Lakewood Lore

Watching the world go by was great porch pastime

Ralph Laundy, 86, likes Lakewood, but misses the old times here when people sat on their front porches.

"I would like to revive the habit," he said. "I would even campaign for it. I think it would liven up the city, improve friendliness and strengthen families."

Today, our residential streets seem dead -- void of activity -- and the porches have become nearly as passe as milk chutes, according to Laundy.

He remembers when the neighborhoods were hubbubs of sociability, and hopes for an eventual return to that pleasant period.

"For mothers, the front porch used to be a good place to sew and to knit socks, and it was there daughters would often harmonize the popular songs of the day," Laundy said wistfully.

Years ago, from his own blissful porch vista, he would see the kids playing marbles, tops, cowboys and Indians, and "prisoners base" (a form of tag).

Merchants would service porch customers by day and sometimes into the evening. Door-to-door street processionals included many horse-drawn wagons. There were the purveyors of fruits and vegetables, the egg vendor, the waffle man, the bakery goods supplier, the fish huckster, the strawberry seller, the iceman and the early-morning milkman.

There were the photographer with his pony, the organ grinder with his monkey, the umbrella man, the knife and scissor sharpener, and the saxophonist, who strolled up and down the streets playing tunes.

"During the Great Depression of the 1930s, an occasional hobo would appear asking for work, and mother would feed him on the porch," Laundy recalled.

Laundy was born in 1911 on Lakewood's Ridgewood Avenue. His parents moved in 1915 to Andrews Avenue and, a year later, to Wyandotte Avenue, where he grew up.

In his youth, he peddled two newspapers -- the former The Cleveland Press and the German Waechter and Einziger -- delivering the editions up and down the sidewalks on roller skates, weather permitting.

He graduated from Lakewood High School in 1930 and then attended Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, after which he married Ann Stovell of Dayton and settled down in Lakewood to pursue a career in the plumbing business.

He retired in 1977 and became active as a volunteer worker for the Lakewood Office on Aging, and in doing one-on-one tutoring of children at Madison Elementary School. Several years ago, he was named Lakewood Senior Citizen of the year in the annual contest sponsored by the Lakewood Sun Post and the Lakewood Kiwanis Club.

The Laundys have two children -- a daughter, Carol Page, who lives in New Jersey, and a son, Robert, of Connecticut -- and four grandchildren. The couple has lived on Lakewood's Eldred Avenue for the past 30 years.

"What's the reason for the demise of the front porch?" Laundy and I asked each other. Well, he said he's pretty sure that television, air-conditioning and more women employed all have something to do with the change. I agreed.

"One of the problems nowadays is that people haven't time to socialize with their neighbors, what with working at their jobs and at home," the octogenarian explained.

"Furthermore, they forget to think about the need of the community to have a friendly neighborhood for raising their families, as well as to provide a security watch for themselves."

Laundy said, in retrospect, he supposed what he missed most was watching the children at play and feeling, in a sense, like a surrogate grandparent.

"It used to be that my front porch was like a front seat in a show," he said.

"High point now is when the mailman comes," he added.

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post April 16, 1998. Reprinted with permission.

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