israel in Miller during a week day. He said it was very competitive and not very social, plus when he got home he couldn’t just fall asleep because he was replaying hands in his head.  They stopped going, and he didn’t start playing duplicate bridge again until a couple years ago, although he and Toni have been playing party bridge for many years with three other couples.  At those functions each person would play four hands with the seven others. A bridge tally would tell you how to do this. They’d all go out to eat first and start playing around 5:30 or 6. 

When Dr. Lane started playing duplicate, first as someone’s substitute and now with a regular partner (Dee Van Bebber), the bidding systems had changed from when he had learned 60 years before. Most of the people that play are retired and get a lot of intellectual stimulation from it.  Dr. Lane has never been to a big tournament. A couple people have invited him to go to tournaments but he is not ready yet. He regrets that most young people are not playing bridge anymore although, he said, some of the best players at national tournaments are in their twenties and thirties.

A co-director of IUN’s Calumet Regional Archives, Dr. Lane told me that as a social historian, he was interested in the history of volunteer organizations, such as bowling leagues, quilting groups, and bridge clubs. That is one reason why he started a bridge collection, which will include papers such as this one. Dr. Lane wants there to be a record for historians of the future of a time when groups of people gathered to play bridge, participated in bowling leagues and formed quilting clubs.

           (Amber) Dr. Lane talked about how people are now spending more time at home and there is less interest in being a part of a club or organization. Back in the day people wanted to get out of their homes because they were often over-crowded and not air conditioned. Now, not only with TV but also the internet, people are more likely to stay home.

Sally and Rich Will (right) with Terry Bauer and Dee Marshall

Kalie Ostapchuk interviewed bridge player Sally Will, who graduated from Hammond Gavit and Western Michigan University, and kept this record of their interaction.

September 18: I met Sally Will at Panera in Highland, where Sally resides, and worried it might be a little awkward starting a conversation, but it was almost like I’ve known her my whole life and we were just talking and going out to lunch. I learned that her family played bridge all the time when she was growing up and she learned around the age of 12.  Her family had a lake house in Michigan, and she and her cousins would play cards together.

Sept. 19: Sally told me that when she first started dating husband Rich, she convinced him that he had to play and joked that it was a deal breaker if he didn’t.  So, eventually Rich learned the game.  Rich recently retired, so she hopes they will have time to play in tournaments

Sept. 21: Sally is part of a bridge club in Chesterton and also plays with friends for fun.  She pointed out a website that shows points players scored from different clubs. 

September 27: Sally said she has traveled with people she plays bridge with to Europe, China, Africa, and such states as Montana.  On a train trip out west, playing bridge made the time go by faster.  Rich generally stays home while she goes on trips.  In fact, next week, she will be going to Europe. 

Nov. 8: Back from Europe, Sally said that she had a great time.  When we first met, she told me that she’d invite me to her house and teach me how to play bridge.  Unfortunately, we had completely opposite schedules, so that didn’t happen.  Even so, Sally taught me a lot considering that at the outset of this assignment I had absolutely no idea what bridge was and how or who played it.

Jessica Rebeil wrote about Bridge Newsletter editor Barb Walczak (above).

       Barb Walczak was born in Gary, Indiana.  Her father was a cook at the steel mill’s hospital.  The family lived in an apartment within the hospital for the first two years of her life, then moved to New Chicago.  She graduated from Hobart because New Chicago did not have a high school at the time.  At IU she earned a degree in Elementary Education.  While in college she began playing bridge.  Her family never really played cards except for the game of War sometimes.  At Bloomington there was always someone in the commons eager to start a bridge game. After college, she moved to Hammond and taught elementary school, mainly fourth and fifth grades.  She switched schools a lot but taught the longest at Lincoln Elementary.  Barb said she did take a few years off to have three children.  Some of Barb’s college friends tried setting up a monthly foursome bridge game, but it was difficult to fit into their busy schedules. When she retired she took up the game again, like many of the senior citizens she currently plays with in Highland and other community clubs around the region.   Barb explained that for a lot of people Bridge has given them a reason to wake up in the morning. 

        For the last 12 years Barb has been writing a bridge newsletter, which is the first of its kind in Northwest Indiana and a labor of love.  It presently comes out twice weekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.  Many people like to share the newsletter with their families as a way to show off their achievements.  The newsletters help players get to know each other.  Barb also has gotten her director certification, teaches Bridge lessons, and is a chairman for the Northwest Indiana Tournament.  Barb said that her first tournament was in Reno, where she earned a few gold stars and within nine months became a life master.

        Barb also takes the pictures for the newsletter and has at least 2,000 photos stored on her camera.  If she needs a picture of someone and has not been able to take a new one, she might reuse an old one.  For example, Joe Chin and Lou Nimnicht are in the paper a lot because they travel to many games, which allows for more points to be earned. She said that those with Math degrees do very well in bridge.

October 31, 2017: Barb Walczak replied to my email.  She explained that bridge takes up most of her time now, and she enjoys it.  She attached an article published by the monthly American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) which, she said, was making a concerted effort to involve college teams in their Bridge tournaments.  She did explain the top hierarchy of Bridge is dominated by men.

November 5, 2017: Barb explained that is impossible to have a complete understanding of bridge because there is so much to know, and you will never say “you fully understand everything.”   She has students in her class that have come for weekly lessons for up to three years and still don’t know everything.