How a
60-year-old story connects three generations of fathers and
sons
BY STEVE
RAMOS
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Tómas Ramos, circa 1915.
| The family
story that my father, Thomas "Butch" Ramos, recounts most
often takes place in 1943, when he was growing up in
Youngstown with his four older brothers and three older
sisters. It's a story about his father, Tómas Ramos, a Mexican
immigrant who came to the Midwest 12 years earlier to lay
track for the B&O Railroad.
My father's tale revolves
around immigrants, their sons and daughters, the factories
that attracted them to Northeast Ohio and the close-knit
neighborhoods they called home. What happened between a father
and his young son almost 60 years ago reflects a distant time
and different values.
Tómas Ramos died in March,
1969, and his obituary was straightforward. There was a list
of surviving kin, but no personal stories.
My father is now the last of
Tómas' children still alive, and many of the family's stories
are lost. The reasons why his father and mother left Mexico
for the United States in the 1920s are vague.
Those questions, and others,
are best left for future chapters. For me, it's this one story
that resonates most around Father's Day.
Youngstown, 1943 Nine-year-old
Butch leaves the house early, just like he does every weekday
morning, for Jefferson Elementary School a block away. His
world is the Westside neighborhood of Brier Hill, named for
the large Youngstown Sheet and Tube (YS&T) steel works
located at the base of the street. The area, mostly home to
working-class Italian and Irish families, has corner
groceries, playgrounds and movie theaters.
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Photo By Steve
Ramos
| My
father's family didn't have much money, and all of the
children, young and old, were expected to work. Still, he
remembers his childhood as being comfortable and safe. The
most memorable flash of violence involved his sister Mary and
her husband, Antonio.
"My sister Mary's husband was
a drinker and he beat her when he got drunk," my father says.
"She lived in the next neighborhood down the hill, Monkey's
Nest. One day, I came home from school and she was in our
living room. She was beaten and bloody, and my mother Joséfa
was tending to her. They were nervous because my dad was due
home and they weren't sure what he would do. So I decided to
stick around and see what happened."
My father remembers his dad
coming home on the bus, right on time as usual. When he saw
his daughter, he asked her what happened, speaking in Spanish.
Then, after she answered all his questions, he turned around
and left with Mary to speak to his son-in-law at their home
down the hill.
"I wanted to see what
happened, so I followed right behind my dad," my father tells
me. "He was a private man and didn't say much. He just kept
walking, and I kept up. The walk to my sister's house took
about 15 minutes. We went inside, and my father spoke to
Antonio. My dad told him, 'Your personal problems are your
personal problems, and that's between you and your wife. But
if you were out drinking and you were doing this because you
were drunk, well, that's another matter and you'll have to
deal with me. I didn't raise my children to be beaten by
drunks.' "
There was no talking on the
walk back to the house on Superior Street in Brier Hill. Once
they got home, Mary returned to her husband. For the time
being, things went back to normal.
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Photo By Steve Ramos
|
Present-day Youngstown
| In the 1930
census, the U.S. government listed Youngstown as a Major
Metropolitan District. On maps, it was designated by a big red
circle, equivalent to Atlanta, Houston, Dallas and New
Orleans. But many people today have no idea what a vibrant
city Youngstown once was.
In 1930, Youngstown had a city
population of 170,002, with 364,560 people living in its
metropolitan area. More than 4,000 Mexicans lived in Ohio at
the time of the 1930 census, less than the Mexican population
found in neighboring states Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.
Of those Mexicans, 279 called
Youngstown home, a jump from the 64 Mexicans listed there for
the 1920 census. At the same time, Cincinnati claimed 35
Mexicans and Cleveland was home to 743.
By 1930, Youngstown was a
melting pot for new immigrants. Almost 7,000 Italians and
4,500 Czechs lived there. More than 32,000 Youngstown
residents couldn't speak English, with 7,002 people speaking
Italian and 236 people speaking Spanish.
These immigrants came to work
in area factories. In 1939, there were 18 steel works and
rolling mills in Youngstown that boasted a combined employment
of 46,547 workers. An additional 3,455 people worked in the
railroads. The city ranked right behind Pittsburgh and Chicago
in steel production.
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Photo By Steve Ramos
|
Thomas "Butch" Ramos on the
bridge where he watched President Franklin D. Roosevelt
make a 1944 campaign stop.
| One of
Youngstown's largest steel plants was YS&T's Brier Hill
Works. Founded by Youngstown resident James A. Campbell,
YS&T purchased the Brier Hill Steel Company and the Sheet
and Tube Company of East Chicago in 1923.
Signified by the towering
black chimneys around its two blast furnaces, the Brier Hill
Works boasted 84 by-product coke ovens, 12 open-hearth
furnaces, one by-product recovery plant, one blooming mill,
two round mills and other steel departments. Until it shut
down on Dec. 30, 1979, the Brier Hill Works was a
self-contained steel-making city.
Youngstow, 1943: My father
remembers that a few months had gone by since that first
afternoon when his sister Mary arrived beaten at their
doorstep. The second time she came seeking help, Mary's
bruises and welts were even bloodier than before. Her
1-month-old son, Anthony, also had scratches on his arms.
"My mother was visibly nervous
because she didn't know what my dad would do," he says,
speaking calmly. "Like before, I stuck around to see what
would happen. My dad arrived from work. He looked at my sister
and asked who did this to her. Then he went to his room,
picked up his pistol and tucked it inside his belt. My mother
was upset, but she didn't say anything. He walked out the door
and I followed.
"The men in the neighborhood
knew something was up because they all got off their porches
and headed towards Monkey's Nest. A big crowd was waiting for
my dad outside Mary's house.
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Photo By Steve Ramos
|
The current site of Tómas Ramos' first home
in Youngstown
| "I never
knew what to make of my dad because he was so quiet, but I
think the men in the neighborhood really respected him. He was
a rancher in Mexico and was a good shot with a pistol. A few
years earlier, one of his nephews came to Youngstown to visit,
got drunk and trashed his aunt's house. My father went,
scolded him and told him to take the next train out of
Youngstown, and he did it."
By the time they reached
Mary's house, the crowd of men had grown visibly larger. They
stood in the street outside of Mary's house. Antonio was
inside. Tómas climbed the steps and pounded on the door.
"He yelled into the house,
'Antonio, I know you're in there,' " my father says. "'
Remember what I told you. Now come out and face your
punishment like a man.' "
Currently, Youngstown has seen better days. Most of its steel plants are closed,
and the local economy has yet to rebound.
On a recent visit, my father and I leave my parents' home
in Struthers, a working-class suburb, and drive to Youngstown's
Southside in search of his parents' first home. Tómas Ramos
was a laborer for the B&O Railroad who inspected switches
as long as his health permitted the strenuous work. After his
hip began hurting, he continued working, trimming the shrubs
and trees around the B&O passenger station.
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Photo By Steve Ramos
|
The view looking down Brier Hill's Superior
Street into the adjoining Monkey's Nest
neighborhood.
| Their first house was owned
by the B&O and was located near the station on Todd
Avenue. In 1930, the street was home to Wards Bakery, where
they sold day-old banana cakes for five cents a piece, and
Isaly's ice cream plant, home of the skyscraper cone.
A nearby railroad trestle provided access to their family
garden located on public land along the banks of the Mahoning
River. From the trestle, alongside the city water
works, my father watched President Franklin D. Roosevelt
make a campaign whistle stop in 1944.
No signs of the Todd Avenue house exist today. The lot is
filled with concrete blocks, bricks and rubble. A sign offers
a straightforward warning: "Keep Out."
"My dad seldom talked about his family," my father says.
"He was the silent type. His only confidante was my mother. I
always had one question for him: Why did he leave Mexico? I
still don't know the answer."
Like the house on Todd Avenue, the neighborhood that was
Monkey's Nest is also gone, its houses and businesses replaced
with warehouses and factories. The street signs are intact,
but little else indicates that a bustling community once
occupied this area.
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Photo By Steve Ramos
|
Jefferson Elementary School in Brier
Hill.
| More importantly, the Brier
Hill Works, the lifeblood of the neighborhood, is gone. At one
time, Monkey's Nest residents walked to the Fox Theater, the
Gay Time Café and an Isaly's corner store. A bus garage and a
storage warehouse have replaced them.
People outside Youngstown have never heard of Brier Hill. For the people who grew up
there, it remains a source of fond memories and lasting
friendships. Superior Street is still paved with bricks,
although its A-frame houses are looking fairly worn.
My father points to the grass lot where his childhood home
once stood. Like many things in this neighborhood, the home is
gone.
On the porch of a nearby house, a man pokes his head out of
the door and asks what we're doing.
"I grew up on this street," my fathers answers, pointing to
the empty lot. "I used to live in a house right here."
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Photo By Steve Ramos
|
Thomas "Butch" Ramos visits Evans Field, the
baseball diamond where he watched Triple A ball as a
child.
| I take pictures of the vacant
plot of land, and we continue our walk. Jefferson Elementary
School still operates. The lot where my father played baseball
has been turned into a community garden. On its fence, a
rusted "Brier Hill" sign offers a connection to the past.
Further up the hillside, the concrete bleachers at the
Evans Field baseball diamond are worn and crumbling. Still,
you can tell that at one time it was a beautiful park.
"We used to watch Triple A ball here on Sundays," my father
says. "This stretch of houses used to be nothing but Italians.
They were all 'Goombas.' On Saturday morning, you could smell
the fresh bread the women were baking in their backyard brick
ovens."
Youngstown, 1943: At that time, Monkey's Nest was a bustling
neighborhood. Thousands of workers crossed the pedestrian
bridges daily into the Brier Hill Works. Smoke poured from the
steel plant's smokestacks.
Black soot covered the nearby homes and businesses. The
grime was a sign of the area's prosperity.
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Photo By Steve Ramos
|
Youngstown's B&O passenger station is undergoing repairs to
reopen as a restaurant.
| Outside Mary's home, the
crowd of men waited silently in the street while Tómas banged
on the door. My father remembers waiting alongside the men. He
also remembers his father reaching for his pistol.
"My dad waited another minute, shot out the lock, then
pushed the door open and went inside," he says. "Antonio had
crawled out a back window, and nobody ever saw him again.
"The men dispersed, and my dad and I walked home. He didn't
say a word to me. Later, we would hear about Antonio from time
to time, but he never came back to Youngstown."
Back home in Cincinnati, I download Internet images and
articles pertaining to Youngstown's past. I read 50 Years in Steel, a history of
YS&T from 1900 to 1949, and update my knowledge of the
B&O Railroad by flipping through History of the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
At their Struthers home, my parents embark on a search for
old photographs of Tómas Ramos. They find nothing. There
weren't many pictures taken of my grandfather, not even during
his final years when he lived briefly at our house in
Struthers.
As my father says, he was a private man.
I remember my recent trip with my father. From Fellows
Riverside Gardens, on a hilltop overlooking Youngstown,
I saw Todd Avenue and Superior Street in one glance. A small
steel plant operated in the former spot of the Brier Hill
Works. A nearby historical museum celebrated the city's
industrial heritage.
Youngstown holds on proudly to its steel-making heritage. My father has
memories of his own. And, as with many sons, through the years
his stories have become my stories, too.
My father stays connected to his old neighborhood by
volunteering with the Brier Hill Scholarship Committee. He
helps raise college money for children of Italian descent
whose families are connected to the old neighborhood.
I never saw Brier Hill in its heyday, but I feel like I've
been there. I wasn't there when my grandfather confronted an
abusive son-in-law with pistol drawn, but I can picture the
details in my mind.
I've always asked my father if he was surprised that my
grandfather would allow such a young boy to tag along on such
a mission. After all, there was a strong chance of violence.
To this day, my father hasn't entirely answered that
question regarding a father, a young boy, pistols and frontier
justice. Like his father, he also has a private side.
For the time being, his stories will have to suffice. ©
E-mail Steve
Ramos
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