Roger made many changes to "Stately White Manor" as it became nicknamed when Tom and Toby were old enough to be driving about.
This front swimming pool was removed and became an ornamental pond.
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Jim Lewis goes into the Army, and my work in WWII After WWII, I venture into fiberglass, Marrying Mike, and my heart problem Getting Dick Newpher to join me at Glastic
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The home on South Park Boulevard, circa 1966. |
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The house as Roger bought it in 1960.
Roger made many changes to "Stately White Manor" as it became nicknamed when Tom and Toby were old enough to be driving about. This front swimming pool was removed and became an ornamental pond. |
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This pool was to replace it, in back, next to the tennis courts. |
In the early sixties we moved from Fairmount Boulevard in Cleveland Heights to a very large, very old, very run-down house, on a very large corner property, at South Park Blvd. and Lee Road in Shaker Heights. I was earning a good salary and I spent a lot of money on the house and property. The house had a tennis court, and I had a swimming pool built.
I was constantly making improvements on the South Park house. I did some remodeling before we moved in, then later built a small duck pond near the house, and stocked it with ducks. At the front corner of the property, where people driving on South Park and Lee Road would see, I built a small pond with an overhanging willow tree. I changed the driveway around so there was an entrance on both South Park and Lee Road. In the winter after it snowed, I would have to drive up and down the driveway a couple times to cut a path in the snow. That way Mike could get out, and delivery people could get in.
We had dogs and cats as pets both on Fairmount Boulevard and on South Park, and lots of other kinds of pets. I raised hermit crabs. I first brought them home from a beach in New Jersey. They didn't live long, and I couldn't figure out why. But I became fascinated with them. I would bring home a few from each vacation to the south (Florida or the Bahamas) and I built a "crabarium" to keep them in. I learned, and eventually I could sustain older, bigger crabs for several years. The kids loved to play with them and show them off. Occasionally, they would escape. We found one that had wandered into the basement and lived for some time under a slightly leaky pipe that provided it with water.
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Some of the South Park pets: Dancer, the boxer, and the two Siamese cats -- Jasmine and Joss. |
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Roger's sister, Margaret Bourke-White, came to visit occaisionally. |
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Bunny in the fall. |
The boys had a ball with the pets, especially the cats. Sometimes they would toss one up onto the low roof at the kitchen door. It was too high for the cat to jump down. It just stood there and yowled. I had to get a ladder and carry it down. Also there was a clothes chute from the second floor, and the first, to a basement catchall in the laundry room. Occaisionally one of the cats would get "the thrill of a lifetime" when it was tossed down the laundry shoot. The boys would tease the animals, but love them, too, and they never injured them in their play.
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Toby and Joss |
We got the boys started at a private school and they both were doing fairly well. Most days I drove them to school, and when they were ready to learn to drive, I gave them their first lessons. One at a time I would seat a son for a bit between my legs. First they got to work the pedals. Later, and when the traffic was light, I would let them steer. I would keep my foot on the brake pedal just in case. Pretty soon they got too big for that, but I believed then and still do now, that they learned the fundamentals of cautious driving. Many years later when they got driving licenses they had no problems, and no serious accidents.
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Mike is showing off a ring that Roger got for her on a trip to Europe. |
Mike was a good partner, but we had our differences, and eventually those grew to be too much. Mike liked to socialize and party a lot more than I did. We would go to parties at places like the Mentor Harbor Yacht Club or the Cleveland Skating Club and she would stay long into the night -- much longer than I wanted to stay. She would ignore my distress until the party ended, usually after midnight. Then finally she would say "Lets go home". Things got more stressful. Her behavior with me became more and more difficult. I felt that our marriage was falling apart. We slept apart and I often needed to get her out of bed in the mornings.
Mike's good friends Kay and Bob Cornell undertook Mike's negotiations for a divorce. The final divorce agreement included an immediate cash payment plus a sizable trust fund which would make interest payments to Mike for the rest of her life. (I would have the power to designate, and change at will , a list of charities which would receive designated portions of the fund principle at her death.) At this time Kay invited Mike to go with her on a trip to Europe. They went off and left the negotiations. So we each had our own lawyer and these two undertook negotiations for the terms of divorce. After much countermanding they reached an agreement.
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Jim Lewis goes into the Army, and my work in WWII After WWII, I venture into fiberglass, Marrying Mike, and my heart problem Getting Dick Newpher to join me at Glastic
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