Youngstown

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — John DeMain

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John DeMain, Music Director, Madison Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Peter Rogers. Used with permission.

I’ve received many wonderful article ideas from friends who live or used to live in Youngstown. This idea came from a friend living outside of Madison, Wisconsin. He’s attends a number of the concerts of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. He raves over the leadership their Music Director, John DeMain has given over the past thirty years of his tenure. He thought I should write about him because he grew up in Youngstown.

So I dug into Maestro DeMain’s story and discovered that his experiences in Youngstown established the whole arc of an amazing music career that included a Grammy and a Tony Award, premieres of several major works, as well as his many accomplishments with the Kenley Players, the Houston Grand Opera, a brief stint with the Youngstown Symphony, and his long and fruitful tenure in Madison, as well as numerous guest appearances with major orchestras throughout the world. So, I was surprised and delighted when he spent an hour this past week talking about his musical journey as a young man in Youngstown..

John DeMain grew up on the Southside of Youngstown, living on Southern Boulevard, just north of Midlothian. His musical career began at age two when he sang a boy soprano part in the Lady’s of Mount Carmel church choir. A solo for his kindergarten class led to him being featured in the Rotogravure section. He continued to sing and his parents decided to buy him a piano to develop his musical abilities. After three years with a piano teacher, he learned all she could teach. She connected him with Hermann Gruss and his wife Blanche, who continued his instruction after Hermann died, through high school.

As a young boy of nine, he performed as a singer in a joint Youngstown Symphony and Playhouse production of Amahl and the Night Visitors. He had early experiences of observing Michael Ficocelli, founder and first director of the Youngstown Symphony, and also diocese music director and John’s band teacher. John observed Ficocelli conducting and substituted for him when he was absent. He worked under Lillian Stambaugh who was the pianist for a production of Paint Your Wagon at the Youngstown Playhouse at age 13. The following year, at age fourteen, he conducted music with a pit orchestra for Brigadoon at the Playhouse. He spoke of “bossing around people old enough to be his grandparents…and loving it.” He did this for three years. During these years he also accompanied productions at Cardinal Mooney and briefly served as a rehearsal pianist at the Kenley Players. He also accompanied for opera students and was observed by Lawrence Lawler, a benefactor who took him to see the Met when they were in Cleveland

In the summer of his junior year, while a student at Cardinal Mooney, he entered a piano competition with the Youngstown Symphony, performing Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. He was amazed to find out that he won the competition, beating out a student from Juilliard and debuting with the Youngstown Symphony. He credits this as an important factor to winning admission at Juilliard with Adele Marcus, the teacher of the student who he beat out in the competition. He earned Bachelor’s and Masters Degrees from Juilliard. His time in New York exposed him to the vibrant New York and New England musical scene, including a chance to conduct The King and I. He also returned in the summer as assistant conductor for the Kenley Players. He then served as the Music Director for the Kenley Players from 1965 to 1975 and spoke glowingly of John Kenley. We realized that our paths had actually crossed. One of my high school dates was at the Kenley Players production of Man of La Mancha with Giorgio Tozzi. He directed that production and told me about the huge staircase designed by the set designer.

He went to serve as conductor of the Houston Grand Opera in 1975 and immediately became involved in one of the signature productions of his career, a staging of the full score of Porgy and Bess. After the initial 1935 production, much of the content and distinctly African-American and jazz influences were cut from the production. These were restored by the Houston Grand Opera and the result was that the 1976 recording, conducted by John DeMain, won Grammy, Tony and the French Grand Prix du Disque awards in 1976. When they brought the production to New York, Leonard Bernstein told DeMain that this was the Porgy and Bess production that he had waited forty years to hear. In all, he has performed the opera over four hundred times.

John DeMain told me that this was the musical achievement he was proudest of and mentioned two others. One was the premiere performance of John Adams Nixon in China in 1987 and the other, the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s opera, A Quiet Place. DeMain’s work on Porgy so impressed Bernstein that he asked DeMain to conduct a new production of West Side Story, after which he wanted DeMain to premiere his opera.

It was during his time with the Houston Grand Opera that he also served as an Acting Music Director of the Youngstown Symphony, during the mid-1980’s. After seventeen years with the Houston Grand Opera, DeMain became the music director of the Madison Symphony Orchestra in 1994. At that time, the Orchestra played in the old Oscar Mayer Theatre and consisted of section chairs from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and student musicians. He instituted blind auditions, a standard practice in top professional orchestras and now draws players from throughout the country. He also led the orchestra in performances of the complete Mahler Symphony cycle.

In 2004, he helped open the new Overture Center for the Arts, home to nine different Madison arts organizations and an amazing Concert Organ. Maestro DeMain told me that he thinks the concert hall acoustics, already celebrated, continue to become more resonant as the wood in the hall seasons. The symphony will celebrate its 100th year in the 2025-26 season. DeMain, who just turned 80, announced that he will step down at the end of that season so that a new director can take the orchestra into its next century. As he prepares to step down, he leaves an organization that is fiscally sound and enjoys the largest arts endowment in Wisconsin.

He will continue to be involved for now as artistic director for the Madison Opera but also hopes to do some travel and teaching but does not anticipate another music director position. In January 2023, DeMain received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Opera Association.

John DeMain’s amazing career began in Youngstown. He was a childhood prodigy as singer and pianist. He was conducting ensembles before he was in high school, experiences that solidified for him his love of conducting, even though up to that time, he’d had little formal training. He’s achieved an amazing body of work and we may be justly proud of this musical director who began as a young man from the Southside of Youngstown.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Admiral Giles Bates Harber

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He grew up on the West side of Youngstown, received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy from then-congressman James A. Garfield, mounted a heroic 2667 mile expedition to rescue a stranded polar expedition, was the Executive Officer on the USS Texas during the Spanish-American War, and rose to the command as Rear Admiral of the Pacific Fleet at a time when the U.S. was becoming a global naval power.

Despite all these accomplishments, I suspect few of us know of this distinguished naval officer who both was born and died in Youngstown. He was born September 24, 1849 to Joseph and Ann Eliza (Darrow) Harber. He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1869, starting out as an Ensign on a sailing frigate, the USS Sabine., moving to a screw frigate, the USS Franklin, in the European squadron from 1870 to 1871. By 1881, he was in command of the torpedo boat, the USS Alarm.

In 1882, Lt. Harber was on a journey through Russia when called on to mount a rescue or recovery operation when the USS Jeanette, commanded by Lt. Commander George Washington DeLong, attempting to explore and lay claim to Arctic regions, became icebound. Leaving from Irkutsk in Siberia by steamer, Harber and his search party covered 2667 miles by boat, reindeer, and dogsled team. There were no survivors, but Harber and his party recovered the remains of ten men who perished, including the body of Lt.. Commander DeLong. When he returned in 1884, he received a hero’s welcome at a reception in the old Opera House on Central Square in Youngstown.

He married Jeanette Thruston Manning of Baltimore in 1889, the wedding reported in the New York Times. After a staff assignment at the Naval Academy and command of a US coastal steamer, Hassler, off the Alaska coast, he was promoted to Lt. Commander in 1896 and served as the Executive officer of the battleship USS Texas in Guantanamo Bay during the Spanish-American War, doing blockade duty. He was promoted to Commander and served as naval attaché in both Paris and St. Petersburg from 1900 to 1903. This was followed by command of the USS New Orleans, from 1903-1905, as part of the Asiatic Squadron, being promoted to Captain in 1905. After graduation in 1905 from the Naval War College, he commanded the USS Independence and the Mare Island Navy Yard from 1905 to 1907.

His crowning achievement was promotion to the rank of Rear Admiral, heading the 3rd Squadron, and then the whole Pacific Fleet from 1907 to 1910. This was the time when American sea power was growing under President Theodore Roosevelt, symbolized by the Great White Fleet of sixteen battleships that circumnavigated the world. In his final year, before mandatory retirement at age 62 in 1911, he served as president of the Naval Examining and Retiring Boards in Washington, DC.

Harber and his wife lived in Washington until she passed away in September of 1925. He moved back to Youngstown, but soon followed her in death on December 29, 1925. He died at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital of a bladder infection. Both he and his wife are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Harber distinguished himself throughout life, holding posts and commands in Europe, East Asia, and Central America as well as over the whole Pacific Fleet. The recovery expedition could easily have shared the fate of the Jeanette. Instead, he brought his fellow seamen’s bodies home on an amazing journey. And Youngstown remembered and celebrated him. He also remembered Youngstown. He was the second depositor of the First National Bank in 1863 (at fourteen). On his death, it was found that he had remained a depositor all those years. And it was to Youngstown he returned and spent his final days. We can truly say he was a hometown hero.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Ohltown

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Did you ever hear of Ohltown? I first saw the name when I was learning to drive. My dad would take me out on the back roads around Meander Reservoir. One of these was Ohltown Road, which runs northwest toward Warren from Route 46 just north of Mahoning Avenue. It ends by the Ohltown United Methodist Church and the Ohltown Cemetery, next to the church. Austintown-Warren Road, crossing Meander Reservoir from the west dead ends at Ohltown Road. Depot Street veers to the northeast from there.

But where was Ohltown? Basically it was around those crossroads with the western part of the village now underneath Lake Meander. The church and the cemetery are now all that is left of the town.

Ohltown gets its name from Michael Ohl. Ohl’s parents, Henry and Abolona Ohl moved to Canfield from Allentown, Pennsylvania, settling north of the village. Michael, their oldest, was born in 1785 and married Eva Meyers (Meiers) in 1806. The young couple settled in southern Austintown Township for twelve years, having the first five of thirteen children. Around 1815 and 1816, Michael acquired 230 acres in southwestern Weathersfield Township along Meander Creek about a mile and a half west of Mineral Ridge. After damming the creek to create a millrace, he built a sawmill, and later a gristmill, which remained in operation for a hundred years. The sawmill provided the lumber for the family’s permanent residence.

Ohl was enterprising. He opened a general store doe the growing village as well as becoming the first postmaster, the post office in his house. A plank road ran through the property, connecting Canfield, Warren, and Cleveland. The house became a stagecoach stop and inn. Then in 1835, Ohl began mining coal on the south side of his property one of the seams of coal that were plentiful in the vicinity of Mineral Ridge.

Ohltown United Methodist Church, undated photo.

The Ohltown United Methodist Church traces its beginnings to 1838. They acquired a building from a Lutheran congregation in 1847. By that time, the town included a grocery store, post office, shoemaker, cabinet maker, and a blacksmith, along with the general store and mills owned by Ohl. There was also a school. In 1849, Ohl died.

This may have marked the peak years for the village. As canals and railroads were built, they bypassed Ohltown. By the 1880s, only thirty homes and a couple stores remained. By the 1900s, only a few homes, the church and cemetery remained. People went elsewhere for work.

Meanwhile, the industrial development along the Mahoning River, polluting the water of Niles and Youngstown, along with periodic flooding, led to the formation of the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District in 1927. A dam on Meander Creek was part of the plan to provide a clean source of drinking water and was part of a larger flood control plan. It would require flooding the town area west of Ohltown Road. Some people sold their homes, other homes were moved.

Today, as already noted, only the church, which has weekly services, and the cemetery remain as remnants of the town Michael Ohl built. But I can imagine that there was a time when this was a pleasant and comfortably prosperous place, located along scenic Meander Creek.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

 

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Mayor Jack C. Hunter

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Mayor Jack C. Hunter in 1969 when elected for his first term as Youngstown’s Mayor, Youngstown Vindicator, November 5, 1969 via Google News Archive.

[This is a post about a historical public officeholder in Youngstown. Please don’t use this article for online debates about contemporary Youngstown or national politics.]

He was the only mayor of Youngstown I ever voted for, voting for him for his last two terms in office in 1973 and 1975. He is the only mayor in Youngstown history to complete four terms as of this date. And the mayor was a Republican in a city known at that time as a Democratic stronghold.

He was born March 13, 1930, growing up in Youngstown. A graduate of South High School, he served for four years with the Marine Corps, including a tour of duty during the Korean War as a sergeant. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Denver and a Master’s degree in political science from Kent State University. He taught at Youngstown State University and served as a trust officer and then a vice president at Mahoning National Bank, a position he held prior to and after his years as mayor.

For many years, he lived with his mother on Youngstown’s Southside and in 1965 ran for councilman in Youngstown’s fifth ward where he served two terms. In 1969, he became the Republican candidate for mayor, running against incumbent, three-term mayor Anthony Flask. It was a hard fought campaign. At the time, most attributed his victory margin of 3368 votes to the recent riot and shooting at Stop 5 on Poland Avenue at the entrance to Republic Steel when two teamster factions clashed, with one man dying.

Hunter married Pauline Pieton while in office. When their first child was born at St. Elizabeth Hospital, she was greeted with a billboard at Rayen and Belmont Avenues as she drove to the hospital:

Dear Polly: If it's a girl,
think Jo-Lynn; a
good Irish-Polish name...
Jack

As it turned out, they had a boy, named Jonathan David.

While in office, he presided over the much ballyhooed Federal Plaza project, turning parts of Federal Street and Central Square into an outdoor pedestrian mall. After early enthusiasm, my sense is that it was unpopular with most Youngstown residents and Central Square was re-opened to traffic in 2004.

It seems that part of the secret of Hunter’s success was that he acted with integrity and refused to play politics. Councilman Jerome McNally, a Democrat, spoke at Hunter’s funeral of how Hunter encouraged him to enter politics and mentored him, even though they were in different parties. Former Democrat councilman Herman “Pete” Starks paid him this tribute at his funeral:

“I served under four mayors during my 22 years on council, and he was the best of them,” said Starks, who was a pallbearer for Hunter. “He was a man of his word. There was no such thing as Democrats or Republicans with Jack Hunter. He was about taking care of business.” (Source: Youngstown Vindicator)

When ground was broken for the Boardman Expressway in October of 1971, weeks before an election in which Frank R. Franko, a former Democrat mayor was running against Hunter, the two appeared together. Franko had been part of the planning of the freeway and Hunter was able to look past the rivalry in including him, along with former Democrat mayor Frank Kryzan.

Perhaps it was his good fortune to conclude his fourth term as mayor in 1977, a year before the devastating mill closures. He went on to serve ten years on the state board of education from 1982 to 1991, and then again from 1998 until the time of his death. At Hunter’s funeral, Susan Tave Zellman, Ohio superintendent of public instruction said of Hunter, “On any issue, he always asked, ‘Is it good for the children?’ ” (Youngstown Vindicator).

Throughout his life, he was a member of Pleasant Grove United Presbyterian Church as well as a number of business and civic organizations. He was known as a religious man and committed to community service, both in office and out. He died of cancer on June 9, 2001, having been diagnosed only the week before. He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Jack Hunter represented a rare tradition of seeing public office as public service. He described his victory in 1969 as “not a Republican victory but a people’s victory.” In A Heritage to Share: The Bicentennial History of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio, he wrote in 1976:

“I dream of a day when we put behind us the pernicious doctrine of what’s in it for me, or something for nothing, and give wholly and unstintingly of ourselves to make our neighborhood, our church, our schools, our community, a better place for all persons.”

Drawing on his business background, he worked hard to practice economy in government, making the most of people’s tax dollars. Then, he went on to serve Ohio’s children. My son, who graduated from high school in 2003 was one of those who benefited from his educational leadership. Thank you, Jack Hunter, for showing us the best of what is possible for those in public office, and for your service to your country, your home town, and the people of Ohio.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Mementos

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My Grandfather’s Mantle Clock © Robert C. Trube, 2024.

I bet you have objects around your home that connect you with your Youngstown past. The clock above was inherited from my Grandfather Scott who passed away in the late 1970’s. He lived on the Southside. Not only does it work, but if you get close enough, you can still smell the cigars he smoked. It sat on the mantle behind his favorite recliner. It reminds me of Sunday afternoon visits and the stories with which he regaled us.

This is a commemorative plate from the Tabernacle United Presbyterian Church from its centennial celebration in 1959. That’s the church in which I was baptized. I remember the building as being a great place for hide and seek with a winding stairway up to the belltower. It had organ pipes in the front of the sanctuary that I thought looked like giant pencils. The building was at the corner of Wood and Walnut near downtown and no longer standing (a search on Google Streetview shows it still standing in March 2021, but now a vacant lot). The church moved to Austintown in the late 1960’s and continues to minister under the name Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

Stored in a box in my garage is my old baseball glove. I loved baseball even though I played it badly! That glove bears countless hours of pitch and catch with my brother in our backyard, pickup games on the playground behind Washington School and Borts Field. It was the glove I was wearing on our church league team when a runner ran into me and broke my thumb. I thought it was dislocated and played out the game. I last used it in games of catch with my son. It’s stiff, needing a treatment of Neatsfoot, and small by today’s standards.

My old Schwinn Collegiate 5-Speed © Robert C. Trube, 2024.

Hanging in the rafters of my garage is my old Schwinn Collegiate. If you look closely, you can still see the Boardman Cycle Shop sticker, where it was purchased from, as well as the bike license sticker Youngstown used to sell. I bought that bike secondhand from a buddy who had graduated to cars, over 50 years ago. I rode that bike all over Youngstown, all through Mill Creek Park, and even to visit some friends over in New Wilmington (my first experience of getting chased by farm dogs!). It has survived trips on bike carriers to northern Michigan where my son and I went on many rides.

My wife’s childhood watering can. © Robert C. Trube, 2024.

My wife said, “you don’t have any of my mementos from my childhood.” So I threw in this antique watering can that she used to water flowers around her home as a child. We still use it for that purpose and it has held up better than the succession of plastic watering cans we’ve bought over the years!

Why do we keep these objects that our kids may think of as junk for a garage sale? Very simply, they remind us of our childhood in Youngstown–and are sometimes still useful. They are laden with memories, mostly of how good it was to grow up in Youngstown.

I’d love to hear of the mementos you still have in your home from younger days in Youngstown. You can leave comments here, or if you are reading on social media, leave pictures. I’ve probably brought back memories for you. Now it’s your turn!

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — The Great Blondin Walks Above Federal Street

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Photographer unknown, Charles Blondin, Public Domain

Did you watch in 2020 when Nik Wallenda walked 1800 feet on a cable across the mouth of the Masaya volcano, an active volcano in Nicaragua? That was truly scary and unimaginable for this guy with two left feet. Wallenda not only comes from a family of wire walkers but is the latest in a long history of them.

One of the greatest high wire artists was a man known as Charles Blondin or “The Great Blondin” and he filled the newspapers with stories about him during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He was born Jean François Gravelet on February 28, 1824 in Hesdin, Pas-de-Calais, France. He was trained as an acrobat and made his first appearance as “The Boy Wonder” at age 5 or 6. He came to the United States in 1855 and achieved fame in 1859 when he walked an 1100 foot cable stretched across Niagara Falls. He repeated this feat a number of times blindfolded or pushing a wheelbarrow or carrying his manager on his back or on stilts. One time, he stopped midway and cooked and ate an omelet!

In 1869, the same year he rode a bicycle across a highwire in the Crystal Palace in London, to the acclaim of the Prince of Wales, he visited Youngstown. A highwire was strung across West Federal Street from the Excelsior Building (roughly in the same location as the Paramount Theater was located) to the Gerstle Building, just east of Hazel Street. Horse and buggy rigs and spectators gathered in the street below to watch him walk above Federal Street as easily as those below walked on it. This was exciting stuff for the small town of Youngstown. You can see a photograph in this Business Journal article. He can be seen in the middle of the cable in the picture. He stayed in the Tod House during his visit.

He continued to wow the crowds for many years. In 1896, at the age of 72, he crossed a lake in Leeds several times, repeating the feat blindfolded one time, and once again. stopping to cook an omelet on another transit. He died February 22 of the following year, just short of his 73rd birthday.

I would guess that he walked no more than 150 feet or so from one building to the other (John Young laid the street out as 100 feet wide, far less than his other feats. But I suspect few if any in the crowd would or could do what he did, nor any of us reading. This was big news in 1869!

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!