Although I don't mention most of them on the blog, I get emails almost every day from people asking me if I have any information about something they remembered from being a kid.
I received an interesting email like that from Fritz Kuenzel in late
February. The name seemed familiar, since I remembered that my brother Ken had played
trumpet in a Musicians Union band that included two gentlemen named Hans and
Fritz Kuenzel. (It was hard to forget them because the Katzenjammer Kids of
comic strip fame have the same first names.)
Fritz’s email revealed the musical connection – and brought
up a bit of Cascade Park trivia as well.
Fritz wrote, “I was reading one of your articles on Cascade
Park at Elyria, Ohio. As a young boy in the 1960's, my father played in a local
musicians union and they would periodically do concerts during the summer
months at Cascade Park.
“My parents would take us along and we would play in the
park playground during the band concerts. There used to be a very old 1930's
era fire truck that sat in the sand in the playground for kids to play on. I
have fond memories of climbing and playing on it.
“I was wondering, what ever happened to that old fire truck?
What manufacture and year was it? Was it an old retired Elyria fire truck?
A friend of mine who grew up in Elyria also remembers the old fire truck
and we talked about it last week on the phone.”
I traded emails with Fritz, who responded with more
information about his father. “My Dad, Fritz R. Kuenzel, played tuba in the
band,” he explained. ““I was named Fritz N. after him. His twin brother Hans
played trombone in Dixieland bands, both are 82 yrs. old. Hans named his son
Hans also.”
A quick online search revealed that the Kuenzel brothers
have had a long musical career. An item in the April 23, 1945
Chronicle-Telegram about the Avon Lake High School Spring Music Festival mentions that
“Hans and Fritz Kuenzel will play a duet, “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.”
Another Avon Lake High School concert mentioned in the November 25, 1947 C-T
notes that “Hans and Fritz Kuenzel, members of the band, will play a trombone
solo and a tuba solo, respectively.”
But getting back to the fire truck. Researching it was more
difficult than I thought, and I only found a photo of the playground (with no truck) and few recent online mentions of the truck in the
Chronicle-Telegram.
Cascade Park playground photo courtesy of The Great Elyria Time Machine website |
An article from the C-T June 13, 2014 included this reminisce.
“When I was a kid, my grandparents lived just above Cascade Park on Bath
Street, and one of the biggest thrills of my kid life was getting to play in
the park. This was before anything in our world was scary or dangerous, so it
was ok for parents to let their kids climb all over a rusted out fire truck
with jagged chrome edges and steel springs sticking up through the seats.”
Since I had come up short in my research, I decided to ask
Rick Kurish for his help. Rick is a great researcher who has helped me many times.
If anyone could
come up with something about the Cascade Park fire truck, he could.
And he did!
3 comments:
What a nice thing to see that Hans und Fritz are still kicking around! They were great guys, fun to work with, and amazing musicians.
I just came across this photo while I was looking for images of Cascade Park. I have such good memories of that park, as our dad would take us there to play and hike. This was back in the 60's, and I remember the slides in this photo! So nice to see an image that recalls those outings.
-Pat
I have the chrome dome of the fire engine and would like to donate it to the MetroParks Ralph Wittenbrook 440-225-0502
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