Interview with Urban Axman, June 15, 1977

Marsha Bruggman: This is June 15, 1977; this is Marsha Bruggman. This afternoon we are visiting with Urban Axman at the Louisville Trust Building, suite 1809. We are continuing our project on the oral history of the Parkland area and the Parkland residents. Mr. Axman, you're a past resident of the Parkland area; can you tell what year you were born and the date of your birth?

Urban Axman: The date of my birth is February 5th, 1927. I was born in New Albany, Indiana but we resided in the West End at the time. Even though I was born there, we only lived there for approximately two weeks and then we returned to Louisville where I grew up and lived at 2225 Date Street for approximately 1:00forty years.

MB: Date Street?

UA: Date, D-A-T-E.

MB: What was that street?

UA: Well that was right adjacent to -- it's still Date Street; this was in a section called Delaney section which was the neighboring community right next to Parkland. But I had spent so much time in Parkland I feel I know a little bit about the Parkland area.

MB: Tell me, going back to when you were born -- why was it that you were born in New Albany and yet you lived in Louisville?

UA: My mother was a native of New Albany. Her name was Zoeller. There was six children in our family and the first three of us will have the same story that I am telling. When it was time for us to be born, we just got in the car. My mother's physician was from New Albany, we drove across the K & I bridge; I was born in the St. Edwards hospital which is no longer there but is now the Provident Retirement Home next to the St. Mary's Catholic Church in New Albany. My mother and father were married in New Albany at St. Mary's Catholic Church.

MB: So the reason then was because her doctor --

UA: [Repeating quickly] Our family physician was from New Albany, my mother was a native of New Albany, we were familiar with the hospital there.

MB: Mmm, okay. So then the last three children, she stayed over here in Louisville?

UA: (They) were born here at Norton's Hospital, Third and Oak Streets.

MB: So as soon as you were released from the hospital you went to the family home?

UA: We returned to Louisville, that's correct. Right back home, that's correct.

MB: What was your father's name?

UA: August M. Axman.

MB: Such unusual names. Okay and what was his occupation?

UA: He was an engineer for -- at that time -- was the Axton-Fisher Tobacco Company which is now Phillip Morris at 18th and Maple Street.

MB: Oh right! Did your mother have a career outside of the home?

UA: No, no.

MB: She raised six children, that's enough of a career [laughs].

UA: That was her career.

MB: Were you the oldest son?

UA: I was the third oldest.

MB: Third oldest; how many boys were there?

UA: I have an older brother who is deceased; he's been dead five years and I have one older sister -- there were four boys and two girls in our family. I was the third oldest; I have an older sister and an older brother.

MB: Where were you educated when you lived in the Delaney section?

UA: While we lived in the Delaney section, I went to grade school at St. Benedict's Catholic School and St. Xavier High School for three years and then when they opened Flaget officially for the senior class of 1945, the Archdiocese of Louisville transferred all of the West End boys to Flaget to make up the senior class. And I was in the first class of Flaget in 1945.

MB: Oh wow!

UA: We had twenty-seven students in our class and at our last reunion which was about three years ago when they closed Flaget, we had twenty of our twenty-seven boys present for our last reunion, but we had two thousand people at the convention when we closed Flaget.

MB: I bet that was heartbreaking when you're from the original class --

UA: Well it doesn't because the school had deteriorated and in fact, they closed it too soon -- had we had busing then, Flaget would still be in existence today.

MB: Oh, I didn't realize that.

UA: And then I attended the University of Louisville. My wife's a native from the West End; she attended St. Benedict's Catholic School, Loretta High School and she graduated from Webster Grove in St. Louis.

MB: Right.

UA: My wife also danced at the amphitheater for five years in the Fifties. She was in the chorus for five years at the amphitheater when we had musicals out 5:00there. And a little bit more brief history about something on my mother's side of the family -- I have an uncle who is now deceased from New Albany named Urban P. Zoeller and the people from the University of Louisville, especially in the music department called him the "Maestro." My uncle Urban was the largest private individual record collector in the Falls City area.

MB: Oh my goodness!

When the 78s went out and the 33s came into existence, my uncle got on the telephone and called our Louisville Free Public Library here on Fourth Street, identified himself and told them he would like to donate his entire collection which consisted between fifty to seventy-five thousand records to the library. They said they were not interested and he said, "Thank you" and he hung up the phone. He called the Seminary of St. Meinrad (in) Indiana and donated his entire 6:00collection to the students up there who were studying to be priests. He now is dead but he still has a tremendous collection of 33s. He has some of the first -- or had some of the first Caruso prints that ever hit the market.

MB: Who has possession of them now?

UA: His wife is still living; she has the 33s collection but the 78s are at St. Meinrad's in Indiana.

MB: Can you ever imagine why the Louisville Free Public Library would turn down a donation?

UA: He got a hold of the wrong party and in 1937 -- this man was a self-imposed perfectionist. He was a businessman and he lost his entire collection in the flood in '37. He had records of every record he had -- this was all written up in our paper oh, fifteen or twenty years ago that he lost all of his collections in the '37 Flood. He submitted all of the records to the various publishing 7:00companies and they reimbursed him free of charge because he was such a large collector and it was a big promotional item for these companies -- RCA, Columbia and whoever the case might have been.

MB: What people lost in the '37 Flood, I had no idea!

UA: If you could have seen the way this man handled his collection! He wore white gloves and he dusted every record off before it was used, after it was used. My wife was taking a music course at Catherine Spalding here in the Sixties. She called my uncle wanting to know if he had a certain opera. He said, "Yes." She said, "May I come by to hear it?" and he said, "Yes." She said, "Well I just want to hear the last excerpt of it." He said, "Either you hear it from start to finish, or you don't hear it."

MB: Oh.

UA: But to see this man's collection was just a thrill in itself.

MB: And he had documented records of everything that he had?!

UA: Oh everything! He had bookcases built in his den that were from floor-to-ceiling where everything was in categories.

MB: I've heard of him before but I didn't know what the story behind his collection was.

UA: I was named after my uncle -- there's where I inherited that name, from 8:00Urban P. Zoeller.

MB: I was going to ask you -- it's such an unusual name.

UA: That's correct. He was owner and operator of the Ohio River Sand and Coal Company in New Albany.

MB: You have an unusual family, there's no doubt about it. Now that was your father's brother --

UA: [Interrupting] That's my mother's side of the family. My father's people were all from Louisville. They were business people. We had the Axman Restaurant at Fourth and Market for approximately twenty years; that was my father's brother. He had another brother that was a tailor that had the same location on Jefferson between Third and Fourth to the west of the New Albany Car Barn, upstairs. He had the same location for fifty years. Sam Meyer was on the opposite side, on the Third Street side and my uncle, Ed Axton the tailor was on the right hand side which is the Fourth street side of the old New Albany Car Barn between Fourth and Third on Jefferson that ran through to Liberty Street.

MB: How far back can you trace your family as Louisville residents?

UA: I have never attempted to.

MB: I was going to say, it sounds like long, long standing.

UA: My father's people are from Germany and we still have people living there in Wiesbaden. Up until the time of parents' death, my parents corresponded with them. They would write my parents in German and we would take it out to one of the high school and have it translated; my parents would write them in English and they would go up to the library in Wiesbaden and have my parents' letters translated.

MB: And that kind of lost --

UA: Well since the death of my parents we've lost contact with them, yes.

MB: Tell me some about your growing up years; reminisce some with me if you can about what the West End was like during that time. You're white and you're one of the few people that I've been able to locate who lived in the Parkland area.

UA: Now let me correct that: there again, I did not live directly in the Parkland area but I grew up in the Parkland area. There were so many things to do in the Parkland area, for instance: we had the Louisville Free Public Library at 26th and Virginia. We spent a great deal of time there doing research for school, both on the elementary level and the high school level. Parkland Junior High School, over at I think it was 23rd and Wilson -- it's not called Parkland anymore, I think it's called a middle school of some sort now -- they had one of the most finest gyms in the city and we had basketball leagues over there. On Saturday, there was a theater on Dumesnil called the Parkland Theater and it was just a few stores west of 28th and Dumesnil, and Saturdays for a nickel we had 11:00double features there. That was a big treat and a thrill for us back in the Forties and -- well, the Forties I would say was when I was going down there.

MB: That theater; did that serve pretty much the western end of Louisville?

UA: Well that served that particular area but we had another theater at 18th and Oak called The Oak Theater which actually served our area. It is now a church; the building still exists there but it's a church at 18th and Oak, but we also would go to the Parkland Theater like on Saturdays for "Nickel Day" and see a double feature.

MB: Well during the late-Thirties, early-Forties, when you were growing up, was this a predominantly white area? All this section that you're talking about?

UA: 100 percent. And the area west of Parkland was called Little Africa.

MB: Right, I remember people talking about that term. So during the early-Forties even it was still white. When did it begin to shift into black population?

UA: Well, my parents lived on Date Street for forty years at 2225. We were there in the '37 Flood. I left the West End in 1959 and my parents remained there on Date Street for approximately three or four years up to '63. And on their particular block there, they were one of the last three white families that sold on Date Street. Now Parkland, I think if my memory holds me true, went black prior to that. Now how soon, I just do not know.

MB: It sounds from the way people have talked not only from conversations where I've interviewed people but just private conversations from the street as I visit with people in the areas, it seems like right around the early-Fifties there that the first few houses began to shift and then toward the end of the Fifties, it was really quite predominant.

UA: [Whispers} Yes. Another interesting thing about Parkland: due to the fact that there were so many different churches in Parkland -- and I mean beautiful churches -- and nursing homes on both sides of Virginia from 26th to 28th that Parkland was dry for a period of time.

MB: No bars, nothing.

UA: No alcohol served whatsoever. Now you could buy near-beer, but you could not buy whiskey or beer along that line due to the fact that it was such a religious community. There were some beautiful churches there [and] beautiful homes on Virginia; the most beautiful nursing homes up and down Virginia.

MB: Oh, I know. They look like they must have been mansions, many of the homes that are still left.

UA: Hardwood floors, spiral stairways -- fortunately I've been in several of them and I can vaguely remember things like that -- chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, in the alcove of the entrance to the building and also in the dining 14:00rooms. Another thing too that I had mentioned to you: there was a dentist that our family used for a family dentist, his name was Dr. Wasburn [spells last name]. He owned a two-story building at 28th and Dumesnil on the southeast corner, and I still in my mouth have a bridge that this dentist made for me in 1947. I still in use have this bridge in my mouth. Another interesting thing too: my father-in-law whose name is Mr. Joseph Fisher was the manager of the small A&P store on the block -- on 28th Street -- between Virginia and Dumesnil. Now this is in the year 1936. Right across the street -- directly across the 15:00street from this small neighborhood A&P store -- A&P built a tremendous supermarket on the west side of 28th street, in the same block. My father-in-law was manager there and in 1937 when the flood hit, they lost their entire stock. I'm not sure how much water was in the store but my father-in-law made up his mind that if he was going to work that hard for the A&P, he was going to go into business for himself, which he did. He left A&P shortly after the flood in '37 as a young man of about 20 or 22 years of age and bought an old neighborhood A&P store at 7th and Hill and he remained in business there as an independent grocer for thirty-five years. He is now retired, still living.

MB: Seventh and Hill, I wonder if that building is even still standing.

UA: The building is still there. I had just recently --

MB: As a storefront looking . . . ?UA: As an A&P storefront. It's a yellow brick storefront, yes. It still has the old -- if my memory holds me true, its 1508 South 7th and its right south of 7th and Hill. On the corner there's a medical 16:00office, Whitehead Drug Store --

MB: I know exactly where you're talking about.

UA: The John Marshall School at the corner of the alley, that's closed. That's all boarded up but he's right to the right of that. That building still exists. It was one of these small neighborhood A&P stores.

MB: And he's still alive today?

UA: He's still alive today.

MB: And he had that original business there at 28th and Dumesnil?

UA: He was the first manager for the new supermarket there in Parkland.

MB: Because that's one thing from the people I can find who lived in the area, especially right around where the branch library is -- 28th and Dumesnil -- just immediately around there. Many of the people that lived there in the Forties and early Fifties remark repeatedly how wonderful that shopping area was and how many things there were to do and bank and jewelry stores --

UA: That's right -- department stores, bakeries, poultry house. I don't know if anyone had mentioned this to you but the Oak Street streetcar would turn there at 28th and Virginia, there by the library, make a right-hand turn there. It would continue north on 28th Street to 28th and Greenwood. It would make a left-hand turn there and go west till Cecil Avenue. Cecil Avenue, it would make a left-hand turn and there was a turn around the old fairgrounds down there at Cecil and whatever it is down there.

MB: What used to be the old state fairgrounds.

UA: The old state fairgrounds, that's correct, and the Oak Street car used to have that for its turnaround down by the old fairgrounds and it would turn there at 28th and Dumesnil. I rode that streetcar many a time going to the fairgrounds.

MB: That's what I was going to ask, if you remembered. How much did it cost? What was the last price you remember for the streetcar?

UA: Oh gee, I'm going to say a nickel maybe; nickel or a dime, something like that.

MB: Now your Dr. Wasburn, the dentist, was right there in that shopping center area?

Axma: That is correct. He did not live there; he owned a two-story building there that he had the ground floor rented out to commercial tenants and he had his dental office on the second floor.

MB: What else do you remember about that immediate area in terms of recreation? What other kinds of things -- you mentioned a boys' . . . a teenage club?

UA: Well yes, but now this was up at the corner of 26th and Virginia and I believe that Parkland actually went that far and there was a teenage club. Now I'm going back to the Fifties, the early Fifties -- it was called Gremlin [spells it out] Corner, it was property owned by a church there. Now whether the building still exists today or not I do not know, but it was a tremendous big auditorium with a stage. We had dances and various activities there to have 19:00something for us to do rather than run the streets. Back in those days, not many of us had automobiles. In fact, in my class of twenty-seven students at Flaget, my senior class, two students out of twenty-seven had cars back in 1945.

MB: Boy, I bet they were really considered wealthy and lucky and --

UA: That's' right; they were considered the fortunate.

MB: So you went to this teenage club quite frequently and then the fairgrounds were in the area. Were there any other amusement parks or anything going in the West End area at the time?

UA: Only Fontaine Ferry.

MB: Fontaine Ferry. Was it going --

UA: It was in its peak then. That was in its peak. We used to pedal our bicycles from our neighborhood to Shawnee Park. We would play baseball at Shawnee Park. After the ball game, we would take our swimming trunks along, we would pay an admission charge to the Fontaine Ferry Park and then we would swim for a nickel over there on "Nickel Day." And after a swim we would pedal back to our neighborhood.

MB: Was it an amusement park in that it had a Ferris wheel and all of the business before it burned down?

UA: Oh yes, it was strictly a wonderful amusement park. A picnic area, a tremendous picnic area there on the grounds itself.

MB: Yeah, such a pretty park.

UA: We had a skating rink right there which was adjacent to it; the Fontaine Ferry skating rink which was also part of the complex there that was quite an entertainment place for us.

MB: Do you remember at all what it cost to get in to Fontaine Ferry? Do you have any idea?

UA: I'm going to say a nickel. And they had coupons. If you had so many -- if Coca-Cola or John G. Epling was sponsoring, you cut the coupon out that would be your admission to the park providing it was like Coca-Cola Day or something like that.

MB: Did you have to pay extra -- like at Walt Disney World, you can get coupons ahead of time that pay for your rides or like King's Island in Cincinnati where you pay one fee and then you can just ride everything?

UA: No, that was not the setup then. The procedure then was you paid a cashier for every individual ride and then you would get in line and then pass your ticket to the --

MB: It's kind of like the old state and county fairs type things where you pay for each ride.

UA: That's correct.

MB: But still. Gee I wish things cost that nowadays.

UA: The '37 Flood was quite interesting. As I mentioned we lived on Date Street and very fortunately for us, in our particular block between 22nd and 23rd our 21:00property was very, very high there. To give you an example of how high it was, we had eight steps to get from the sidewalk to the first tier, first level; four steps from the first level up to the porch and the water got to the top step of our porch. We had water in the basement up to the rafters. We had no water in our house whatsoever. Due to the fact that my father was an employee of the old Axton-Fisher Tobacco Company, he was worried about us and he stayed over there to guard the place from looting. We went over there and stayed and slept up on tobacco logs. There was a rumor circulating that they were going to quarantine the place and split the families up and my father smuggled us out one morning, about two o'clock in the morning. He had access to a boat and we went home and stayed at our house the rest of the flood and my parents cooked on a grate in the fireplace in our living room. We were only the second family to live in our 22:00house. A Dr. Miller built our house and my parents purchased it from him and they remained there forty years.

MB: Did a lot of neighbors immediately around you lose quite a bit of property and things in the flood?

UA: Oh yes, yes! On our block in particular as it went down towards 22nd to 23rd, there's a low part [and] people had ten, fifteen, twenty feet of water in their houses.

MB: I can imagine what it would do to just furniture alone let alone carpets --

UA: The Red Cross did a tremendous thing about helping people get reestablished.

MB: How many days did it last that you all were pretty much isolated?

UA: I just don't remember. Professor Tom Owens I think would be a wonderful man to contact regarding that.

MB: The '37 Flood pretty much affected the West End like the tornado did the East End here recently.

UA: That is correct. We could walk to 22nd and Date and look north on 22nd and we could see the water approaching us day by day. We could just see the water coming.

MB: Wow. Someone mentioned to me the other day and I can't remember for sure what period -- whether this was the Thirties, Forties or early Fifties -- but they mentioned something about a White City. White City Park or something like this in the West End; do you remember?

UA: Well there was a park in our neighborhood, the Delaney section, called Victory Park. It still exists. It's at 22nd and Kentucky; it goes to Greenwood and 23rd, both Kentucky and Greenwood. It's an entire city block long. That was quite a drawing attraction. We had softball, volleyball, paddle tennis; we had a wading pool there and it was quite used by the residents both the parents and 24:00[kids]. We had programs. The Parks and Recreation department did a tremendous job back in that time trying to entertain us. Let's face it, we didn't have television then. Not many of us had automobiles, so consequently we had to look for things to entertain us. It's not like today where you can get in a car and go somewhere.

MB: Yeah, right. There are some things to be admired about the way it was back then.

UA: That's right.

MB: Of course your family was obviously Catholic, you've got a whole series here of Catholic institutions that you attended -- when it was a white community, the West End, was it a very large Catholic community?

UA: I would say definitely not, no. I would say there were an even percentage of various denominations. The Parkland area for instance, there were no Catholic churches in Parkland. St. Benedict's at 25th in those days was the only Catholic 25:00church in our neighborhood, both in the Delaney section and Parkland. St. George at 18th and Standard and then Holy Cross at 32nd and Broadway were the closest churches to the Parkland area and that was quite a distance.

MB: St. Benedict's was the church that your family belonged to and then the grade school that you attended.

UA: That is correct. My wife attended school there.

MB: You met her in the Parkland area?

UA: No, I knew my wife from twenty-one years before I married her. We knew each other from grade school; I was three years ahead of her. She has one brother who is a priest here in town, his name is Father Donald Fisher. He was a year behind me, went in the Seminary after a couple years of high school; he's pastor of St. Augustine Church, 13th and Broadway. But my wife and I met on a blind date and we dated for a year and --

MB: What year did you get married?

UA: 1959.

MB: And that's when you moved out of the West End area?

UA: That is correct, that's correct.

MB: Can you remember any other kind of special things about growing up in the West End area particularly any experiences that you had in the Parkland area? It's kind of a lot but . . . .

UA: Other than the fact that I had so many friends from down in that area that went to school with us at St. Benedict's that we -- there was a field down there that we played baseball in. Incidentally, there's quite a celebrity from Parkland -- well, there's actually two. Pewee Reese is from Parkland area.

MB: Hmm!

UA: And also Gene Rhodes who is quite a celebrity here in town. He was the general manager of the Kentucky Colonels basketball team, he was coach of the Kentucky Colonels basketball team; he coached at St. Xavier High School. Gene lived at 1333 Olive, if my memory holds me true. I used to spend a great deal of time down at his house. He's also from St. Benedict's. Pewee Reese, I'm quite sure is from the Parkland area after they moved here from Brandenburg I believe 27:00is where his family is from originally. Those two men grew up in the Parkland area; they actually lived in the Parkland area because Olive is right there in Parkland. But I spent a great deal of time in Parkland -- the library, the theater; my dentist was there. We had so many friends down there that we would visit.

MB: What year did your parents die? How many years have they been dead now?

UA: Approximately three years.

MB: And they stayed until about 1963?

UA: That's correct and I sold their house there in '63.

MB: Where did they move after that?

UA: They moved into an apartment in Shively. Both of them died and are buried at St. Helen's Catholic Church in Shively.

MB: Were they already beginning to see the changes in the Parkland area in 1963?

UA: Oh, definitely!

MB: What was happening? What can you remember?

UA: Well, the neighborhood was just deteriorating and the people who were buying the houses were not keeping up with the houses and that condition still exists today. When I drive by our piece of property that we lived on Date Street, it's sickening to see the condition, how its rundown condition.

MB: What do you think some of the reasons are for that? Is it just that the cost of living has gone so high that many of these large, large homes people just can't take care of?

UA: No, I don't think it's that, I think it's just a lack of determination and will to take care of your investment. A piece of property is an investment. Most people buy one -- it's the largest purchase of your life -- and most people buy one house in a lifetime. There are exceptions, but without generalizing, percentage-wise it's definitely your largest investment. And when your 29:00investment is something that large, consequently it's going to take a little hard work to keep it up.

MB: Right.

UA: We had a tin roof on our house; we would paint that tin roof every so many years. We painted our house every three years. The grass and the flowers, we just took care of the landscaping. But I just don't know if they -- I can't say that's true for all of the black people because there are some wonderful black people that I have working for me and a lot of people I know, but they take pride in it. We have some whites who don't take pride in their property too. I think basically it's a lack of pride.

MB: Mmm-hmm. I wonder if you get into that because of their class and not necessarily their race. You know the class of people that came to live there.

UA: I believe you're correct in saying that; I would definitely agree with that -- more so the class than the race, because like I mentioned you have whites who do not want to take care of their property and you have blacks.

MB: I know exactly what you're talking about in terms of an investment and just cosmetic care for the outside of a house and this kind of thing. I mean that's 30:00the heartbreaking thing about a lot of the older black residents who moved in in the early Fifties who still maintain beautiful homes and it's really an effort; a financial effort and a physical effort for them. They're elderly but they mentioned the same kinds of things and they're sickened by the houses that are being boarded up around them. Or too, the absentee landlord kind of things where a number of people bought up those big houses, divided them up into apartments and they're just renting them to anybody and it's really a problem. In the early 1960s -- well, you left in 1959 and your parents stayed until 1963 -- so the properties were beginning to deteriorate; was there already beginning to be a problem with break-ins?

UA: Definitely. Juvenile delinquents, people afraid -- my parents were quite well up in age and of course they were afraid most of the time there being by themselves. They had no one to defend them. My father was in a wheelchair for nineteen years and had only one leg and of course he couldn't defend himself, 31:00much less defend himself as much as my mother. I was very grateful that they consented but I had quite a time persuading my father to sell.

MB: Yeah, after they'd been there that many years, I imagine it was heartbreaking.

UA: That's right. And going from a home to an apartment -- especially at that age -- was a tremendous change in their life.

MB: Mmm. Can you remember what kind of a role the churches played in that area of town in terms of your own family? Of course you can't compare it with the churches in the area today because you don't live in the area today. But can you remember any special activities or any special meaning that the churches seem to have for families in those days that you suspect they might not have today?

UA: I definitely see [tape ends and Bruggman flips tape, asks the question again]. In my particular viewpoint on this particular question, I feel the 32:00churches meant more to the people as a community. There was more participation in all of the religious churches. You could drive by and see a tremendous amount of people and cars parked to attend the services. There was so much going on. Of course, bear in mind back then we did not have the activities. Today we have so much interference that our attendance is off, whether it's due from the fact that the service was not there and you hear the story that, "There's nothing there; I get nothing out of service." Well, I don't believe in that because you only get out of it what you put into it. If you're not going to participate, you're not going to get anything out of it. But all of the churches made a tremendous impact on the community. People really attended the churches then. There was more devotion to all of the churches I think than there is nowadays. 33:00Whether that was good or bad, I don't know. We've seen an awful lot of changes in all of our religions; some of them good, some of them bad.

MB: Were there a lot of youth groups? Sunday pot luck suppers? You know, activities outside of the religious services?

UA: That is correct; social affairs and actually had church picnics. We used to go down on Cane Run Road down around Lake Dreamland, there was a picnic area that we used to have a family picnic and it was well attended by just hundreds of people in the particular parish. And I'm sure the other churches had various things along that line.

MB: Was there ever any question with your parents that you would not attend church because you had other things to do?

UA: Definitely not.

MB: See I wondered if that's a difference now. We give children the option now.

UA: We were told to go to church on Sunday and now so many people find excuses not to attend church on Sundays. Fortunately our two children -- we have a son 34:00who is a senior in high school and our daughter's a freshman and both of them attend church with us. We don't force them to go but they go with us.

MB: Well I'm afraid we're running out of time but you've certainly offered me an awful lot in terms of what the area was then and you obviously enjoyed it and I think it came across in the interview about the area.

UA: Well it was a wonderful area to live in -- the entire West End was just a tremendous wonderful area to live in and I don't care who you talk to: people who have lived in the West End in the early years in places like I was fortunate to, I think you're going to find the same reactions. One of the most friendly places you'd ever want to be.

MB: I must have been almost like a small town within itself.

UA: It was.

MB: Because I meet people who knew people that lived really way across the West End from each other but they had contacts with each other.

UA: That's correct. Shawnee Park, the way Shawnee Park was used. At one time 35:00Shawnee Park had twenty-one baseball diamonds in it.

MB: Oh, you're kidding!

UA: You had to get permits to even not only to have leagues on Saturday and Sunday, but you had to get permits to practice baseball during the week.

MB: They were that busy.

UA: It was that highly used. You would have to go to the recreation department and pick up a permit and they would give you a piece of paper -- a printed piece of paper -- authorizing such-and-such a team to have the diamonds between five and seven or whatever the case may be. And you had to show that permit. And Shawnee Park, it was so strict that the police patrolled the park. If you took your shirt off and you were bare from the head down to the waist line, they would stop and tell you to put your shirt on. We were permitted to wear shorts and you could go barefooted but you had to have clothes on.

MB: Oh you're kidding! It was a code of behavior then, that was really why.

UA: But that day is gone.

MB: Mmm-hmm. Well, thank you very much, I appreciate it.