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Walter Ehrlich St. Louis, MO. |
I guess we begin something--as that great sage Casey Stengel once proclaimed--at its beginning. |
I was born on December 20, 1921, at 1812 1/2 Carr Street (second floor rear) in the area commonly referred to as "The Ghetto"- - not in a pejorative sense, but the Saint Louis city newspapers as well as within the Jewish community - - because that is where so many immigrant Jews lived, in the near north side, between roughly Delmar on the south and Cass Avenue on the north. (Our northern side overlapped with the notorious Irish Kerry Patch - - and many fights broke out there among youngsters from both sides.) We then moved "west" briefly, in rooms over my father's retail fish store in the 5700 block of Easton Avenue - - now Martin Luther King Blvd. Shortly thereafter we moved back "east" to 769 Walton Avenue, in the midst of what was by then a "western ghetto," north of Delmar, in the area now identified as the "Central West End"- - but in the poorer section. It was a four-family apartment, one Irish Catholic, one "negro"- - as was the acceptable and commonly used term then - - and our family. We all got along beautifully - - we lived together, played together, laughed together, cried together - - and I am sure that contributed to my rejection all through my life of religious or racial prejudices. There I started kindergarten, in the Washington Elementary School. There I started Hebrew School at Shaare Zedek Synagogue on Page and West End - - my mother was determined that I should becomea rabbi - - to which I eventually rebelled because of her constant pushing me, - - and eventually went instead into teaching - - which, after all, is what a rabbi is supposed to do anyway. I also remember the near panic of the area when the terrible tornado of 1927 hit nearby. |
Forward |
When I was 7 years old, we moved again, to the upstairs quarters in a single flat at 5831 Roosevelt Place, in the far northwestern part of St. Louis, between Goodfellow and the city boundary with Wellston. There I transferred to Laclede School into the 3rd grade. I graduated from there in January 1938, and went to Soldan High School - - at that time what U. City became in the late 1940s and the 1950s. I received a wonderful education, but never a big shot - - my grades when I graduated averaged about B or B-. Probably my Soldan "legacy" worth mentioning is that I was the sports editor of the school's weekly paper. Since I couldn't start at Washington U. until September, I went for one semester (January to June) into a special post-graduate program at Hadley Vocational School, where I took courses in typing, shorthand, and |