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Eckstein Elementary School operated on this site from 1915 to 1958, serving Glendale’s Negro children from Kindergarten through eighth grade. The school was named in honor of Eleanor Eckstein, who taught the children at various locations in the village during the time of segregation in America. Upon completing eighth grade, Eckstein School’s students were integrated with their white counterparts in grades nine through twelve at Congress Avenue School. The Eckstein School building evolved from a single family dwelling into its present structure through a series of expansions, the last of which was the addition of the gymnasium in 1928. In the mid-1950s Glendale became a part of the Princeton School District. A new consolidated high school opened in 1958, the Congress Avenue School became Glendale Elementary, and Eckstein was closed. This commemorative text was composed by alumni of the Eckstein School.
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One of the outstanding American humorists of the twentieth century, James Thurber was born and educated in Columbus. He launched his writing career as a reporter for The Columbus Dispatch in 1920. In 1927 he began writing for The New Yorker, where the first of his distinctively spare cartoons appeared in 1930. Thurber’s concise, witty prose spanned a remarkable breadth of genres, including autobiography, fiction, children’s fantasy, and modern commentary. Two of his short stories, “The Catbird Seat” and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” are among the best-known classics of American literature. Though hampered by failing eyesight, Thurber published almost thirty books in his lifetime. He and his family lived at 77 Jefferson Avenue from 1913 to 1917; the house, listed as part of the Jefferson Avenue Historic District in the National Register of Historic Places, became a literary center and museum in 1984. Thurber is buried in Columbus’ Green Lawn Cemetery.
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America’s World War I “Ace of Aces,” Edward Vernon Rickenbacker was born in Columbus in 1890 to Swiss immigrant parents, leaving school at age 12 to help support his family. Working for several Columbus automobile companies initiated his love of racing, and he achieved fame as a race driver and team owner between 1910 and 1916. Enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1917, he went to France as staff driver for General John Pershing with ambitions of becoming a combat flier. He managed a transfer to the American Expeditionary Force’s Aviation Instruction Center, learned to fly, and was assigned to the 94th Aero Squadron, the famed “Hat in the Ring” squadron led by ace Raoul Lufbery. (continued on other side)
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Reverend Richard E. Scully, founder of the Cincinnati Goodwill operated a Fresh Air Camp for women and children in the 1930s and 40s. The camp was part of a 100-acre site with vegetable fields, a swimming pool, tennis courts and horseshoe pits. The farm house on site was used as lodging for visitors. Men who worked at the camp received food and other forms of relief for their families. Vegetables produced on site were distributed at the Goodwill location at Ninth Street and Freeman Avenue in Cicinnati. According to family stories, Ruth Ann Eldridge, the frist child of Edison and Anna Eldridge, was buried on the site of the camp in 1933. Rev. Scully had officiated at Edison and Anna’s wedding and was a friend of the family.
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James Norris Gamble, entrepreneur, industrialist, philanthropist and civic leader, is best known for inventing Procter & Gamble’s Ivory Soap, the “soap that floats,” in 1878. Applying a scientific approach, Gamble transformed P&G into a nationally recognized corporate leader and creator of consumer products for a rapidly growing America. Beyond P&G, Gamble financed early efforts to educate freed southern slaves as an original sponsor of the Freedmen’s Aid Society. Later, he underwrote civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune’s work to educate poor African American women. In Cincinnati, Gamble’s philanthropy included endowment of Christ Hospital and the founding of its Institute of Medical Research. Gamble funded completion of University of Cincinnati’s Nippert Stadium in 1924 as a tribute to his late grandson.
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The Cozad-Bates House is one of the oldest remaining structures in Cleveland’s University Circle. The original section, built circa 1853, is the only pre-Civil War residential structure left in the neighborhood. Built by Samuel and Jane Cozad’s son, Andrew Cozad, the first section used locally made brick to form a simple two-story, one-room-deep, vernacular English-I house. The family owned a large portion of the land which is now occupied by University Circle. Justus Cozad, Andrew’s son, returning from the west where he worked as a railroad superintendent and civil engineer, built the later section on Mayfield Road for his larger family in 1872. It is a rare surviving example of Italianate-influenced residential architecture, including a hipped roof, curved bay windows, paired eave brackets, and prominent belvedere. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and designated as a Cleveland Landmark in 2006.
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The National Italian Catholic parish of Saint John the Baptist was founded in October 1896 by the Reverend Father Alexander Cestelli, D.D. Father Cestelli was born in Fiesole, Italy and came to America in 1888 to serve as a professor at St. Paul’s Seminary in Minnesota. In January 1896, founding Rector Monsignor John Joseph Jessing invited Father Cestelli to serve at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio as a professor of moral theology. In October 1896, the Right Reverend John Ambrose Watterson, D.D., Bishop of Columbus, appointed Father Cestelli as pastor of the Italian Catholic community. Sunday Mass was celebrated in the baptistery of Saint Joseph Cathedral until September 18, 1898, when the Most Reverend Sebastiano Martinelli, Apostolic Delegate to the United States, dedicated this historic church.
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Joseph Peake was born in Pennsylvania in 1792 and came to Ohio in 1809 with his parents and brother. They were the first African Americans to settle permanently in the Cleveland area. He was the son of George Peake, a runaway slave from Maryland, who fought on the British side at the Battle of Quebec in 1759 during the French and Indian War. A man with some means and talent, George Peake invented a stone hand mill for grinding corn, a labor-saving device that endeared the Peakes to their neighbors in western Cuyahoga County. Joseph Peake and his wife Eleanor, an African American from Delaware, bought land in the 1840s on the Mastick Plank Road and built a home near this marker. [Continued on other side]
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