Biography of Dick Bock (by Hazel, 1989)

DICK BOCK (from album compiled by wife, Hazel, probably around 1989).

Born on November 8th, 1911, in Sandusky Ohio, he was baptized about 4 months old in a gown that was subsequently used for all his children and grandchildren (except Beth who was born in Tehran). It is said that the gown was made by his grandmother. We have a picture of his mother (about 9 months old?) in what appears to be a baptismal gown. Also pictured are his maternal grandparents, Elizabeth and Ed Miller, and his great grandfather, Issac Miller. His mother always called him Richard. We have pictures of Dick with his grandmother Christine Bock and his father. There is a childhood picture of his mother, Kate, with her brother, Elmer, and sister, Mabel. (Elmer eventually became a professional baseball player with the New York Yankees and other teams.)

Dick grew up on Lockwood Avenue in Sandusky, Ohio. His father was a shipping clerk. He liked to fish and took Dick and Kate with him every Sunday. Since he had to accompany his parents every weekend, he never wanted to fish again after he left home. His mother’s best friends were Ida Harbauer (husband Art was the head of a ketchup plant that was later bought out by Heinz) and her sister Rose Schieffly (husband Leo was a policeman). Neither of these women had any children so they were like second and third mothers to Dick. They would give Dick whatever his parents couldn’t afford.

We have a picture of him in the 2nd and 3rd grade class at Sycamore School. There are various pictures of Dick with members of the family as he grew up. He was athletic and joined several teams in high school: football, basketball (league champs in 1927-28) and track. He excelled at the high jump and had a pole vault set in his back yard to use for practice. Dick was elected to his high school student council in his senior year. During the summer he liked to visit Ida’s house on Cedar Point Road which fronted on Lake Erie. He had a job driving a speedboat from Sandusky to Cedar Point for the tourists. One fall he spent repainting the Cedar Point merry-go-round in preparation for the next summer. His mother worked at the dance floor taking tickets. He graduated from Sandusky High School in 1929.

All during his grade school and high school days, Dick loved to draw cartoons and experiment with other kinds of art. Also, in the summers the Bock family enjoyed annual reunions on Lake Erie. The first was in 1919 at Winobaga, the second at Cedar Point, the fourth at Monroe Piers, and the fifth at Ruggels.

He went off to Ohio State to study to become an electrical engineer (as advised by his Uncle Ralph who had studied that field at Ohio State earlier and was the only college graduate in the immediate family). He pledged the Theta Kappa Phi fraternity in 1929. But the studies proved “boring” and his love of drawing won over so he dropped out of Ohio State and began classes at Keans Art School in Toledo, Ohio. While in art school he joined the Myoptic Sketch Club in Toledo. He apartment in the same building as Keans School was like an art gallery with his paintings. While in Toledo he met and dated Hazel Mae Malkmus. They married (in Tiffin) on April 13th, 1940, and set up housekeeping at 364 ½ S. Prospect St. in Marion, Ohio. He had a job as commercial artist with the Howard Swink Advertising Agency. Their first daughter, Judy, was born in Marion.

In 1943 he joined Akron Advertising Art and they moved to Akron. The rented a house on Lamont Street in Goodyear Heights and he commuted to work on a city bus. Their first son, Jim, was born while they loved there. In 1945 they moved to 66 S. Forge Street near downtown Akron. Judy started Kindergarten at Spicer School, and Dick could walk to work and see her safely to St. Bernard’s school when she entered 1st grade there.

In 1945 he was drafted into the Army (WWII) and left for boot camp on the train. But within a few days he was back home because he failed the physical. His eyes were the reason he was rejected.

About this time Kate gave up driving and gave her car to Dick. After that the family enjoyed Sunday drives around the area every weekend. They would visit the train station, the airport, the model plane club’s flying field, etc. Sometimes on the weekend Dick would drive out in the countryside to sketch; sometimes he would play golf. In 1948 their second daughter, Kathy, was born. The family belonged to St. Bernard’s Catholic Church.

When Ida Harbauer died in 1952 she bequeathed a baby grand piano to Dick (that she had purchased from the Cedar Point Crystal Gardens Ballroom where it had been used for many years by famous bands of the era). He had a keen ear for music and taught himself to play many melodies even though he couldn’t read music. Dick loved the big band sound that had been so popular as he grew up in the 1930’s. He also loved Lake Erie and the family spent many summer vacations in a cottage beside the lake in places like Port Clinton, Ruggles Beach, Vermillion on the Lake, etc.

About 1950 Dick was diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis. In 1951 the family bought their first home and moved to 268 E. Ido Avenue in Firestone Park. The family joined St. Paul’s Catholic Church and the children attended school there through eighth grade. In 1954 their second son, Ricky, was born. Also in 1954, Dick and Hazel Mae attended his high school 25th reunion in Sandusky. In 1962 Dick retired when it became too difficult for him to walk safely. For several years he swam daily at the downtown Akron YMCA for exercise. In 1972, at the age of 60, he died.

Fourth of July

We’re thinking of you Mom. Born 94 years ago and a real sparkler, you were! How we loved the picnics and reunions that we celebrated most years on your birthday. Funny how times change. Today people want to celebrate with destination mega-parties, more hoop-la over turning one or fifty than those living to 100 ever got. But what I remember with the most fondness are the years we would meet with Nana & Jim, Bebe & Karl, Martha Jane and her family and our family at a little park outside of Elyria (it was deemed a more-or-less half-way point and unlikely to be crowded). We would play badminton, catch or maybe some short-team baseball, Frisbee, what else? Uncle Dick would cook the hamburgers and hotdogs. Everyone would exclaim over Bebe’s homemade baked beans and Nana’s potato salad. Who made the deviled eggs? There usually were a few boxes of sparklers for the kids. Dad wouldn’t tolerate firecrackers – he always remembered a neighbor child losing an eye to a firecracker when he was growing up. After Bebe and Karl were gone it seems like some years we met in Tiffin at Martha Jane’s house and some years in Akron on Ido Avenue. Once your children started to establish households it seems like the picnic moved from Media to Ravenna to Doylestown at different times over the years. In the 70s and 80s most celebrations ended by driving to a nearby park to watch the fireworks before we parted. But wherever we met the day was always looked forward to for months in advance, and reminisced about for months afterwards. We could almost document the family history by assembling a series of Fourth of July photographs. There is no doubt in my mind that simpler is better. Thanks, Mom, for all you gave us: everything that counts, everything that money can’t buy.

WWII

As a father of a new baby born a few days after Pearl Harbor, I doubt Dick was anxious to march off to war. In 1943 he moved his growing family from Marion to Akron to take a new job. Could it be that during these years of the war he was working in a job that had some deferment from the draft? At 29 years old was he too old for the draft? I don’t know. But in 1944 or 45, at 32+ years old, he went off to boot camp. Was he drafted or did the enormous sacrifice of friends cause him to look beyond his family responsibilities and volunteer? I don’t know. But I can remember standing at the door, weeping with Mom as he walked off to the train station. I think Nana and Jim might have been there also, to help mother cope. But not too many days or weeks passed before he returned, a health reject. Not much was ever said about this until much later. In what appeared to be a very fit, healthy and handsome man, it seems that the army doctors saw something abnormal in his eyes – something that would eventually balloon into multiple sclerosis. At least that was the way I heard Dad tell about it.

This summer Kathy shared some pictures and mementos that she had found in Mother’s picture albums. One was a letter that Dad’s friend, Ernie, wrote to Kate from the front lines – saying how bad war conditions were and hoping that Dad would not have to join the army.

Music – the Piano

Hazel Mae, growing up in the flapper era, loved popular music and played the banjo and the piano. She took piano lessons for several years from her Uncle Herbert (everyone referred to him as Uncle Bootie), Nana’s youngest brother. She also enjoyed classical music and went to ballets and concerts with us in the 1980s.

Around 1952(?) when ‘Aunt Ida’ died, Dad inherited a Baldwin baby grand player piano. Ida and Art had a home on the shores of Lake Erie, not far from Cedar Point. They (along with Ida’s sister Rose and her husband Leo) were not related to us, just very good friends of Kate; childless couples who adored Dick like a child of their own. The piano had been used at the Cedar Point ballroom at the time when big bands played for the summer crowds. The piano became Mom and Dad’s prized possession although it dwarfed our little dining room. Jim and I were immediately signed up for piano lessons. Uncle Bootie sent sheet music and Mom started practicing and regaining her skills as a pianist. And Dad spent hours teaching himself to play by ear the melodies of his favorite songs. He never did learn how to read music but eventually learned enough chords that he could pair up with his pecked out melodies that his music was presentable and recognizable. It takes an enormous amount of concentration and effort to pick out a tune when you have never played an instrument or read sheet music beyond the church hymnal. I’ve often thought that this hobby provided a lot of enjoyment and diversion from his health problems for the last 15 years of his life.

As Dad’s balance became more impaired, Mom became more and more concerned that one day he might fall under some part of the piano, knocking the extremely heavy piano on top of him, and she would not be able to lift it off and help him. Finally she convinced him that it should be sold. Can anyone remember when that happened?

Music – Big Bands

Dick especially, but Hazel Mae also, loved swing music from the Big Band era. He had a large collection of 78s (the purist’s media for the original recording) stored in a large glass enclosed display case. He organized the records into albums that held maybe a dozen or more (20?) of the 78s. He would decorate the outside of each binder spine to show the name of the artist represented by the enclosed records. He favored Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Artie Show, some of the Dorsey tunes, etc. He fancied himself a drummer and had a little practice pad, sticks and wires that he would play along with the songs.

I can remember as a young teenager, maybe 8th or 9th grade, going out with Dad on Saturday mornings to scavenge the used records bins at Clarkins on South Arlington Street and other stores. These would be mostly 45s. The records had been removed from jute boxes around town – rotated out with fresh product. Dad would let me pick out a few pop tunes from the 50s to buy and he would search for some big band music to add to his collection. Once I got my driver’s license (I qualified at 15 because Dad was disabled and Mom needed help driving) I became his designated driver for these excursions.

Other sports and recreation

Although Mom and Dad followed the Cleveland Indians baseball and Cleveland Browns football teams, I don’t remember them as being avid fans who had to stop everything else to listen to or watch the game. Maybe I’m wrong??

Mom and Dad were both good swimmers and enjoyed this sport. They shared their love of water and sun with us at our Lake Erie beach holiday each summer. They were our first swimming teachers. While growing up, Mom took us out to Sandy Beach on Main Street Extension (?) on [one of the] Turkeyfoot lake(s) for formal Red Cross swim lessons during the summer. And Dad swam laps daily at the downtown Akron YMCA as a measure of physical therapy after he was diagnosed with MS.

But I’m willing to bet that if we could ask them, they would both claim that dancing was their favorite thing to do. When we lived on Forge Street, and before MS took away this pleasure from them, I remember that if there was a babysitter taking care of us on Friday or Saturday night, it was probably so they could go out dancing: Myers Lake, Chippewa Lake and the dance hall that predated Borie’s Bowling Alley on Market Street where Big Bands would play when they came to town.

Hazel Mae enjoyed golf and racquet sports

I seem to remember that Mom took up golfing for a while in her 60s but I’m kind of vague on this. It runs in my mind that she might have used a set of clubs that Cindy didn’t need anymore. I suppose she played with a woman’s league but I’m not sure. I don’t remember hearing that she played golf when she was younger. I do know that she enjoyed watching golf and tennis matches on TV.

She had enjoyed tennis since high school, although there might not have been such a thing as a girls’ tennis team back then so she probably played informally with friends?? I can’t remember ever hearing that Dad played tennis or seeing Mom play with friends when I was a child like I can remember Dad playing golf with his friends. But I think she got a kick out of trying to teach us how to play the game as we children got old enough. I can remember trying to play tennis with her at the Firestone Park courts in the mid-1950s. And those old wooden racquets were sooo heavy compared to today’s equipment. She took great pleasure in watching Rick take up the sport and play well on the Garfield HS team.

I do remember both Mom and Dad playing badminton with friends at summer picnics and even after Dad couldn’t participate anymore you could usually talk Mom into joining a game. For several years we had a ping pong table in the basement at Ido Avenue. It was tough to play down there because the heating pipes were only slightly above our heads so shots that bounced too high would boomerang off the pipes at crazy angles. Seems like Dad could play a ‘mean game’ even when he was holding on to the table with one hand for balance. I think Mom was pretty good too – but I don’t remember playing with her as much.