A Memory Tour of Huntsville (1)

In July 2018 my brother Richard and I did a "memory tour" of Huntsville places we remembered from growing up in the city. These included previous homes, schools and other sites. We drove around for several hours on a Saturday and Sunday. Mom went along on the first day. Details are below and in a second blog post.

Of course, some of the old haunts are gone: El Palacio, The Mall, Heart of Huntsville Mall, Shoney's, A Good Book Store, etc, etc....Well, a LOT of the old haunts are probably gone...You can find information and photos of most of those places at the wonderful rabbit hole, Huntsville Rewound. 

You can read the second post about this tour here.

So, forward to the past...

This house is located at the corner of Lincoln Street and Eustis Avenue, facing Lincoln, in downtown Huntsville. In 1954 when dad got a job as a civilian employee with the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal, he moved from Gadsden to Huntsville and boarded in this house for several months until mom and I joined him. 

The house has been nicely restored like so many in this part of the city.

When we moved to Huntsville in 1954, the town was booming. For about a year or so we lived in Redstone Park in Farley, which was a housing project built for use in World War II. In January 1956 the Army purchased the property for $8,911.50 and returned it to military use. We moved into the new development around Cloverdale Drive in 1955.  

We went by the Cloverdale house on Saturday, so mom was along for that portion of the tour. When we stopped in front of the house, a young man in his twenties must have seen us and came out to check on us. We explained we had once lived in the house and were just driving through the old neighborhood. He said his family had been there since 2000 and asked when we lived there. We told him from 1955 until about 1960. His response? "Wow!"

Some time back I did a post on the subscription to children's magazine Jack and Jill that we had while living on Cloverdale. Going through a batch of these I noticed two different address numbers for the house over the years. You can read the details at "Cloverdale Drive, 'Jack & Jill' & Me"

Here I am with dad holding younger brother Richard in the front yard of the Cloverdale Drive house in 1959. The neighborhood has changed a lot from this time when there were only a few shrubs and small trees around the houses. You can see more photos here, and my blog post on the great February 1958 snowfall is here. 

When we lived on Cloverdale Drive I attended Morris Elementary School, which is now Morris P-8. 

On Sunday Richard and I headed out for part two of the tour. We started in our old neighborhood of Lakewood in northwest Huntsville just off Memorial Parkway. 

In the 1960's I went to Cub & Boy Scouts at what was then a Presbyterian church just up the hill from our house. To the right behind the big tree you can see one end of a long building. 

Our house was on Lakeview Drive on the left as you start down the hill. A gentleman was sitting on the porch, so we didn't want to be too intrusive. 

We moved to 4606 Lakeview Drive in 1960; here's what the house looked like about that time. You can see some family photos taken inside the house and one of the back in the early days here. 

Here's the view today down Lakeview Drive just past our old house. I sure don't remember all those trees when we were riding bikes down that hill!

The field of dreams below our old elementary school doesn't seem to have changed much. 

Here are the front entrance and sign for Lakewood Elementary School at 3501 Kenwood Drive NW. Gee, I wonder how many times I went through those doors? Richard did that even more times than I did. I didn't start here until third grade, but he did all of elementary school in this building. You can read a history of the school which opened in September 1959 here. 

When I was in the 5th grade at Lakewood I was one of the "patrol boys" who helped young students on and off buses and out of other vehicles to make sure they made it through the front door. We got to wear helmets and sashes and thought we looked pretty cool.

A perk of this program was the free movies. The downtown Lyric Theatre would let us in for free on Friday after school, so we watched about any movie playing. Oddly, the only one I remember at the moment is the Jack Lemmon and Carol Lynley vehicle, Under the Yum Yum Tree. We probably didn't appreciate much of this "sex comedy" based on a Broadway play. 

Sadly, the Lyric closed in December 1978 and burned in January 1982.   

TO BE CONTINUED

U-Haul's Alabama SuperGraphics

In October 2017 and May and June 2018 I had the very great privilege to make three long trips in 20-foot U-Haul trucks--one from Colorado Springs to Birmingham, and two from Edmond, Oklahoma, to Jacksonville, Florida. Luckily I was just the passenger along to keep the drivers awake. But I did get to help load and unload!

U-Haul has a program to decorate its large trucks called "SuperGraphics". These images highlight various places in the U.S. states and Canada. Created in 1988, the program includes four Alabama graphics which you can see below. 

Maybe you'll be lucky enough someday to rent a U-Haul and get an Alabama SuperGraphic. Unfortunately, we did not!  

You can read more about the graphics from the artist, Steve King, here. 

This graphic is the only Alabama one on U-Haul's website that has a description. Featured is the area of Bibb County where 61 rare plant species have been discovered. 

Fort Rucker 

[I presume; no identification on the U-Haul site]

U.S. Space Camp

This truck on one of our trips featured a South Carolina SuperGraphic. 

Blue Star Memorial Highway Marker in Cullman

In my regular trips from Pelham to Huntsville to visit mom, I often take a break at the I-65 rest stop south of Cullman. On one stop last year I noticed the plaque below designating something--perhaps a specific stretch of I-65--as "Blue Star Memorial Highway." What's up with that, I wondered?

Well, a bit of research quickly found some history. The idea started with the New Jersey Council of Garden Clubs in 1944 when 8,000 dogwoods were planted along US 22 to honor members of the armed services in World War II.  A blue star banner or flag can be used to designate residences where a family member is serving during a conflict. That 5.5 mile stretch of highway was designated "Blue Star Drive" by the state legislature in January 1945.

Later in 1945 the National Council of State Garden Clubs adopted the program and began extending it nationwide. The program is continued today by that organization under its present name, National Garden Clubs, Inc; details are here. Two other types of markers have been developed in recent years. 

Alabama has a number of them; a state-by-state listing up to May 2015 is here. From what I could determine from that list, this particular marker was dedicated on August 27, 1990. 

The "Blue Star Memorial Highway" now extends over 70,000 miles in 39 states. 

Birmingham's First Mardi Gras

In Alabama we associate Mardis Gras celebrations with either our own city of Mobile, where it all began, or New Orleans, where the elements of parades, floats and throws and masked balls were created. Yet in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Birmingham tried to create a Mardis Gras tradition. You can read the details and see various photos and invitations on the wonderful BhamWiki site. 

Roaming around the Alabama Mosaic site recently, I came across two relevant newspaper articles. The first one from an 1886 newspaper describes the city's first celebration, the "German Mardis Gras". The second article, from 1959, recounts details of that first Mardis Gras in the Magic City. Two photos from the 1897 parade are included below the articles.

After the 1886 event, no more celebrations were held until 1896. Annual events lasted through 1901. The BhamWiki article notes several current annual events in Birmingham tied to the Mardis Gras season, but the grand effort is long gone.

You can find various other photos of and invitations for those early Birmingham events on  Alabama Mosaic. You can find a schedule of Mardis Gras parades in Mobile, which begin February 2, here. 

Birmingham Age 9 March 1889 

Source: Birmingham Public Library 

Birmingham News 1 February 1959

Source: Birmingham Public LIbrary 

Biddle Warren Cycle Company float in the 1897 parade; the float won second prize.

Source: Birmingham Public Library

Mardis Gras parade in Birmingham in 1897

Source: BhamWiki

Who Was James S. McLester, M.D.?

In August 2017 I posted an item about the Joseph H. Woolf, M.D., Family Practice Center in UAB's Community Health Services Building at 930 South 20th Street just up the hill from the campus. I've been seeing a family physician there for some years and wondered about Dr. Woolf, so that post covers what I found.

UAB's Family Medicine Clinic has since moved to UAB Highlands across campus, so I no longer visit the building at Southside. In this post I wanted to share a bit about the physician whose portrait decorated the entrance and may still for all I know.

Details of Dr. McLester's life and career can be found in the poster that accompanies his portrait and an article by Dr. Carter Smith published soon after McLester's death. Both are included below. I do want to emphasize some of the highlights.

After graduating from medical school at the University of Virginia in 1899, McLester spent time in postgraduate studies in Europe. Upon his return to Birmingham in 1902, he accepted a position as pathology professor at the Birmingham Medical College. When that school closed in 1915, he moved to the School of Basic Sciences at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. In World War I McLester served in France as the commanding officer of Evacuation Hospital #18.

He was named Professor of Medicine while there and held that title until his retirement in 1949. When the new four-year medical school opened in Birmingham in September 1945, McLester was named the first Chair of Medicine. 

McLester died on February 8, 1954; he is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. He operated his private medical practice from a "charming" house located where the Community Health Services Building is now located. The portrait was commissioned by former students and residents and was first located in the medical library. 

He served as president of the state medical society in 1920 and the American Medical Association in 1934. During his academic career he published over 100 articles on nutrition and metabolism. McLester wrote two textbooks, Nutrition and Diet in Health and Disease (first published in 1927) and Diagnosis and Treatment of Disorders of Metabolism (1935).  He also contributed many chapters on nutrition to other textbooks. 

Dr. McLester's portrait during his days as a faculty member of the Birmingham Medical College

Source: UAB Archives

This portrait hangs in the entrance area of  UAB's Community Health Services Building. I'm unable to read the name of the artist in the lower right corner; there also seems to be a year after the name.

Birmingham Medical College in 1912

Source: BhamWiki

Source:

Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association [01 Jan 1954, 66:lxi-lxiii]

Birmingham Photo of the Day (68): City Hall Burns in 1925

Birmingham's second city hall opened in 1901 on the site of the original one, the southeast corner of 4th Avenue North and 19th Street. By the time it was replaced by the current city hall in 1950, many tenants had occupied the building over the years in addition to city offices. The first public library operated there, and a gymnasium was available to citizens. By the 1930's retail stores had included a market, a drug store, shoe repair, cafe, music company, optician and jewelry and barber shops.

The building suffered extensive fire damage on two occasions. On April 23, 1925, the tower and the public library's collection on the fourth floor were destroyed. The other floors were not seriously damaged. The tower was not replaced; and the library reopened in 1927 in the building that now houses the Lynne-Henley Research Library containing archives, Southern history materials, and more. 

A fire on June 23, 1944, also caused damage to the fourth floor that housed city comptroller and engineer offices.

The first photograph below shows the 1925 fire in progress. Other photos show the library damage and the second city hall building as it looked in 1909. From a cursory look at Google Maps, parking facilities appear to be at the location now. 

Photo by O.V. Hunt 

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives & History

These two photos show the fourth floor library after the 1925 fire.

Source: Birmingham Public Library

Birmingham City Hall ca. 1909

Source: BhamWiki

Finding Bruno's in Fort Myers

People of a certain age in the Birmingham area will remember the Bruno's grocery store chain. From 1932 when Joseph Bruno opened his first grocery in the city until around 2012, the firm at its peak operated as many as 150 stores under the Bruno's, Food World, Big B Drugs and other names. At its height 14,000 people were employed in the operations.

Bruno had retired by 1977, and his brother Angelo and several other executives were killed in a plane crash in 1991. In 1995 the firm was sold to the first of several new owners, and the decline began. After two bankruptcies, the remaining locations were sold to Belle Foods in 2012. Belle entered bankruptcy the following year, and Bruno's and its other stores slowly disappeared until all were gone. Details of the long, sad tale can be found on the BhamWiki page linked above.

Dianne and I were recently on a Florida trip that included a weekend visit to the Fort Myers area. Our hostess drove us around the area along the coast to show us the endless parade of mansions and tourist rentals and retail shops. I had not been to that part of the state since the late 1960's when my family spent summer vacations in Naples. Dianne had never been that far south in Florida.

At some point we passed the convenience store below on McGregor Boulevard in Fort Myers. Naturally my first thought was how did this remnant of Bruno's end up here? But I guess it's just one of those weird coincidences, and the Bruno here is not the Birmingham Bruno. Ah, well.... 

Source is here. I was unable to get a photo myself. 

Bruno's logo in the 1960's

A later logo

Source for both logos: BhamWiki