The Butcher

Uncle Don is my Mom’s only sibling and recently, we had a lengthy conversation about his Dad, my Grandpa. Uncle Don’s voice was strong, clear and moved quickly as he talked. I asked him to tell me how my Grandpa became a butcher. He wasn’t too sure how that happened, he must have apprenticed with someone and then the rest he was happy to share. My Protestant Grandpa ran his butcher shop in a neighborhood that was 90% Catholic. A few times a shop would try to make a go of it just a few houses down the street on the opposite side but never made it because Grandpa had, “A price for every pocketbook,” gave meat away to the poor, helped the widows and the elderly. Uncle said in the depression days the widows and the poor would come in with their bag and they would ask for just a little meat and Grandpa would tell them to give the bag to him and he would go to a counter in the back and fill up the bag with sausages and other meats that he had set aside for them.

My Grandpa’s father was not a Butcher. He was a master carpenter and built the shop for his 19 year old son, my Grandpa. Uncle Don went on to say, "Here's something that most people don't know about your Grandpa, he was a great baseball player. He was a pitcher and an out fielder. He was a home run hitter. He was on the level of Babe Ruth, shoot, he could have played with Babe. My Father was made an offer by a team but his Father had just built the butcher shop for him and he didn’t want to hurt his Father’s feelings, so he went to work and built a business.” I asked him to tell me about the shop. “It was at 3198 W. 48th Street and in the beginning there was only ice for the refrigeration and the counters were made of marble to keep the meat cool. The Iceman pulled up in the middle of the night with his horse drawn wagon, look inside the ice shoot to see how much ice to leave and that’s how it was done in those days. The Iceman used a new special carbide lamp to look down the shoot. It was like the lights they used in the picture shows," Uncle Don remembered.

Grandpa was also the neighborhood peace keeper. Uncle Don told me that one day a lady came in from the neighborhood crying because her Priest told her that the new rule was that people in one area of the neighborhood were going to have to start going to a new Catholic church. My Grandpa went to the phone, he had two lines which was a big deal, and after talking with the Priest, he told the woman that it was fine that she could continue to go to her old church. He not only settled Church disputes, he was the sound of reason among neighbors, family and customers. He also helped his brother in-laws both get into the business. Grandpa finally left the shop when he turned 70. For 51 years he was a vital strength in each progressing generation in the little neighborhood in Cleveland. Although the sawdust sprinkled on the wood floors is long gone, I would love to go back to the neighborhood and just stand where he stood for 51 years and feel his spirit. It has to still be lingering. When you put so much of yourself into a place, a community, it never really leaves. Before we ended our phone call, Uncle Don closed by saying, “My Father, your Grandpa was a very good man.”

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