David Buchholz

On another subject.  I broke my ankle last April and had to wear the dreaded "boot" for six weeks.  My kind neighbor gave me suet and a little cage that I suspended from an oak tree.  Being me, I set up a camera on a tripod and watched as local East Bay birds discovered the suet.  I tried to trip the shutter as they were either flying in or out, a challenge to record them with an acceptable sharpness.  These are some of the results.  The red tailed hawks, turkey vultures, and doves (bottom feeders) are excluded.  I miss many of the colorful birds that hang out in and around Cincinnati—the cardinals, robins, goldfinches.  If you click on the link stay tuned to the ultimate in bird watching—a fight to the end between two rival Steller's Jays.

And here's the link...

http://www.davidkbuchholz.com/suet

and if you're really into birds...here are a bunch more.

http://www.davidkbuchholz.com/birds

Paul Simons

Happy 4th of July from The Sandbar!!

Philip Spiess

Speaking of bars, sand or otherwise, I plan to spend the 4th with a 5th.

Paul Simons

"A four on the floor and a fifth on the seat"

But let's have a SAFE HOLIDAY kids!

Bruce Bittmann

And, remember, he who goes forth with a fifth on the forth may not come forth on the fifth.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Surprisingly, Chief was unfazed by the sound of the fireworks last night. Have a happy holiday everyone!

Philip Spiess

Bruce:  Say that again at twice the speed and in pig Latin!

Jeff Daum

For any automotive enthusiasts, I just finished covering the 2022 Barrett-Jackson auction.  To kick off the action, Barrett-Jackson teamed up with the Driven Project to provide a Supercar Experience for a group of children battling critical illnesses. Here is a brief video of that: https://youtu.be/PvRRT2j8JNM

The auction was an amazing success with $49.1 million in sales.  Indeed, there was something for almost everyone!

If you would like to peruse the hundreds of vehicles check this out https://www.daumphotography.com/Events/2022-Barrett-Jackson-Las-Vegas-Auction/   

Philip Spiess

Ah, ah, ah!  Don't touch that dial!  It's time for another round of "Tom Swifties" to keep this Forum rolling!  You WHHS Class of '64 folks (what remains of us) are all bright enough to cast the pearls of your wit before us!  I'll start us off (watch your gag quotient):

"I like to take photos of cars," said Jeff Daum, automatically.

"I'm eating Skyline," said Paul Simons, with somewhat chilly enthusiasm.

"My pets are my best friends!" said Ann Shepard doggedly.

"You can tell I like to play with words," said Bruce Bittman fourthrightly.

"Damn!  I broke my ankle!" said Dave Buchholz, somewhat downcast.

Okay -- the rest of you are on; let's see what you can do!

[If you don't play, I'll summon up another of my Cincinnati history vignettes, which I may do anyway!]

Philip Spiess

Okay, class wits, where are you?

"Step on it!" said Tom swiftly.

("I stepped on it, by gum!" said Roger, solefully, all gummed up, "but I'll stick to it!")

"Oh, just turn the page!" said the king, pointing to the serving boy steaming before the fire. 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

The end of an era and a promising future for a venue where many of us spent time in our youth. 
https://abandonedonline.net/location/tri-county-mall/

Philip Spiess

It's being Mauled?

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

I just received this from a member of the class of '66. 
I last saw Ken Johnson several years ago at an alumni event when Mr. Lounds was also in attendance. 
What a talented artist. My sincere condolences to his family and friends. 

Paul Simons

Thanks for posting Ann, sorry to hear. Sympathy and condolence to his family and friends.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Here's a picture from the alumni event in 2018 with Ken Johnson and Mr. Lounds and Joyanne Page Christian.

Philip Spiess

Having seen the photograph of Mr. Lounds and Ken Johnson [above], I hereby dedicate this addendum to my “Cincinnati’s African-American History” [WHHS Forum, 11-13-2019 through 6-15-2020] to them.

PETER FOSSETT AND HIS FAMILY:

Jefferson’s – and Cincinnati’s – 19^th-Century Premier Chefs 

“High on the hill, thy stately dome we see. . . .”

No – not Walnut Hills High School, but Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, a domed mansion (built by persons enslaved), on a high hill – “Monticello,” Jefferson’s “Little Mountain” near Charlottesville, Virginia.  Yes, our beloved alma mater was designed (by Garber & Woodward, 1931) in the style of architecture which Jefferson introduced into America – a style called “Roman Revival” (the Romans invented the dome – cf. the Pantheon), and which Jefferson employed at Monticello and the University of Virginia (main house and UVA’s Rotunda), as well as at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond (not domed, but designed after the ancient Roman temple, the Maison Carree, in Nimes, France, as were the other original buildings on the Lawn at the University of Virginia).  Hence the style was used by architect John Russell Pope for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D. C. (1939-1943).

But we are here to talk about an enslaved person, born and bred at Monticello, who belonged to Thomas Jefferson, but who, when freed, became a prominent Cincinnatian in the 19^th-Century:  Peter Farley Fossett (1815-1901).  Once in freedom in Cincinnati, Peter Fossett became one of Cincinnati’s most prominent caterers, as well as becoming the prominent pastor of the First Baptist Church of Cumminsville, where he served for thirty-two years.

Peter Fossett, great-grandson of Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings and grandson of Mary Hemings Bell (if you don’t know about the relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, as well as the whole Hemings clan, you'd better look it up!), was the son of Joseph Fossett and Edith Hern Fossett – all of the people just mentioned originally being enslaved persons under the ownership of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello.  However, his grandmother, Mary Hemings Bell, was a free African American woman living in Charlottesville, Virginia, who was able to provide her grandson with finer clothes than most slave children received.  “I remember the first suit she gave me,” Fossett wrote in 1898; “It was of blue nankeen cloth, red morocco hat and red morocco shoes.  To complete this unique costume, my father added a silver watch.”  His father, Joseph Fossett, was the enslaved manager of Jefferson’s blacksmith shop at Monticello, and so received a percentage of the shop’s profits (he was paid, on occasion, up to $20 a year for his extra craft labors, such as working on furniture at the joiner’s shop at Monticello, and helping to build a Jefferson-designed four-person landau carriage, fashioning the carriage’s ironwork).  Peter’s mother, Edith Hern Fossett, also enslaved, eventually became the head cook at Monticello [see below].

According to Fossett, his childhood was relatively easy.  Unlike most slaves, who were field laborers, he learned to read and write.  He also had less demanding physical labor:  he assisted his parents in their work [see above] and worked as a house servant (for which he sometimes received tips).  He was allowed to be educated with Jefferson’s grandchildren, Lewis Randolph, Jefferson’s grandson, being his teacher.  He remembered that “streams of visitors” came to Monticello, describing the life there as a “merry go round of hospitalities.”  (In 1900, Fossett traveled to Monticello, knowing that he was not going to live much longer.  He said that “it had seemed like an earthly paradise in his boyhood” – an interesting statement for a slave.)

When Jefferson became President in 1801 and moved to the President’s House [not called the White House until the fire scars of the 1814 burning of Washington by the British during the War of 1812 were painted over] in Washington, D. C., he soon moved some African American apprentices from Monticello to Washington under his imported French chef Honore Julien and maitre d’hotel Etienne Lemaire.  [Jefferson was a sucker (snob?) for French cooking, which he had learned about while American ambassador in France and which was one of the things which kept him in serious debt (over-spending) throughout his lifetime].  Honore Julien labored invisibly in Jefferson’s basement at a large built-in coal-burning stew-range, assisted by a succession of scullions and three apprentices.  Thinking ahead to his retirement, Jefferson had young, enslaved women – Ursula Hughes (briefly), Edith Fossett, and Fanny Hern – brought at different times from Monticello to learn French cookery in the presidential kitchen at the President’s House in Washington.

Edith Fossett and her sister-in-law Fanny Hern spent several years at the President’s House, and they took over the Monticello kitchen on Jefferson’s retirement from active politics in 1809.  There, using the copper batterie de cuisine [French cookware] imported from France by Jefferson twenty years before, the two women transformed what Jefferson called “plantation fare” into “choice” meals.  In 1809 Lemaire wrote, “I am quite happy, Edy and Fanny are good workers, they are two good girls and I am convinced that they will give you [Jefferson] much satisfaction.”  Julien even made a special journey to Monticello to help set up the new kitchen and provide further instruction.  Thereafter Edith Fossett and Fanny Hern produced meals noted for their elegance and abundance.

As eventual head cook at Monticello, and undoubtedly cooking teacher of her son, Peter Fossett, Edith Fossett became known for certain recipes at Monticello.  No family recipes credit Edith Fossett as their source, but when Jefferson’s granddaughter Ellen married and moved to Boston, she requested that her mother send her favorite Monticello recipes, including “gingerbread such as Edy makes.”

Following Jefferson’s death in 1826, an auction was held in January, 1827, to sell Monticello’s slaves.  Peter Fossett, seven of his siblings, and his mother, Edith, were put up for sale.  (His father, Joseph, was one of five people who had been freed by Jefferson in his will.)  11-year-old Peter was, as he said, “Born and reared as free, not knowing that I was a slave, then suddenly, at the death of Jefferson, put upon an auction block and sold to strangers.”  He was purchased by Colonel John Jones, who, catching Fossett reading a book, threw the book in the fire and said, “If I ever catch you with a book in your hands, thirty-and-nine lashes on your bare back.”  Nevertheless, Peter Fossett, hiding these activities, taught fellow slaves to read and write; he also forged papers for fugitive slaves to appear free.  Peter ran away two times from Jones’ estate, but was recaptured both times; the second time, he was sold on the auction block (1850).  Peter’s father, Joseph Fossett [see above], who had moved to Ohio about 1840 and to Cincinnati in 1843, worked to buy his family out of slavery; in 1850, at the age of 35, Peter Fossett was eventually purchased and freed by the efforts of his father, family, and Jefferson’s friends.

Edith Fossett had not only mastered culinary skills as a slave in kitchens at the President’s House and at Monticello, she also passed them on to her children.  After gaining their freedom and settling in Cincinnati, Ohio, her sons Peter and William Fossett in the 1870s became prominent caterers in the city, known for the delicious food they served and the excellent service they rendered.  It is stated that “There is reason to believe that he [Peter] excelled at French cooking, as his mother received extensive training in this form of food preparation while a slave at Monticello.”  Peter Fossett was an “indispensable major domo at wedding feasts and entertainments,” and he used his financial resources to build a Cincinnati church and orphanage.  His brother William – described as “active in anything to benefit his people” – later left Ohio and supervised food service at a hotel in Niagara Falls.  These names, their lives, and their stories – and in the case of Peter Fossett, even his picture – help to pierce the blanket of invisibility that shrouds the skills and contributions of the enslaved community at Monticello.

Peter Fossett became a “conductor on the Underground Railroad,” helping Levi Coffin (the “president of the UGRR”), who commended him for his “zealous efforts” to help people to freedom.  He also served as a captain in Cincinnati’s “Black Brigade” [see WHHS Forum Post #4577 (3-5-2020)].  Fossett also lobbied for prison reform and sat on the Cincinnati school board’s (segregated) board of directors.  He was married to Sarah Mayrant (ca. 1854), who became a hairdresser for wealthy white women.  Involved in the First Baptist Church of Cumminsville, as was her husband, she became the manager of the Colored Orphan Asylum of Cincinnati for more than twenty-five years.

In conclusion, let me quote Wendell Phillips Dabney (Cincinnati’s Colored Citizens, 1926, p. 180):  “Caterers [in Cincinnati].  This city has had many caterers.  In that field ‘color’ caused little complication, and the achievement of the individual, regardless of race, was only limited by his capability. . . .  The most prominent of the early Cincinnati caterers were the Fossetts.  The parent stock came from Virginia, and its blood from the father of Democracy, Thomas Jefferson.  ‘Jos’ Fossett was the son of America’s president and remained with him at Monticello until he went above to join the great galaxy of other notables.  The sons of ‘Jos’ Fossett were Peter, William and Jesse.  Peter and William Fossett were famous as caterers, and royal were the receptions and banquets they served.  They acquired wealth and later Peter became Rev. Peter Fossett, a famous preacher, the father of Ohio Baptists and the greatest exemplar, expounder and disciplinarian of that doctrine in this state.  ‘He practiced what he preached.’  The marriage of his daughter, Miss Mattie, was the grandest matrimonial event of that time.  The older Fossetts passed away, and John Miller, who had been in charge for Wilson and Reeder, the great white caterers, of this city [Cincinnati], married Edith Fossett and became virtually the head of the Fossett catering industry.  He died some years ago, and the widow, Edith Fossett Miller, still very successfully carries on catering for many of the old families who were patrons of her father and husband” [1926].

Barbara Kahn (Tepper)

Thank you Phil for another interesting chapter in Cincinnati's African American History.  

Richard Winter (Winter)

I just listened to this podcast https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2022/08/12/1116944712/fresh-air-for-aug-12-2022-remembering-motown-songwriter-lamont-dozier, which is an interview from about twenty years ago with Lamont Dozier and Brian and Eddie Holland.  Working together, these three young men wrote 80 Motown hits including ten that reached number one on the pop charts.   Some you may remember are "Stop in the Name of Love," "Baby Love" and "You Can't Hurry Love."  NPR just re-broadcast the interview recently after Lamont Dozier died August 8.

Part of the fun of listening to the interview is hearing songs -- and parts of songs - that I remember hearing so much in high school and college.  I imagine that many of us listened to them, danced to them and partied to them.  

When I transferred to University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1969, this music became a bigger part of my life.   Ann Arbor is only 50 miles from Detroit and we had many of the Motown groups -- including the Supremes and the Four Tops -- perform in person in the Auditorium.  At our parties the music was always more Motown than anything else.

These three songwriters all grew up going to church.   Lamont's grandmother was the director of the church choir and he says in the interview that, when he was 12, the only way he could get out of the house was to go to choir practice (and he didn't say this, but I suppose his grandmother knew whether he showed up or not).   They talk in the interview about the relationship between the sounds in their Motown music and the music they heard and sang in church.

It is a fascinating and fun interview that may, at least for a little while, help you feel younger again.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

JoAnn Dyson (Dawson)

The piece re the Fosset family was very interesting.  I wonder if there are any known descendants still living in Cincinnati.  Thanks for the interesting information.

And I am sorry to learn of the passing of our classmate, Ken Johnson.  Condolences to his family.

Dale Gieringer

  I'm pleased to report that our classmate Mark Lehman, who taught English at UC for three decades, has published a collection of his poetry, Long Falling Light, now available on Amazon.   He was selected by the Cincinnati Library to give a public reading, which you can listen to at 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Are any of you (especially those locally) planning on going to the 125th (+2) Anniversary Celebration the weekend September 30 & October 1? I was thinking about going to the Friday night concert and the dinner at Music Hall on Saturday.
You can register at walnuthillseagles.com and click on "Alumni" 

Philip Spiess

As there has been recent mention in these pages of our classmate, Mark Lehman, publishing a collection of his poetry, as well as a reminder that our venerable high school’s 125^th anniversary and history is about to be celebrated [see the Venables, below], perhaps it is time to review:

SOME PROMINENT CINCINNATI POETS

Alice and Phoebe Cary:  Alice and Phoebe Cary were sister poets in early 19^th-century Cincinnati, who gained national acclaim.  They co-published their early poems in 1849, and then later went on to publish poems on their own.  After their deaths in 1871, joint anthologies of the sisters’ unpublished poems were also published (1873).

Alice Cary (1820-1871) was born in 1820 in Mount Healthy, Ohio, her parents living on a farm bought by her father, Robert Cary, in 1813 in what is now North College Hill, Ohio; these 27 acres of farm he called “Clovernook Farm.”

Phoebe Cary (1824-1871), Alice’s younger sister, was born as well in Mount Healthy, Ohio, in 1824; both she and her sister were raised on the Clovernook Farm, part of a family of nine children.  The household in which they were raised was a Universalist one, holding religious and political views that were both liberal and reformist, though they often attended Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregationalist services (these denominations differing more in church government than in theological beliefs), and they remained friendly with the ministers of these and related denominations.

Although the girls occasionally attended school (they lived a good ten miles from the nearest school, which was, at that time, given modes of travel, a good distance), they were often needed to work on the farm at home, and so they ended up largely self-educated.  After their mother died in 1835, their father remarried in 1837.  However, their new stepmother was completely unsympathetic to the girls’ literary inclinations, which began in their teens when their verses began to be printed in newspapers.  Nevertheless, the girls were determined to study and write when the day’s work was done. Their new mother’s response was to deny them the use of candles, so they used a saucer of lard with a rag for the wick to study and write after the family had retired for the night [much as I used a flashlight to read by when in high school after I supposedly had gone to bed].

Alice’s first major poem, “The Child of Sorrow,” was published in 1838, and was praised by Edgar Allan Poe, among others.  Phoebe Cary, being more outgoing than her sister, became a champion of women’s rights; for a short time she edited Revolution, a newspaper published by Susan B. Anthony.  Then in 1848 the sisters’ poetry was published in Female Poets of America, an anthology edited by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, who later helped to publish Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary (1849).  This volume brought the sisters much critical acclaim, and in 1850 they moved to New York City, living on 20^th Street, where their home became “the centre of one of the choicest and most cosmopolitan circles in New York.”

In New York, Phoebe took the major share of household duties, as Alice was, for many years, an invalid; thus she (Phoebe) found little time to write, though she published two volumes of her own poetry, Poems and Parodies (1854) and Poems of Faith, Hope and Love (1867).  In addition, she penned lyrics for church hymnals, such as “Nearer Home” (a.k.a. “One Sweetly Solemn Thought”).  Alice wrote for the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and Putnam’s Magazine, her articles later being collected into well-received volumes.  While in New York, the Cary sisters hosted Sunday evening receptions attended by such notables as John Greenleaf Whittier, P. T. Barnum, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as well as many other notables of the day in literary and artistic circles.

In 1868, the journalist and editor Horace Greeley wrote a brief joint biography of Alice and Phoebe [he spelled it “Phebe”].  Alice, who became president of the first women’s club in the United States, “Sororis,” died of tuberculosis in 1871; among her prose works was The Clovernook Children.  Phoebe died later the same year of hepatitis (some say malaria); they are buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Probably the sisters’ best known poem today (or at least its story) is Phoebe Cary’s “A Leak in the Dike:  A Story of Holland,” which relates the well-known folk tale of the Dutch boy who puts his finger in the dike to prevent a leak from eroding the dike and causing major flood damage to his city.  [No, this is not related to the “Mannekin Pis,” which is in Brussels, Belgium, and is another folk tale entirely!] 

Cary Cottage and Clovernook:  As noted above, Clovernook Farm was the family home of poets Alice and Phoebe Cary (now in North College Hill, Ohio).  Their father, Robert Cary, erected a small three-room frame house on the farm for the family in 1814, a house which became the birthplace of the Cary sisters.  Later, as the family grew, in 1832 he built a more substantial white brick house with a frame porch; this house is now known as Cary Cottage (7000 Hamilton Avenue).  It contains original wooden floors, a narrow winding staircase, a large kitchen fireplace and bake oven, and a working outdoor well.  The bricks used in its construction were made on the property, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.  Restoration and furnishing of the cottage [open to the public on a several-day-a-week basis], begun after its National Register listing, was based on a number of descriptive passages in Alice’s and Phoebe’s poems.

In 1903, Cary Cottage became the first home for blind women in Ohio.  The Trader sisters, Florence and Georgia (who was blind), were instrumental in this effort:  William A. Procter, grandson of a Procter & Gamble Co. founder, purchased the cottage and surrounding land and gave it in trust to the Trader sisters.  Initially, thirteen blind women and one man lived in the house; the Trader sisters provided them with employment as a source of dignity.  Eventually this mission became the work of the Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, which now offers instruction, employment, community living, and low vision services for both women and men.  The Center runs three manufacturing departments and is one of the country’s largest producers of Braille publications.

John James Piatt  (1835-1917):  There were numerous branches of the Piatt family in Ohio, stemming from Benjamin M. Piatt, who came with his bride, a Virginian, to live in Cincinnati circa 1800.  Benjamin became a law partner of Nicholas Longworth, and eventually he was made a judge.  His brother, John H. Piatt, in 1817 gave the land to the city which became Piatt Park on Garfield Place, Cincinnati’s oldest park.  In 1828, Judge Benjamin Piatt bought a small farm near the stream the Shawnees called “Macochee,” somewhat east of West Liberty, Ohio; his sons built two Victorian mansions there, “Chateau Mac-A-Cheek,” built in 1871 by Gen. Abraham Sanders Piatt, and “Castle Mac-O-Chee,” built somewhat later by his brother Col. Donn Piatt, a diplomat and Ohio poet.  (Both houses, still owned by the Piatt family, are open to the public as museums, though at present they are undergoing restoration.)

Col. Donn Piatt’s second cousin, John James Piatt, the focus of this piece, was born in James Mill (now Milton), Indiana, and is known as an American poet, civil servant, and diplomat.  At 14 he apprenticed to the Ohio State Journal to learn the trade of printing.  His earliest published poems appeared in the Louisville Journal (1857), where he became a regular contributor; in 1859, he likewise became a contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, and in 1861 he married Sarah Morgan Bryan, a fellow poet.

In 1861, Piatt was appointed a clerk in the U. S. Department of the Treasury at Washington, serving until 1867, when he moved to Cincinnati to work for the Cincinnati Chronicle and Cincinnati Commercial newspapers.  In 1870 he returned to Washington, serving as enrolling clerk in the U. S. House of Representatives and later as its librarian.  Later he served as U. S. Consul to Cork, Ireland, from 1882 to 1893.

His poetic works include the following (partial listing):  Poems of Two Friends (1860, with William Dean Howells); The Nests of Washington (1864, with his wife, Sarah Bryan Piatt); Western Windows:  And Other Poems (1869; 1877); The Pioneer’s Chimney:  And Other Poems (1869); Landmarks:  And Other Poems (1871; 1872; rev., 1878); Idyls and Lyrics of the Ohio Valley (1880; 1884; 1888; 1893); Odes in Ohio:  And Other Poems (1897); and numerous other works, including some juvenile and non-fiction pieces.  He also edited The Union of American Poetry with Art:  A Choice Collection of Poems by American Poets (1882), and The Hesperian Tree:  An Annual of the Ohio Valley (1900-1903).  He is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery.

William Henry Venable  (1836-1920):  Born in Warren County, Ohio, William Henry Venable began to teach at the age of 17; during his vacations he attended teachers’ institutes in Oxford, Ohio, and became one of the first teachers in the state to receive a life certificate from the Ohio Board of Examiners.  He graduated from the National Normal University in Lebanon, Ohio [“normal” in this case, whether referring to “school,” “college,” or “university,” means a teacher training school; in 1907 the university became the Lebanon University, and finally merged with Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio].  In 1862 Venable became professor of natural science at the Chickering Classical and Scientific Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio [also known as the Chickering Academy “Select School for Boys,” on George Street]; in the same year, he apparently became principal and proprietor of the school.  In 1881, Venable organized, and was president of, the Cincinnati Society of Political Education, and in 1882 he founded and conducted the African School of Popular Science and History in Cincinnati [sorry – I know nothing about this establishment, which seems to have been short-lived].

In 1886, Venable became an editor of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, the professional journal of the then Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society, now the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus (the state historical society and museum); the journal (currently known as Ohio History) is now online.  Ohio University gave Venable the degree of LL.D. in 1886.  In 1889 he became chairman of the English department at Hughes High School in Cincinnati, and in 1896 [note!] he became chairman of the English department at Walnut Hills High School, also in Cincinnati.  While holding these positions he was a proponent of educational reform.

His primary works are Footprints of the Pioneers in the Ohio Valley (1888, the year of the Ohio Valley Centennial Exposition in Cincinnati) and Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley:  Historical and Biographical Sketches (1891).  But he also wrote (among other things) June on the Miami, and Other Poems (1871); The School Stage:  A Collection of Juvenile Acting Plays, Original and Adapted (1873); Melodies of the Heart, Songs of Freedom, and Other Poems (1885); Down South Before the War (1889); Dream of Empire:  or, The House of Blennerhassett (1901) [cf. the history of Blennerhassett Island in the Ohio River near Parkersburg, West Virginia]; and Buckeye Boyhood (1911).  He also edited The Dramatic Actor (1873), a collection of plays, and Dramatic Scenes from the Best Authors (1874).

His son, Emerson Venable (1875-1965), also taught English at Walnut Hills High School, and he edited a poetry anthology, Poets of Ohio:  Selections Representing the Poetical Work of Ohio Authors, from the Pioneer Period to the Present Day (Cincinnati:  1909; 1912).

And William Henry Venable’s granddaughter, Evelyn Venable (1913-1993), attended Walnut Hills High School (Class of 1930), where she was known for her acting as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, as the Dream Child in Barrie’s Dear Brutus (which some of us read with Miss Keegan), and as Rosalind in As You Like It (under WHHS drama teacher Miss Lotze?).  Attracting the attention of famed actor Walter Hampden, after college she toured with his company, playing Ophelia to his Hamlet and Roxane to his Cyrano de Bergerac.  She became a noted actress in Hollywood, signing with Paramount Pictures in 1932.  She was [according to my film guide] a “leading lady of the Thirties, usually in demure roles.”  Among her films were David Harum (1934, with Will Rogers); Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1934); The Little Colonel (1935, with Shirley Temple); Alice Adams (1935, with Katharine Hepburn); The Frontiersman (1938); and Death Takes a Holiday (1934, with Fredric March), considered her greatest role.  Later, in 1940 Walt Disney chose her voice (and personality) for the character of the “Blue Fairy” in his animation classic, Pinocchio.  (She is also one of the possible actresses believed to be the original model for the Columbia Pictures logo used from 1936 to 1976, but the studio has never confirmed it.)  In 1943 Venable retired from acting and eventually became a faculty member at UCLA, teaching ancient Greek and Latin [her Walnut Hills upbringing, no doubt!], and organizing the production of Greek plays within the Classics department [Jon Marks, take note!]. 

Philip Spiess

I do not wish to dominate this space, but in the absence of others stepping forward and telling us all what's currently interesting them in their lives (perhaps nothing?), I'll interject myself again.

Back in 2018, for a brief period this "Forum" was rife (no, not the Latin teacher!) with posts about early radio in Cincinnati (Crosley Radio, of course), promulgated by Paul Simons, myself, Bruce Fette, and some others [see Posts #3525, #3527, and #3541 (4-27-2018; 4-28-18; and 5-8-2018; with some in between)].  Well, I'm currently reading a book entitled Tube:  The Invention of Television (by David E. Fisher and Marshall Jon Fisher, 1996), and here are two "factoids" from that book that I thought might be of interest:

The two "real fathers" of television are considered to be Philo Farnsworth (Mormon farmboy of Idaho) and Vladimir Zworykin (Russian immigrant to America).  Zworykin, in his early days in the U. S. (ca. 1922), designed a car radio (a novelty at the time, as the radio itself was practically brand new), "but the local police [Kansas City environs] thought it was a dangerous device that could distract the driver from the complex business of driving, and they put him out of business" (p. 124).  As to Farnsworth, at Brigham Young University in Utah, in the fall of 1924, to help sell radios to student friends who had never even heard one, Philo borrowed a top-notch radio from the store he worked for and threw a "radio party."  "His guests were amazed to hear stations in Los Angeles and Cincinnati (the only ones powerful enough to reach Utah)" -- this had to be Crosley's WLW, which was founded in 1922 -- "dedicating songs 'to Phil Farnsworth and party in Provo, Utah.' (Phil had written the stations in advance with the date and time of the party)" (p. 130).

The more things change, the more they stay the same (or something).

Paul Simons

Just a quick note of thanks to Phil Spiess for his voluminous contributions to this living archive of the thoughts and experiences of members of a relatively small mid- 20th century graduating class from a good midwestern high school. I always consider that it could be read by kids attending the school 50 or 100 years from now and I want them to know that it was and is a diverse school and so to avoid conflicts some topics that emerged in the first decades of the 21st century were declared off limits but future Effies yes there's an elephant in the room. Actually a herd of them. I for one hope some of us got it right and you have a livable planet, that's all, air water and temperature that are livable. 

Now to add a bit to Phil's column - the WLW radio antenna 

About the general topic- James Baldwin said it far better than I ever could. One element of the turmoil we are currently enduring is the banning of many books. I hope this type of thing doesn't happen in the Cincinnati school system but you never know. It's possible that James Baldwin's works will be banned.

"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us. ~James Baldwin

(Book: The Fire Next Time https://amzn.to/3cUxY8J)"

Dale Gieringer

 I remember hearing WLW radio while on vacation with my parents in Southern Florida.  Those were the days when "clear channel" AM still dominated the national airwaves.  Too bad WLW never had much of interest to broadcast, unless you were into Ruth Lyons (or was she television only?).