Childhood Homes in Willoughby-on-the-Lake

My Dad was born in Cleveland (near E. 87th, between St. Clair and Superior) and moved as a child to Willoughby-on-the-Lake, on Hayes Avenue, about a block from Lost Nation Boulevard and Lakeshore Boulevard. The history of the house is very interesting. I think it started as a lake cottage--there are many in North Willoughby. But then they dug a basement. They raised up the house and used horses in the excavation process. My Aunt Kay Coughlin's grandpa (if I remember correctly, a man named Gilmore) was the person in charge of the job. Also added to this cottage was a front porch and a second floor.When I was a kid in the 1950s, there were only 2 houses on the west side of Hayes Avenue (south of Lakeshore): my grandparents' house (below), and the Sullivan house.

Connie and Cora Coughlin's home, 1920s to 1960 (or so)

The other house on this side of the street belonged to Helen and Ed Sullivan. Ed was my Mom's uncle, my great uncle. Their children were Mary Ellen (my sister was named after her); Sally; John; and Mike. Today the house looks abandoned, maybe foreclosed. Here it is:

Sullivan House on Hayes Ave,

When my Mom and Dad married in 1947, they lived in a house a block away from Hayes Avenue, on Windermere. It was a tiny house. I lived there until I was 3, when we moved to Euclid. Here's the house:

Our Windermere House

Right near my parents' and grandparents' house was McKinley School. I enjoyed the playground there quite a lot. Also, just down the street, at Lakeshore and Lost Nation, was Ray's Tavern (probably not the official name). There was also a grocery store there and a store called Mannino's, which might have been a drugstore. I remember buying penny candy there. I spent a lot of time in the bar with my Uncle Jack and my Grampa. Here's the building from the Lakeshore Boulevard angle:

Ray's Tavern--Lakeshore and Lost Nation

I loved this little neighborhood of Willoughby. We moved after I turned three, soon after my mother accidentally ran over me on Windermere.

New Poem for the 70th Anniversary of D-Day

June 6, 1944 in Willoughby-on-the-Lake

Cora and Connie,

Their four boys overseas, fighting in the terrible war,

First got the news on the radio around noon that Tuesday.

They heard from the boys about once a month, in letters

Passed under a censor’s eyes, often weeks old.

Sometimes Cora wondered as she read the letters

If her boys were still alive or wounded in some hospital

Or prisoners of war. She couldn't stop the terrible scenarios

Unraveling in her mind.

Connie tried to keep up her spirits, joked and laughed a lot,

And cried himself in secret and drank himself unconscious

Some nights at the bar down the corner.

Bob was on a small ship somewhere in the South Pacific;

Bill also somewhere in the Philippines.

But Fran and Jack, the two most vulnerable spirits,

They were somewhere in Europe—

They might be part of this invasion.

Candles remained lit that day, four of them,

(As they did every day of almost four years);

Two of those candles flickered, went out briefly,

Before Cora could relight them.

It was weeks before Connie and Cora learned the truth--

Their boys were alive—and in late ’45 or ’46,

They came home to Willoughby.

Bob had shrapnel in his back, but was otherwise OK;

Bill’s happy spirit seemed intact—

But Fran and Jack were filled with anger and sorrow;

Souls twisted and damaged, they got into fights back home,

And sometimes drank until they blacked out.

They were haunted the next twenty years,

Until their early deaths, by the psychic wounds,

The spiritual wreckage of June 6, 1944 and

The brutal organized violence of the years before and the year after.

Connie and Cora’s boys came home—

But two of them wounded for life.

[Bob Coughlin / June 6, 2014]

Me and the Talking Crow of Willoughby-on-the-Lake

The big black bird landed on my shoulder and said, "My name is Corby. What's yours? My name is Corby. What's yours?"

"Startled" is not the word. Mom, who was carrying 10-month-old Denny over her shoulder, was dumbstruck, flabbergasted, gob-smacked. She immediately ran for the safety of our Windermere Drive home, right there in Willoughby-on-the-Lake--leaving me, her two-year-old, toddling down Windermere with a talking crow on his shoulder.

"I'm Bobby," I told the bird. Our discussion was interrupted when Mom finally came storming out of the house, waving a broomstick, yelling, "Get away from him! Get away from him, you damn bird!"

The bird quickly took off, flying over to Hayes Avenue, where he lived with his owner, a fellow everyone called "Jeep." Mom hopped in the brown '48 Ford, me and Denny at her side, in that era before safety belts, and drove the short way over to Jeep's car-repair place between Hayes and Lost Nation Boulevard, intending to give him a piece of her mind. Jeep was underneath a car, covered with grease.

"Your bird just scared the hell out of my boy, Jeep. Keep that damn thing at home!"

Jeep just laughed. "Calm down, Margaret Ann. Corby is a friendly bird and wouldn't hurt anyone. I'll give him a talking to." He laughed again and Mom finally smiled at the absurdity of the incident. She hopped back into the Ford, pulled her 2 babies close to her, and drove slowly in the April chill back home.

And that's the story of my encounter, at age 2, with Corby, the talking crow of Willoughby-on-the-Lake.

[The above story is essentially as I was told about it by my Mother, but a few minor details are reconstructed or made up. There was a man named "Jeep" in Willoughby. I believe his given name was something like Eugene Hodgson, or something close to that. He was about my Dad's age, born around 1922, and was a good friend to my Dad and the Coughlin family. But he wasn't the owner of the car-repair business and probably didn't own the talking crow.]

House Explodes in Eastlake. We Feel the Explosion 15 Miles Away!

A home on the Eastlake-Willoughby border, right on Lake Shore Boulevard with the backyard extending down to Lake Erie, exploded about 2 weeks ago and we felt the explosion at our Chardon home some 15 or more miles away. We were watching television when we heard our windows shake and a dull thud of a noise. I looked at Linda and wondered out loud if we had had an earthquake. Then I thought maybe it was snow and ice sliding off our roof; or perhaps the wood in our house contracting from the bitter winter cold. Later that night and the next day, we found out that a house on the Eastlake-Willoughby border exploded into smithereens, most likely from natural gas. The man of the house was found outside sitting on a rocking chair. His 86-year-old wife was found under the rubble, alive but severely injured. She died about a day later but her husband has survived. I'm sure he is still pretty hurt, with bruises and burns.

Our home is about 15 miles southeast of this explosion site, and about 700 feet higher in elevation. To think that the percussive force could have traveled that far is amazing. I heard rumors that people as far away as Hiram, Ohio, also felt the explosion. If that is true, the blast wave traveled 40 miles or so! I think the weather conditions had something to do with the distance the blast wave traveled.

I have heard that the 1812 Battle of Lake Erie, just north and west of the Lake Erie Islands and the city of Sandusky, was heard as far away as Hambden Township--maybe 80 miles away. So this happens from time to time.

Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick Coughlin

Today marks the 5th anniversary of the passing of my Mom, Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick Coughlin. She was known as Margaret Ann by most people, as "Gertann" by my Dad, and as Marge or Margaret by some others.

Mom was born in Cleveland on November 10th, 1923, the baby of her family. Her older siblings were Al, Julia ("Dudie"), Fenton ("Skip"), and identical twins Dick and Don. Her Dad was John ("Jack") Francis Fitzpatrick, born in the quarry village of Bluestone, Euclid Township, Ohio, and Margaret Ann Sullivan, born in the quarry area of Brownhelm Township, Lorain County, Ohio. Jack worked for the railroad as a yard conducter and Margaret was a homemaker.

My Mom first lived on East 169th [1188, E. 169th, I believe]Street, in the Euclid Beach-Grovewood area of Cleveland. As a toddler she started speaking Slovenian because of her daily contact with Slovenian speakers in that neighborhood. I think that was a signal for her parents to move! And they moved just about a mile away to a house on Tarrymore Road, a stone's throw from Lake Erie (I think the current address of that home is 17513 Tarrymore Rd., Cleveland, OH 44119; http://www.zillow.com/ gives the date the house was built as 1926). That's where she grew up, and that's where her mother died on March 18, 1940.

My mother was baptized as St. Jerome's Church in Cleveland, and attended Holy Cross Church and school after the move to Tarrymore Drive. She attended Villa Angela Academy for a while, but left that school (she might have been kicked out over a trivial issue, like playing hookie one day--it's not exactly clear to us). Thereafter, she attended Notre Dame Academy on Ansel Road in Cleveland, and graduated from high school in 1943. She loved the Notre Dame nuns and handled the long two-streetcar ride to school with no problem.

I think after high school Mom lived with her sister or brothers in various places, including Willoughby, Ohio. Some time around 1946, she met my Dad, Robert ("Bob") Paul Coughlin, who grew up on Hayes Avenue (nowdays the address is 1136 Hayes Ave., Willoughby, OH 44094) in Willoughby-on-the-Lake. They were married in August of 1947, at Immaculate Conception Church in Willoughby, and I, their firstborn, was born in June of 1948.

Mom and Dad made their first home at 1120 Windermere Drive, in Willoughby, about 200 feet west of my Coughlin grandparents. Their home was a tiny bungalow, maybe 700-800 square feet in size. Denny was born in June of 1950 and the house was beginning to feel crowded so they began thinking of getting a bigger house. Dad's first job after getting out of the Navy (he served on small ships in the South Pacific 1942-45) was in the Cleveland Trust Bank in downtown Willoughby. When he told the bank that he wanted to get a mortgage to build a new house (we're talking a $9000 house here--brand new), the bank told Dad no, that he didn't make enough money to get a mortgage loan. At that point Dad probably told them goodbye (but not in such polite language) and went off looking for a new job. He finally secured a job as an electrician at New York Central Railroad in the Collinwood neighborhood of Cleveland. I have no idea how Dad talked himself into that job. He was no more an electrician at that time than I am now. But when you have a growing family, you do what you have to do to get a job. New York Central was near Mom's old neighborhood, and her brother Skip lived practically next door to the NYC yards and worked there as a welder/machinist. Dad's brothers Fran, Jack, and Bill also worked there, as did his in-laws Skip and Al Fitzpatrick. NYC must have been an Irish-mafia operation back then! Check out this link with all the Fitzpatrick relatives aboard a train at the Collinwood Yards: http://www.fitzpatrickrailserv.com/HISTORY.htm

Here is a funny story my Mom used to tell me about the Willoughby-on-the-Lake neighborhood: One day when I was a baby or toddler, she was walking me around the neighborhood when a crow landed on my shoulder. My mom was real frightened and left me on the sidewalk and ran into the house. It turns out the crow could talk! It was a tame crow owned by someone in the neighborhood. I think it's just an unsubstantiated rumor that the crow uttered "nevermore!"

Some time around June 1951, a fateful accident happened in that Willoughby neighborhood that affected my Mom, Dad, me, Denny, and, I imagine, the whole family not yet born:

[more coming]

Memory Poem

Driving Home From Willoughby, 1959

After Thanksgiving Dinner at Gramma and Grampa’s,
Dad, Uncle Jack, and Grampa located a davenport or bed
For a half-hour’s nap, hypnotized by the turkey, the full belly, the beer.

Denny and I went out to the field between the Sullivan’s and Coughlin’s,
Climbed the wild black cherry, while Mary Ellen and Kev
Played in the piles of silver and sugar maple leaves.
Mom carried Baby Jimmy on her hip, talked with Gramma,
Dried the dishes.

And then, around 7, we hopped into the old Ford,
Mom and Dad in front, 3 kids on the back seat, Kev on the hump,
And Jim stuffed up on the shelf by the rear window
(no seat belts, no rules in those days!).

We’d start the long drive home down Lakeshore Boulevard
Saying the rosary, me leading the prayers,
The Joyful Mysteries, 5 decades of Hail Mary’s,
Sprinkled with Our Father’s, Glory Be’s, and the Apostles Creed.

And when we finished (and we were the fastest rosary sayers on the planet!),
We’d sing every song we knew, full-throated:
“Anchors Away My Boys,” to “Row Row Row Your Boat,” in rounds,
To “She’s My Darling She’s My Daisy, She’s Cross-eyed, She’s Crazy.”

And then, after a bit of silent driving, we’d turn south
Down East 266 Street and home:
By now Jimmy, Kevin, Mary Ellen asleep,
Denny and Bobby groggy,

Mom and Dad spent and quietly happy.

Robert M. Coughlin
Thanksgiving 2008

Poems for Autumn

Changes ( haiku)

Sugar maple leaves
Are falling orange against black

Monarchs heading south.

(Linda & Bob Coughlin)


Haiku for Jake-the-Beagle

Snowy mud on boots
I dig your grave, poor dog,
And think of my own.

(Bob Coughlin
October 24, 2006)


October in Willoughby, 1958

the two sugar maples
glisten in the crisp pure sunlight

efflorescence of yellow, orange, red
against the cloudless blue sky:
Hayes Avenue looks like heaven

Grampa rakes the leaves into a grand pile:
Denny, Mary Ellen, Bobby play king of the hill,
somersault, stuff leaves into flannel shirts

the radio is omnipresent
blaring out the Browns struggle against the Giants,
Jimmy Brown against Sam Huff

Grampa lights the pile of leaves,
a fragrance that will linger in memory
until death

Gramma calls out for dinner:
roast beef, mashed potatoes, green peas

again

(Bob Coughlin
October 18, 1991)

Photo above shows Carolan on the Yellowstone or Missouri River in Montana in the Fall of 2007.

My Dad Dreams of an Ordinary Life--New Poem

Here's a draft of a new poem. I imagined my Dad, a signalman aboard his small wooden ship, a Subchaser, in the middle of the Battle of Leyte Gulf in late October of 1944, hoping for an ordinary life back in Northeastern Ohio. Here's the poem:

Dream of an Ordinary Life

In October of 1944, my Dad, 22 years old,
Stood on the signal tower of Subchaser 1154,
A little wooden ship,
Offshore from the island of Leyte in the Philippines.

Black smoke all around the wild seas,
Bombers and fighters in the heavens,
Big naval guns pounding both Japanese and American ships,
Mines, torpedoes, shrapnel, kamikazes
Death everywhere, everywhere,

My Dad, 12,000 miles from Willoughby-on-the-Lake
Thought of his Mother’s apple pies, the wild black cherry tree
Outside their Hayes Avenue cottage—a home he, his Dad, and brothers built themselves—
Thought of his Dad sitting at the tavern at the corner of Lost Nation and Lake Shore,
Drinking Leisy’s Light and telling baseball stories,
Thought of brothers Connie, Jack, and Bill, fighting
This war hither and yon--Would he ever see them and his sister Bernice again?

What do you want from life, he asked himself, in a rare moment of reverie.
If you ever get back home?

The answer was rather simple:

A wife, a job, a little house, some children,
Friends and family nearby.
He wanted what once seemed so ordinary,
What once seemed too predictable, too tame,
Too lacking in adventure.

To see his mother and father again,
His brothers and sister.

To play horseshoes by Hayes Avenue,
And drink beer around a campfire,
To swim in Lake Erie again.

Just an ordinary life would be fine for him.
And he prayed for that right then and there,

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean,
Death whirring over his head,
12,000 miles from Willoughby-on-the-Lake.

Robert P. Coughlin--My Dad

This past week was the 11th anniversary of the passing of my Dad, Robert P. Coughlin, known, like me, as Bob. My Dad was actually baptized in 1922 as Paul Robert, and some official documents (like his Navy papers), use that name. But some time early on, the name was flipflopped and he was known as Bob and presented himself formally as Robert P. He was the third child of Cornelius Francis ("Connie") Coughlin and Cora Bowers Coughlin, after Francis Cornelius ("Connie") and John Anthony ("Jack"). After my Dad there were two more children: Bill and Bernice. I think all the Coughlin kids were born in Cleveland, probably around E. 87th, but were raised mostly in Willoughby, Lake County, Ohio--about 20 miles east of Cleveland.

Dad was our hero, for so many reasons: he was our protector and defender; he was our provider and advocate; he was a Navy combat veteran from World War II. And he was a good and kind and loving man. And he did all of this in spite of some heavy burdens. One burden he carried was severe asthma, which was very serious at times in his childhood and adolescence and prevented him from being accepted into the Navy before the war broke out (after Pearl Harbor, it was another story--"Sure we'll take you! Welcome aboard, sailor!"). In his late 50's Dad suffered from heart problems. He had bypass surgery around age 57, and suffered from congestive heart failure and diabetes in the last years of his life. These last illnesses were debilitating to his great energy and spirit. Along with these illnesses I think he suffered from some level of depression. Maybe that was a consequence of the medicines he had to take as well as the weakness caused by the heart failure. Still, the image I have of my Dad is of the guy in his thirties and forties, with his black hair, drop-dead good looks, broad shoulders, with forearms and biceps like Popeye-the-Sailor. Dad was strong! A nice trick he could do was to rip the Cleveland yellow pages (about 4 inches thick) in half! It was part technique, but part brute strength. Dad could also run very fast and hit a baseball a mile. We enjoyed watching him play softball at Mudville (officially, "Willow Playground"), with his tremendous hits and great defensive play. One time he hit a home run at Mudville and as he stepped on home plate, he broke his foot! I wish we had had the chance to see him play fast pitch baseball when he and his brothers tore up the Lake County leagues. Dad hit a famous home run at Painseville Township Park on a very muddy day. When he circled the bases, he avoided the incredible mud puddles around the bases (thinking that it was no big deal because the ball went out of the park, into Lake Erie). Well the other team pulled the appeal play saying he missed a base, and Dad was called out. He and his brothers were great ballplayers, but any chance for a career in professional ball was halted by the war. One brother, Connie, did get a tryout with the Cleveland Indians, and we have the letter sent to Connie offering the try-out. Their baseball careers were in the tradition of their father, Connie, my grandfather, who was one of the great ballplayers to come out of Cleveland in the early decades of the 20th Century.

My Dad's life surely was shaped by the bittersweet years of the Great Depression and then by World War II. From the time my Dad was seven years old to the time he was in his mid twenties, the world was in chaos, depression, and war. So you can imagine how wonderful it was for him around 1946 meeting Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick (of the locally well-known Fitzpatrick family). What Dad probably wanted more than anything was a life with Margaret Ann, a family, children, and a job that paid the bills. There had been so little of normal life that he was ecstatic about settling down to this kind of life. He married Margaret Ann in August of 1947 at Immaculate Conception Church in Willoughby (the reception was above the fire station in Willoughby-on-the-Lake). Ten months later I was born, the first of 5 children. [More coming on Dad infuture blog entries.]