MARJORIE RICHMOND Jacobs

One of my most favorite friends at Brush High. His spirit will live on, free again.

Mickey, I found your article so interesting and insightful. It brought back many memories for me, too, but from a different perspective.

My mom and dad grew up in East Cleveland. My dad went to Shaw and my mom went to Collingwood High School. When they married, their first house was on Grosvenor Road in Cleveland Heights where my sister and I were born.
We moved to Wrenford Road (at about the same time that you moved to South Euclid)
when it was a dead-end street. As I recall, there were 16 houses and about 50 kids. We were separated from the rest of the area by what became Bexley Park and the continuation of Wrenford Road. All of our families were Catholic or Protestant. In a sense, we were a segregated neighborhood also, but not on purpose. It just happened that way. What I remember, though, is that I didn't just have 2 parents...I had 16 sets of them. If something happened at the top of the hill, I could be sure that my mom and dad would know it by the time I got to the bottom, where I lived.

I never thought anything about going to Rowland and being in the minority (although I do remember my mother being mortified when I came home from Kindergarten singing the Dreidel Song.) You were all just my friends, and I, like you, never realized we were our own little group until we went to Brush and found out there were different groups with different backgrounds joining us.

I was one of those 5 kids you mentioned that were at school on Jewish holidays. I remember a teacher once asking me what I was doing there. He thought my surname was Richman instead of Richmond, and that I was Jewish. (Ironically, I also married a man by the name of Jacobs, but he wasn't Jewish either.)

The girls (Laura, Lynn Stone, Barbara Berman, others and I) formed a club and would meet at each other's homes. At one meeting I remember Barbara falling down stairs, and we were all quite worried about her.

I remember taking dance lessons when in 6th grade, and dancing with Igor? Can't remember his last name but he was about 6" shorter than I was. I owe him a debt of gratitude, though, as he was a very good dancer and I learned to dance pretty good too. I'm still dancing every chance I get.


I also remember a friend asking me to his Bar Mitzvah. I didn't know what that was so I said I couldn't come. Then I had a talk with my mom who explained what that was, and I was sorry I missed it.

All in all, though, I felt very lucky to grow up where I did. Our little street was a wonderful place to play and we all were like family. We had street picnics, Father-Son baseball games, we would rake leaves together and then everyone would jump in them. We had lemonade stands to make spending money, put on skits for our families, and play Red Rover in the street. In winter we would sled ride into Belvoir Blvd. It was a great place to grow up, and I was blessed to have some really good friends at Rowland and in South Euclid!

Hey, Ray! Glad to see I wasn't the only one a little slow coming to the party. How in the world did you wind up in Las Vegas? It's nice to be where it's warm and sunny, isn't it. I'm down here in Texas on opposite sides from Bill Kish.

Posted on: Sep 06, 2015 at 2:26 PM

Dennis, I came in on this whole thing a bit late, but will be sending a donation towards the remaining funds needed. I should be able to send it out the week of the 14th. Thanks for your expertise on this. Ironically, I thought the school needed a sign back in 1965! Only took 50 more years! Best regards, Margie (Richmond) Jacobs

Posted on: Aug 29, 2015 at 11:31 AM