Archive for March, 2014
THE HAT – CONSIDER IT PASSED -TO YOU
Part One-https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/the-chair-of-wom-pass-the-hat-part-one/
Part Two– https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/the-chair-and-the-captain-cvsi-lorain/
Part Three– https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/the-captain-and-the-hat-cvsi-lorain/
Part Four– https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/catching-up-with-the-hat-cvsi-lorain/
Part Five– https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/the-hat-and-the-tour-guide-cvsi-lorain/
Part Six– https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/the-hat-the-recent-history-charleston-village-soc/
Part Seven-https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/the-hat-time-for-passing-if-you-agree/
We now come to our annual report of 2010
http://www.loraincounty.com/charlestonlorai/feature.shtml?f=339
We continued with our efforts for improving this neighborhood and with it the image of Lorain. We received the Lorain County Beautiful Award for Settler’s Watch.
Photo Lisa Miller
2011 Annual Report
AND where once there was a little insignificant (to the onlooker )white frame house is now , thanks to volunteers and contributors, a tribute to one of the most significant commanders of the 20th century.
It took 70 years for Lorain’s Admiral Ernest J King’s birthplace to be so recognized. With the co-operation with the City of Lorain and sister organizations, Charleston Village Society managed to do in 10 months what had not happened in decades of talking .
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/fleet-admiral-king-the-round-up-coverage-charleston-village-lorain/
The area has received Lorain County Historical Status as has the Charleston Pioneer Cemetery.
Annual Report 2012-http://www.loraincounty.com/charlestonlorai/feature.shtml?f=358
This year found the start of Eric Barnes Heroes Walk as the project to honor the young men from Lorain who had given their young lives so that freedom continues.
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/eric-barnes-heroes-walk-the-update/
This project honoring the fallen from Iraq and Afghanistan , we believe, to be unique in Ohio.
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/a-walk-of-heroes-settlers-watch-admiral-king-tribute-site/
Photo Roger Brownson
The walk connects the very history of Lorain’s earliest maritime history to those of the contribution by her native son Admiral King with gardens along the way giving tribute to her sons of valor.
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2012/11/12/dedication-ceremony-eric-barnes-heroes-walk-the-coverage/
Annual Report 2013
http://www.loraincounty.com/charlestonlorai/feature.shtml?f=363
The Power of People https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/charleston-village-annual-report-people-power/
Just a pictorial reminder of what this area looked like just 4 years ago
THE PASSING OF THE HAT !!!!
IF YOU AGREE WE HAVE DONE WHAT WE SAID WE WOULD DO – IF YOU AGREE WE HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE PLEASE THINK ABOUT DROPPING AN AMOUNT IN OUR ‘CAPTAIN’S HAT’ – THE PROJECTS TAKE UPKEEP, AS MENTIONED IN WHAT IS NEEDED TO BE DONE TO THE TREE LAWN CARVINGS THIS SPRING. NO AMOUNT IS TOO SMALL, THOSE 5 AND 10’S AND 20’S ADD UP
There will be no spaghetti dinners, steak fry or brunches, for our “fundraiser”. We will not add to your waistline but will gladly lighten your wallet. 100 percent of every donation goes to the projects as designated, we are a 501c3 .
This year we also have to not only continue with phase two of Eric Barnes Heroes Walk, The Charleston Pioneer Cemetery and the carvings at Settlers” Watch but Veterans Park is a disgrace and needs attention.
These projects all take money and manpower. If you can help with either a cash donation, in kind donation or blood sweat and humor please contact us
Donations made out to Charleston Village Society
C0/ 1127, West 4th Street
Lorain Ohio 44052
cvsilor@yahoo.com – 440-246-6046 ( further information)
The Hat – Time for Passing- if you agree
Part One–
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/the-chair-of-wom-pass-the-hat-part-one/
Part Two– https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/the-chair-and-the-captain-cvsi-lorain/
Part Three– https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/the-captain-and-the-hat-cvsi-lorain/
Part Four– https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/catching-up-with-the-hat-cvsi-lorain/
Part Five– https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/the-hat-and-the-tour-guide-cvsi-lorain/
Part Six– https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/the-hat-the-recent-history-charleston-village-soc/
Part Six of this series broke down our Annus Horribilis of 2005. I wont go into such detail for the ensuing years just our Highlights
The 2006 Charleston Village Annual report can be found here http://www.loraincounty.com/charlestonlorai/feature.shtml?f=252
We raised the funds for the ” Archway Gates “ and had them made and installed for Charleston Pioneer Cemetery.
Stopped the importing of RSO’s for profit and one of the founding members of the Lorain Neighborhood Watch Council and more all with funding from the public , in kind donations and volunteers.
The annual report for 2007 found us even busier http://www.loraincounty.com/charlestonlorai/feature.shtml?f=292
researching the saving of Veterans Park in 2006– we found this now, City of Lorain, Charleston Village and Black River Township ( settlement) was actually going to celebrate its 200th anniversary. In order to keep record and history “straight ” we chaired and formed a Black River Bicentennial for August 2007- 140 volunteers and dozens of organizations came together. Proclamations speeches and all sorts of happening took place on that August Day, including the first of the carvings at Settlers’ Watch You can find photos of the events here:
Diane Medina and Charleston Village Society won the Lorain County Beautiful Award for the Charleston Pioneer Cemetery
Community Revitalization Award – Any projects that are community driven and impacts neighborhood revitalization such as: Habitat for Humanity or downtown revitalization Projects:WINNER Charleston Cemetery, Lorain
Annual Report for 2008
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/charleston-village-annual-report-2008/
Once again with donations and recycle funds ( the wrought iron fences around the Charleston Pioneer Cemetery were installed and the flag was raised
As always all funds designated for each project received 100% of that designation
2009 report found here –
http://www.loraincounty.com/charlestonlorai/feature.shtml?f=330
I was away dealing with my own Annus Horribilis and the loss of my son who designed our logos, street signs and so much more , but the Co – chairs took on board my jobs and commitments as well as their own commitments.
We held the opening ceremony on August 1 2009 for Settler’s Watch
http://www.locophotogblog.com/?p=390
following the design plans once of Gary Fischer who also designed the cemetery gates
and those wonderful volunteers also found time to celebrate Lorain’s 175 birthday party
To Be Continued
The Hat – The Recent History – Charleston Village Soc.
Part One
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/the-chair-of-wom-pass-the-hat-part-one/
Part Two
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/the-chair-and-the-captain-cvsi-lorain/
Part Three
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/the-captain-and-the-hat-cvsi-lorain/
Part Four
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/catching-up-with-the-hat-cvsi-lorain/
Part Five
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/the-hat-and-the-tour-guide-cvsi-lorain/
The Hat has learned the group/ organization of Charleston Village started with neighbors sitting on a front porch 25 years ago having a glass or two of wine. Twenty one years ago that same little group had grown and volunteers worked for and received a 501C3 status. They quietly tried to improve the neighborhood, Lorain’s oldest neighborhood, worked with city government and sister societies.
2005 found the society front and center on more than one front. Our Annual Report ( with a hat tip to Queen Elizabeth the 2nd ) called Annus Horribilis ( Horrible Year)
http://www.loraincounty.com/charlestonlorai/feature.shtml?f=222
Can it only have been a year ago, it seems so much longer for those of us that have been at the “front”? The winter of 2004-2005 was drawing to a close; it had been a long, long, snowy and cold winter. This organization was looking forward to spring.
Renee , our Portside Chairperson the head of the Lorain Litter Council was gearing up her volunteers for the “Adopt a Spot program”. Rich was involved in the fundraiser for the Lorain Arts Council, Tracy heading up the block watch program.
Diane was busy getting the cemetery on 6th street cleaned and archived and hopefully the start of a fundraiser to at last put in the entranceway and hardscaping for the resting place of Charleston Village’s Founding Fathers.
OUTCOME = Project accomplished archways and fencing installed headstones being refurbished a flag pole installed – history uncovered and the recipient in 2009 of Lorain County Beautiful Award and also Lorain County Historic Landmark Status. Project still ongoing
We were all looking forward to pursuing our particular interests when on a cold February night the first round of body blows- “The Shawnee Shame of Lorain”,
sign for a dealers school dates back to an abandoned plan by a Native American tribe to open a casino.
Cheri Campbell/Flickrhttp://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2009/10/at_the_recession_resources_fai.html
Pd article on the beginning of that fiasco can be found here
Cashing In Easter Shawnee article
or the giving away of our lakefront to sovereignty for slots. Months of research and becoming educated in all things to do with gaming followed. http://www.aproundtable.org/news.cfm?NEWS_ID=755&issuecode=casino
OUTCOME= We fought long and hard knowing this was not a well thought out “Plan” but one that would get the Mayor as he stated “to the table with the big boys” .
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gambling-alert—roundtable-calls-for-investigation-of-eastern-shawnee-scam-54122737.html
Tribal casinos are tearing apart the profitability of the existing CASINO business because tribes have no obligation to share profits with local communities or the state. Any agreements made today can be easily broken by
the tribes in the future.The only people who would profit from such an enterprise are a handful of Eastern Shawnee Indians in Oklahoma, the wealthy developers backing them and a Republican consultant named Terry Casey
http://www.aproundtable.org/news.cfm?NEWS_ID=210&issuecode=casino
It also came to naught- one because of “sovereign Land and another reason being National Capital One were “guilty of Securities Fraud ”
http://www.aproundtable.org/news/newsindividual.cfm?ID=1088&issuecode=casino
and the ‘option on the Port Land had to be renewed – thankfully Lorain City Council now aware of what “sovereign land” and all the facts denied this option.
http://www.aproundtable.org/news.cfm?NEWS_ID=756&issuecode=casino
If that wasn’t enough April when we should have been looking past the showers to the flowers found us dealing with the question of “Blight” “Eminent Domain” and all that entails with the “development “ of our neighborhood. Could we lose our homes on Portside, our history? Meetings with planners, blight study officials, attorneys, other neighborhoods, even a trip to Washington.
THE OUTCOME- THE FIGHT FOR THIS (a bit of a politicians fiasco not only thanks to the Kelo Case can you blight a neighborhood for “private development” but the URDA could not exist with a CRA area which this area had been since 1979. Also even though Foltin had them review the area twice ( at what cost) it didn’t meet the percentage of blight) But it was a struggle found here in the posts Bill of Blights
Part One and Two
Bill of Blights 1&2
Bill of Blights Part Three
Bill of Blights Part three
May 2005. The assault of two young girls on their way to the Middle school on 6th street, found us knee-deep in crime statistics, RSO and meetings on how to make our community safer. Young people breaking into homes I broad daylight. The abandoned homes and vehicles making it “safe” for the perpetrators of such acts to do their worst. More months of research, meetings and discussions. Murders and shootings. All the while the Shawnee are planning to lead the parade!
OUTCOME: It too, like the original Charleston Village died aborning , although we had initial success well….. read for yourself in the following link and below the quotes from that link .
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2013/05/28/an-open-letter-ward-2-needs-you/
We partnered with various groups ( 40 individuals in a Community Safety Forum ) to focus on a target area in order to turn the tide such as the Pilot Program for Community Safety, eventually centered in South Lorain under Father Thaden .
However, that particular pilot program failed after an initial success . The approach was one that needed a five pronged approach for success , Lorain Police Dept, Lorain Building Dept ( City of Lorain) Clergy and Social Service Agencies Lorain City Schools , Community ( neighborhood) surrounding the target area at the center of which was Lincoln School.
Sub police station – Lorain City Police
Pre School – Lorain City School
Information and Referral – El Centro
Employment – El Centro
Financial Literacy/ Housing program – El Centro
Senior program – El Centro
Youth Leadership program – El CentroOUTCOME = Once again the effort failed due to the lip service of the then City of Lorain Administration- Mayor Craig Foltin and the withdrawal of the Lorain City Schools bricks and mortar.
http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2007/08/14/lorain-schools-taking-back-lincoln/“
Then came the floods, people dying being trapped because of rising water that had nowhere to go. Basements filled with raw sewage. More research, meetings and discussions. Although it has to be said Charleston Village did not suffer the brunt of the floods, but will suffer the brunt of the “cure” should the latest plan be implemented. !
Project “Dry Basement” –
http://www.loraincounty.com/lorain/agendas/2007/july_30_2007_packet.pdfOUTCOME= ONCE AGAIN HARD QUESTIONS WERE ASKED AND ANSWERS WERE FOUND WANTING – this gave rise to the Wom Blog -THE PROJECT DIED A QUIET DEATH- NEW SEWERS AND SYSTEMS ARE BEING IMPLEMENTED
Our little historic park at risk of being bulldozed for private development started a whole new round of meetings, discussions, research, bad feelings and insults. CVSI wasn’t even aware (along with Lorain City Council) that these “plans” were being implemented. The shock and awe of “plans for progress”.
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/veterans-memorial-park-fini/
OUTCOME: We saved the Park and the process of who is who and who takes responsibility is still ongoing
The latest of course is the laying waste to our trees, 19 of them for a start on 2nd street, because First Energy is in our opinion technology challenged. A tree falls in Parma and the whole of the eastern seaboard etc is blacked out. The solution gets rid of the trees! More discussions, meetings and diatribe will be taking place on this.
OUTCOME = SETTLERS’ WATCH 2009
And THAT WAS JUST 2005!!!!!!!
WHEW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you can find the rest of the report of 2005 here
http://www.loraincounty.com/charlestonlorai/feature.shtml?f=222
TO BE CONTINUED …………………
The Hat and the Tour Guide- CVSI- Lorain
A ghost of history remaining
Part One
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/the-chair-of-wom-pass-the-hat-part-one/
Part Two
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/the-chair-and-the-captain-cvsi-lorain/
Part Three
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/24/the-captain-and-the-hat-cvsi-lorain/
Part Four
https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/catching-up-with-the-hat-cvsi-lorain/
The Hat curious as to what all the fuss was about with this Lorain’s oldest neighborhood and now very attached to Frank checked out the information on the brochures desk. He found the “Guided Tour Book” and realized “he ” would be available ( if he stuck with Frank) to give guided tours :
The Hat (tip) to Frank Sipkovsky and the Outreach and Promotions Committee of Charleston Village Society- should you wish a guided tour and a walk through a “history of settlement ” please call 440-960-2301.
To be continued ……….
March 3rd- feeling the energy- Chris Ritchey
The domain in the garden past the pond
is a place I don’t frequent- it was and is your father’s “area’ and like his basement not a place I care to go or for which to take responsibility. The Weeping Willow hid a lot of his sins- but that too had to go last spring.
I still kept to my end of the garden and closed my eyes to the time it was taking to get the garden back into some sort of order. The truth be told I no longer had the “energy to fight the blight” that is the male idea of “need.
But one day , late last summer , I could stand it no longer and I had to do “something’ to tidy up. I moved the wrought iron trellis which had been leaning up against the garden wall. I positioned the trellis by the side of the garage over the curve in the pathway by the boat. Hopefully this would hide the “boat” from my view, a job the Willow did so well. I took the grape vines that were in abundance and tied them up on to the trellis. Then, as I precariously stood upon the step-ladder, I turned toward the garage to tie in the next side of the trellis. My eyes became fixed , not really taking in what I was seeing – they saw where you had left your name in paint on the garage wall.
Unexpected, as it was, the effect was instantaneous I felt my knees buckle , my breath catch, and those eyes that have cried so many days and nights filled once more with tears. I was transported back from the present once again, in the memory of my mind, to another place and time where once again we walked, talked, hoped and waited in vain for a cure ………..no work of art ever touched me so profoundly as that signature .
Oh! the explanation is simple enough you were , that spring , helping your father to paint the side of the garage – but everything went wrong – cancer and chemo put paid to painting but not before you had taken a brush and used your energy to write your name in the old paintwork.
Your father told me that he couldn’t bring himself to paint over your name so there it has stayed these many , many months, unbeknownst to me, as I never venture past the pond if I can help it. .
I can still see the energy you used in the writing of your name , the pressure of the brush to wood, the adding of paint to the brush as you proclaimed “you were here at that time” .
Not being an artist or an art critic, I was always a little perplexed when I would hear ” the energy of the brushwork”- but here it was – not a Van Gogh or even a Boccioni http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Boccioni
or Julia Watkins https://www.facebook.com/pages/Energy-Artist-Julia-Watkins/69027658560
Chris Ritchey
Just a young man on a warm spring day leaving his mark on the garage before he painted over it -something that never happened. Yet, seeing your name, left there these many months brought home once more how I much I still love you , a love that grows and doesn’t diminish , miss you, your laughter and your energy
My heart is in pieces and I miss you more than life itself………. and yes it is “Hard” harder than I ever thought possible to bear.
Artwork Chris Ritchey
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