Every Life Is a Story and This Is Mine: A Memoir and Recollections

By Dennis E. Ekardt

As I grew up Ive said many times that I really wish I had talked to my grandparents and learned about their lives. I dont want my grandchildren to say the same thing. So I dedicate these words to Lindsay, Eddie, Meghann and Nicole. And someday theyll each be able to say, Heck yeah, I knew Ecky.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 7, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452098524

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© 2010 Dennis E. Ekardt. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 12/1/2010

ISBN: 978-1-4520-9851-7 (sc)

iSBN: 978-1-4520-9852-4 (e)

Printed in the United States of America

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1 – Growing Up

Chapter 2 – High School

Chapter 3 - The Navy

Chapter 4 – The White House

Chapter 5 – Back to the Navy

Chapter 6 - An Officer and Gentleman

Chapter 7 – Big Potato

Chapter 8 – Back to Washington

Chapter 9 – I’m a Civilian

Chapter 10 – The Eye

Chapter 11 – Mr. Patrick Nicholas Romelli

Chapter 12 – Back to Work with One Eye

Dedication

As I grew up I’ve said many times that I really wish I had talked to my grandparents and learned about their lives. I don’t want my grandchildren to say the same thing. So I dedicate these words to Lindsay, Eddie, Meghann and Nicole. And someday they’ll each be able to say, Heck yeah, I knew Ecky.

Chapter 1 – Growing Up

I was born on January 18, 1940 at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. The story, as I was told, was that my mom was home at their apartment in Price Hill; my dad was at a local café, on Westwood Ave. in South Fairmount, whose owner was closing for a few weeks to take a vacation to Florida. He, the owner, was giving away free food to all the customers that night. It was snowing when my mom went into labor. My dad had to take a cab home and pick her up to take her to the hospital. He was half crocked.

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Nell and Ecky, my mom and dad

I am an only child, no brothers or sisters. My name, as it appears on my birth certificate, is Edward Dennis Ekardt. Of course I now go by Dennis Edward. I’ll explain how this happened later.

My earliest memories are of living on Montrose St. in South Fairmount. We lived in an upstairs apartment in a house at 1911 Montrose St. I remember looking out the window during a night-time air raid drill and my dad was a neighborhood Air Raid Warden. I also remember hearing on the radio that President Franklin Roosevelt died. That was in April of 1945. Right around that time my dad got drafted into the Army. My dad was 28 years old, married with a child and worked in a defense plant. He wasn’t the typical draftee. But remember our country was preparing for the invasion of Japan and that meant every eligible male was going to be needed. He went into the Army for awhile and I remember, as a five year old, spending time at both Grandma Ekardt’s (my dad’s mom) and Grandma Delseno’s (my mom’s mom) while my mother worked.

I have fond memories of both houses. I remember sitting in Grandma Delseno’s kitchen early in the morning, before sunrise, watching Grandpa play an Italian card game by himself. He would deal out three or four hands and I remember he used to peek at the other hands and then make his play. He would make me breakfast which consisted of a large slice of crusty Italian bread, spread with butter and sugar sprinkled on it. He would also fix me a cup of strong coffee which was mostly milk and lots of sugar; it was delicious.

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Grandpa Angelo and Grandma Philomena Delseno

My early memories of Grandma Ekardt’s house are also of food. I remember her making home-made egg noodles and hanging them on broom handles between two chairs to dry.

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Grandma Marie and Grandpa Edward Ekardt

Both my Grandma’s could really cook. I ate Italian food in one house and German in the other. No wonder I love to eat.

The personalities at both these houses were completely opposite. At the Delseno’s, Grandma was the tough one and Grandpa was a very gentle man. At the Ekardt’s it was just the opposite. Grandpa was a tough old bird and Grandma was a gentle soul.

After my dad got out of the Army, he and mom bought a house at 1924 Montrose St. just down and across from the place we were living. This was to be my home until I got married.

It was a five room house, three rooms and a bathroom down stairs and two rooms upstairs. At that time it was over 50 years old. It was almost like a row house only it was detached. For awhile we rented the two rooms upstairs and lived in three rooms downstairs. I slept on a roll-away bed for a while and then on a fold out couch in the living room. At first we had a coal burning furnace with a coal bin in the basement. Later my dad converted the furnace to burn natural gas.

During my teenage years we used the whole house and I had an upstairs bedroom all to myself. A room to myself, wow! (Note: For years, I have been listening to my wife’s tale of woo about her having to share a room with her sister, her grandma, two cousins, a couple of large farm animals and a baby giraffe – oops! Just kidding about the cousins and the animals.)

In 1945 I started kindergarten at Central Fairmount Public School. It was located on White St., a short walking distance up a steep hill from our house. It was the same school where my dad and his brothers and sisters went. A couple of my teachers, Miss Flanagan, third grade and Mrs. Dexter, fifth grade; taught my dad. They remembered him.

I mentioned earlier that I would tell you how I became Dennis Edward instead of Edward Dennis. Since my dad was Edward and his dad, my grandpa, also was Edward I guess me being called Dennis just happened. When I started grade school, I was called Dennis by my family. When I got to Central Fairmount the teachers called me Edward; because that was the name on their records. I remember in the first or second grade, the teacher taking attendance and calling out Edward Edward and no response. I’m looking around the room wondering why Edward, whoever he was, didn’t answer up. When she said, Edward Ekardt I thought, oh yeah, that’s me and I responded and then advised her that I went by Dennis. That was cool and I was Dennis from then on; in that class. This happened a couple times before I wised up. By the 3rd grade, when I was called upon to write or print my own name, I just put down Dennis E. instead of Edward D. That’s how it began. From then on I was Dennis E. vice Edward D. This has now become a matter of official record. I am Dennis Edward as far as the world knows. That is except on my birth certificate. All my school years, my Social Security number, all my Navy records, all kinds of security clearances, my wedding records, my children’s birth records; even my passport, show me as Dennis Edward. No one ever noticed that my birth certificate read Edward Dennis; even when I had to provide it as proof to verify all those other documents. I guess it’s because it reads, Ekardt, Edward Dennis. I guess since all three of the words were present it was, as they say, close enough for government work.

Our neighborhood went by a couple of names. We lived in a section of western Cincinnati called South Fairmount. It was also referred to as Lick Run by the old timers. I believe the name Lick Run was from the stream that use to run through the area which is now Queen City Ave. Our section of South Fairmount was also known as Little Italy. This was, obviously, because of the large number of Italian families that lived in the area. The area was originally very German. As a matter of fact Cincinnati was, and still is, a very German town.

Since there were so many Italian families, most of the neighborhood was Roman Catholic. My dad was German Protestant and my mom was Roman Catholic. When they decided to get married they visited a priest at the local parish who told my dad all the rules about marrying a Catholic. Well, the old man, being a hard-headed kraut told him to take a walk and they got married by a Justice of the Peace in Northern Kentucky. This meant two things: My mom was ex-communicated from the church and I was brought up as a Protestant. Although my dad never went to church, I did. Martini Evangelical and Reformed Church. A very German church which I think was a spin off of the Calvinistic Churches.

So I grew up in a very Catholic neighborhood where all my friends and my many Italian-side cousins and even some of the German side were Catholic and I was a Protestant. I went to a public school and they all went to Catholic school; St. Bonaventure, and were taught by nuns. Most of the kids at my school were Protestant. So I had two sets of friends: My school mates and my neighborhood gang.

I was a pretty good student in elementary school. Central Fairmount was K-8th grade. I went there for the entire nine years. As an eighth grader I was a big man on campus.

During those years the Catholic schools let out for summer vacation a week earlier than the public schools. On more then one occasion my Catholic friends, from the neighborhood, would come up to my school and hangout waiting for me. Sometimes they would get impatient and start calling my name. This would cause our Principal to chase them away.

The neighborhood gang was really my closest friends in those days. In the summer we used to play in the lot. Let me explain.

Although the main Catholic parish was St. Bonaventure, which was about a half mile down the street, there was a small Italian church right in Little Italy on Queen City Avenue. It was called San Antonio and was at the bottom of the White St. hill. Across the street from San Antonio’s was a vacant lot, owned by the church and used as a parking lot for church services. There were not many cars there on Sunday as most of the people lived close enough to walk to church. This lot was our playground. We would play baseball, football and basketball there. The lot was right next to a hilly wooded area which also served as our playground.

The Little Italy gang consisted of Joe Stevens, Bobby Prinzo, Pat and Lou Lucia, Wayne Serreno, Lenny Lyons, Jimmy Weber and me as the core group. Others like Johnny Fariello, Johnny Panaro, Frankie Bellisimo, Ken Armstrong, Matt Martini, Wesley Takahashi, Ray and Roy Hageman, Joe Zimmerman and Jack Ewell were in and out on occasion.

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L-R Denny Ekardt, Joe Stevens, Frank Bellisimo, Lenny Lyons, Lou Lucia, Jimmy Weber, Wayne Serreno, Pat Lucia

A lot of the guys in the neighborhood had nicknames. In my circle we had Frog (Joe Stevens), Butch (Bob Prinzo), Dubba Doy (Pat Lucia), Monk (Wayne Serreno) and Lout (Lenny Lyons)

A quick story about Jack Ewell.

There was a dog that used to roam around the neighborhood . His name was Ting. This dog would just walk out in the street, oblivious of the traffic zooming up and down Queen City Ave. We considered him the dumbest dog in the world. Now back to Jack Ewell. On occasion while we would be wrestling around we would hold Jack down (he was younger) and make him eat grass etc. We would ask him Who is smarter, you or Ting And we wouldn’t let him up until he would say Ting was smarter. Many years later, after I had been in the Navy for a few years and probably was married with children, I had the occasion to be back in town and visiting my uncle’s tavern. Up from behind I noticed this big guy, about 6’6 240 lbs, put his arm around my shoulders and asked, Hey Den, whose smarter you or Ting. It was Jack Ewell; I hadn’t seen him in 15 years. After looking at this big guy, my response was easy Ting, yeah Ting, was smarter then me".

As I said earlier, we spent all our free time in and around the lot. Next to the lot was a small industrial area. Up until the early 1950s it was a plant that processed animal by-products for various uses. They made horse hair rope and brushes from hog bristles and things like that. It was known as the Hair Factory. What ever was going on in there it sure stunk up the neighborhood. Visitors would catch a smell of that place and wrinkle their noses and ask what is that smell. The standard answer was Oh, that just the Hair Factory. In later years the Hair Factory closed down and the place became a bundle of small industrial sites. They had a place that made brass fittings and another place that de-burred metal work. There was a place that made aluminum siding. And somebody in there had bought up a lot of war surplus material. There were big stacks of wooden boxes that each contained three one gallon cans. Another stack was boxes containing thick rubber tape. These stacks became a playground for our gang on weekends and after school. If the workers saw us they would chase us away. This was the place that supplied us with one of our biggest capers – the rubber tape. It was a real commodity. We could roll it up and make a ball that would bounce. We would wrap the tape around broom-handle sized sticks and use the sticks for swords. What great swords. When you had a sword fight the two rubber coated swords would bounce off each other and the recoil would almost knock each combatant to the ground. It was great. This leads up to the caper.

Late one fall we decided that we couldn’t be sure that this unlimited supply of rubber tape would be there forever so we concocted a plan to steal a few boxes and stash them away for future use. So we conducted an after-dark raid and took five or six boxes, each the size of a case of bottled beer, up in the woods and buried them in the ground wrapped in a tarpaulin. We then drew a map to the location. Our plan was to dig them up in spring. Well the hiding was successful but when it came time to dig them up we couldn’t find the map. So we spent that whole summer looking and digging, looking and digging. We never did find our buried treasure.

Up the hill and through the woods, behind the lot, were some railroad tracks. It was a spur line that ran from the main marshalling yards near downtown Cincinnati out to an industrial area in Price Hill, another neighborhood.

A quick aside: Cincinnati is a very hilly city. The name Cincinnati is derived from Cincinnatus, a famous Roman general before Julius Caesar. Cincinnati is supposed to possess seven hills, not unlike the famous Seven Hills of Rome. I’m not sure if there are seven hills in Cincinnati but there are a lot of hills. Just look at some of the names of the various neighborhoods. South Fairmount, North Fairmount, Price Hill, Walnut Hills, Mount Adams, etc.

Now back to the railroad tracks. These tracks and the trains that ran on them were very tempting to me and my gang of pals. We were always up there and on many occasion we would hop a ride on one of the railroad cars as the train ran by. The car of choice was the coal carrier. All the cars had steel ladders on their sides but the coal carrier’s bottom rung was fairly close to the ground and easy to hop on and hold on to. We would then ride a few hundred yards and then jump off. We had to be sure the engine was around the bend first so the crew wouldn’t see us. We also had to watch out for the men that walk the tracks, occasionally, keeping an eye on things. We called them railroad detectives. These tracks and trains lead me into a story I call The Creamy Whip

One summer morning a few of us, me, Joe Stevens, Wayne Serreno and Lou Lucia, were sitting on the front steps of San Antonio Church trying to decide what we would do that day. My cousin, Frankie Murvine who was about five or six years younger than us, we were all about 12 or 13 at the time, would hang around us and we would run him off. But he would stay out on the perimeter just far enough away so we wouldn’t hit him but close enough to see what was going on. While we were sitting there someone suggested we should go get a Creamy Whip. A Creamy Whip was soft ice cream. The only place to get one was up in Price Hill which was about 4 or 5 miles away. We made sure we each had a nickel and we decided to hitch-hike up there to get this creamy delight. Well Frankie kept hanging around so we let him come with us. Well, five kids trying to hitch a ride was not working. We ended up walking the whole way. After we got our Creamy Whip we started for home. Realizing that we would never hitch a ride and not wanting to walk the whole way we decided to walk the tracks back to our neighborhood. It was the shortest and most direct route. It probably cut two miles off the journey. So off we went, walking the tracks. Things went pretty good until we came to the trestle (a railroad bridge) over Wyoming Ave. This was a long trestle and very high above the street. There were three trestles on these tracks that were just too long and too high to walk across and this was one of them. But for some reason we decided, this day, to walk the Wyoming trestle. Not a good idea. We did have sense enough to realize that little Frankie shouldn’t do it. So we sat down and flipped coins, played mumbly-peg, even did a round of rock, paper, and scissors. This was to decide who would take Frankie down the hill and meet us up on the other side. Joe Stevens lost and he started off with Frankie. The rest of us, Lou Lucia, me and Wayne Serreno started across the trestle. The trestle was about 70 or 80 feet above the street at its highest point and just short of ¼ mile long. Lou was walking fast and was about half way across and I was next, about 1/3 of the way with Wayne 50 feet behind me. Then we heard it. A train was coming behind us. It was rolling 10 -15 miles per hour and starting across the trestle blowing its whistle. It was a gigantic diesel engine. I turned and ran right past Wayne who had stopped. I headed straight for the engine which was closing in on me. When I got within 20 yards of the engine I just leaped off the trestle, down maybe 10-15 feet and landed in a large growth of honey-suckle vines. This really cushioned my landing. Wayne had just frozen in place. I yelled for him to jump and he finally did. Only his jump was 20-25 feet. He landed in the honey-suckle too, but much harder then I did. His face smashed into his knee and he busted up his lip pretty bad. By this time Joe and Frankie came running back up the hill yelling where’s Louie. The train just kept going and we didn’t see Lou anywhere. We thought Lou was dead, run over by the train. As the train got across the trestle we looked up and there was Lou, hiding behind a sand barrel on the little safety platform attached to the side of the trestle. He came running back off the trestle and down to the honey-suckle where we were. We all were half laughing and half crying and scared to death. We ran down the hill to Wyoming Ave. and down to Queen City Ave. and then back to our neighborhood. I often think how different the outcome of that day could have been. People, today, would be telling stories about those kids that got killed on the Wyoming trestle.

Earlier I mentioned that we used the lot for our playground. There was a man in the neighborhood that helped us set up the lot. His name was Bobby Jackson. He was married to Wayne Serreno’s older sister, Louise. We all love the Jacksons. Bobby was a great guy and Louise was a sweetheart. Bobby was a very good athlete. He was a great golfer, a very good bowler and just an all-around talented guy. We all looked up to him. Bobby helped us set up a ball field in the lot. We dug up large flat rocks that Bobby shaped into bases and planted them in the ground. He had us scavenge discarded paper flour sacks from the trash behind Yeager’s bakery and we used the flour as baselines and foul lines. During summer vacation we would play ball there from early in the morning until it was time for supper. The field was a very interesting configuration. The left field foul line ran next to a yard of a man who wouldn’t let us retrieve our ball. If he wasn’t around we would retrieve it anyway. But just the same we ruled any ball that landed in that yard was an out. That was to keep guys from hitting in that direction. Also that part of the field ran parallel to Queen City Ave. Occasionally a foul ball would land out in the street and a car or bus would hit the ball and it would careen down the street for a block or two. The hitter had to chase after it, and woe be it if it went in the sewer. That’s probably why in later years, even as a right-handed hitter, I always hit to right field. Another reason to hit to right field was because in short right field was a great big tree. I don’t know what kind of tree it was but the trunk was 3 or 4 feet in diameter. Our ground rule was any ball hit into that tree was in play. This meant if you hit it into the tree the fielder could wait under it as it rattled around in the branches and if he caught it as it came out it was ruled a good catch and the batter was out. Not many of those catches were made though. One year the men from San Antonio’s decided that that tree had to go. It was getting old and becoming a potential hazard. One morning they came and cut it down. It fell down right in the middle of our ball field. The next day all of us showed up with saws, axes, and hatchets and commenced to cut up and move that tremendous tree. Bobby Jackson organized it. You must remember this was the early 50’s, there were no chain saws. The story was that the men from the church knew if they cut it down the kids would cut it up and move it to clear our ball field as well as the parking lot. I remember when my dad found out he commented that he had to threaten me with a beating to get me to pull weeds in our yard but I would work my butt off moving that tree. He was right.

Let me talk about my family now. My father was Edward Clarence Ekardt; he was the third of five children of Edward Ekardt and Marie (Mueller) Ekardt. He had two brothers and two sisters. Here is the order by age: Margaret, Louis (Buddy), Edward, Emery and Pauline.

Aunt Margaret married Harold Von Rissen. They had one child, Bernice. Bernice was 6 or 7 years older then me. She was born with rickets and was retarded. Bernice was not supposed to live through infancy and then not through childhood. She died at age 70 and had to be under constant care for her whole life. For many years Aunt Margaret took care of her and when she got to be in her late 50s she was put in a nursing home.

Uncle Bud, who I called Uncle BoBo, was married to Myrtle. They never had any children. Uncle Bud, for many years, owned a saloon in the neighborhood. It was known as Ecky’s Café. Ecky was my dad’s nickname. No one ever called him Ed or Edward. It was always Ecky. Bud, Emery and even Grandpa Ekardt were all called Ecky occasionally. But my dad was the real Ecky. (Note: Ecky was my nickname in high school)

Uncle Emery was my dad’s younger brother. He married Ruth Tierney. They had three children, Nancy, Patrick and Tom. Aunt Ruth was Irish and very Catholic. She took a lot of playful abuse from the Ekardt boys because of that. The Irish were either known as lace curtain Irish or shanty-boat Irish. Meaning either upper-class or lower-class. My dad used to say that Aunt Ruth was bicycle Irish. They’re the kind that makes your butt tired.

Aunt Pauline was the youngest. She was only 13 years older than me. During the WWII, when I spent time at Grandma Ekardt’s, Aunt Pauline had to baby-sit me. She tells me how I had to go along when she went out with her friends. She married Ben Yocum. They had four children, Ben Jr., David, Peggy and John Glenn.

All my Ekardt cousins, except Bernice, were a lot younger than me.

My mom, Nelda Rose Delseno’s family was much larger. Her father was Angelo Delseno and Grandma was Philomena (Palladino) Delseno. Mom was the sixth of nine children. She had five brothers and three sisters. They were Joe, Rose, Helen, John, Frankie (1) then my mom, then Frankie (2) Christine and Danny.

Uncle Joe was the oldest and married Irene. They had one son, Ron. Ron was about 13 years older then me. Aunt Irene was Irish and as a result Ronny was known as Murphy. Uncle Joe owned a saloon in the neighborhood called Hobo Joe’s. He was always called Hobo Joe. This was because in his youth he took off and rode the rails as a hobo.

Next was Aunt Rose. Aunt Rose was married three times, and never had any children. Her first marriage was to some Italian guy from the neighborhood. I don’t know much about him except that he played the saxophone. She divorced him and married Fred Schwartz. Uncle Fred played professional baseball back before WWI and served in the trenches in France during that war. Aunt Rose and Uncle Fred were my godparents. Uncle Fred died back in the 50s and some years later Aunt Rose married Bill Luken.

Next was Aunt Helen. She married Bob Murvine. They had two children Frank and Alana. Aunt Helen and her family lived upstairs from us, in the little two room apartment, for awhile.

Then came Uncle Johnny. He married Josephine Stevens. They had two children, Phyllis (called Dukie) and Linda. When I was a teenager Uncle Johnny and Aunt Josie had a café down in an industrial section of town called 8th and State. It was near the main Kroger’s warehouse. They did a real big lunch business and the food was really good. Over the years I’ve kept in close touch with both Dukie and Linda. Linda and her husband Harry Panaro, have been my source for What’s going on with the family and the old neighborhood.

My mom was next. (Note: There was a baby boy, Frank, between Uncle Johnny and my mom. He died as an infant. I don’t know anything about what happened.

Then there was another Frank. This Frank died in a drowning accident long before I was born. He was 15 years old when he died.

Next was Christine. She married Art Stath. They had two children, Arlene and Christy.

And last came Uncle Danny. He married Marilyn and they had two children, Carol and Danny Jr.

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The Italian cousins. Front, Arlene and Carol, Back, Phyllis Dukie holding Frankie, Linda and me in front of Grandma Delseno’s house. I must have 50 pictures of us kids standing by that flag pole

One of the fondest memories of my youth was Christmas Eve at Grandma Delseno’s. Every year the family; all those listed above, and often a few friends of the family, would gather in the three rooms of the Delseno house. I guess it was always 25 or more each year. There would be so much food it’s hard for me to remember it all. What I do remember was that it was a fast day