Minglewood - A Rapidly Fading Memory of Wooster's Past

Minglewood - A Rapidly Fading Memory of Wooster's Past

I recently made a trip to East South Street to visit a dilapidated old structure that seems well beyond repair and probably become just another of Wooster's vanished landmarks. Minglewood was built in 1921 and served Wooster for over 40 years, first as a source of ice and coal, then in later years as sort of a convenience store. I remember buying beer from here back when I was a teen (3.2, mind you). That would have been in 1971, so it closed some time after that.

I've included excerpts from an article about Minglewood, written by Elinor Taylor, for the Wooster Daily Record, January 6, 1988.

What Memories The Minglewood Had!

by Elinor Taylor

All you "natives" who lived south of Liberty Street in Wooster back in the 1920s surely had a lot of memories flash before your eyes when you read the recent auction sale ad in The Daily Record.

The old Minglewood Coal and Ice Co. building on East South Street is being sold this week because present owners "have no need for the building." Oh, what interesting recollections come to mind — things I haven't thought about in years. But you have to have been a "south-ender" to remember how important Minglewood, built in 1921, was to our lives.

A Minglewood ad from the 1936 Wooster telephone book

Minglewood now is in ruins beside the tracks at the East South Street crossing

 

Elinor goes on to describe the large chunks of ice Minglewood sold in those days and how they were used in icebox refrigerators. The refrigerators had a compartment for the ice and a compartment for the food. As the ice would melt the resulting water would be captured by a pan that needed to be empties. Evidently, this was her father's job and more than once he 'forgot' to empty it, resulting in a flood that needed to be cleaned up. After receiving some motivation from his wife, he solved the problem by drilling a hole in the floor and running a drain hose to the outside. Elinor said, "We had the greenest grass on West Henry Street."

Ice boxes were common in the 19th and early 20th century and required lots of ice and maintenance

In the winter, Minglewood trucks pulled into our driveway a couple of times each fall and winter, loaded to the top with chunks of coal. I remember how specific my parents were in ordering this coal. It had to be a certain kind of coal and a definite size lump.

Elinor describes the home she lived in as a child as have a coal room. The coal room was near the driveway of the home and had a window. The coal truck would pull up close and insert a metal chute in the open window. The operator would then shovel the purchased coal into the coal room through the window. As it turns out, it was Elinor's job to pick up all of the pieces of dropped coal. Perhaps foretelling the future genius that she became, she had a solution to make the job easier, "It was my job to pick up the small chunks of coal which he had dropped and toss them through the window after he left. I pulled a Tom Sawyer on that one. I called all the neighborhood kids in to help and told them it was a game!"

Here is how Elinor describes a trip to Minglewood:

We never went to Minglewood to get our coal, but we often went there to get ice when the original cake had melted and it was still several days until the ice truck hit our neighborhood again. It was a real treat to hop in the old Model A Ford and go to the ice plant over there by the railroad tracks. The man in charge would open a big door to the refrigerated storage rooms and then, ice pick in hand, he would chop off an estimated 50 pounds from a huge "glacier." With his iron tongs he'd set it on the back bumper of the car and we'd race back home before it all melted (Racing in those days probably meant 25 miles an hour, three blocks west and one block south.)

Fringe benefits of those trips were picking up slivers of ice off the dock and chewing them. It's a wonder we didn't all die of the bubonic plague or some equally terminal disease. We snitched ice from the bed of the truck, sometimes even from the street, while the ice-man was going around to the back of the house (It wasn't stealing because the little pieces of ice would have melted in moments anyhow!)

I spoke with my uncle, Joe Beck, and asked if he remembered Minglewood. He got a big smile on his face as he began to reel off some stories. He remembers as a child going to Minglewood and getting shards of ice to suck on as treats on hot summer days. He also validated Elinor Taylor's story about the water bucket over flowing onto the floor. It appears that it was his brother Vin's job to empty it daily, but often failed to do so, making a mess on the floor.

I asked Joe if he remembers heating with coal. He told me that it was a full time job to keep the furnace going and that you needed to know how to 'bank' the coal in the furnace so that it would burn all night, but not burn out. The banking technique was how you stacked the coal in the furnace, and how you set the dampers.

He told me that the house would get very sooty, and every month or so the walls had to be cleaned. To do this they used a product that felt like clay, or Play-Doh, to wipe the walls down.

Coal heat produced soot that got into and onto everything. One way of cleaning the papered walls of the time was to use a cleaner like this which had the consistency of clay or Play-Doh

The wintertime air around Wooster must have been heavy with smoke from thousands of homes, all heating with coal. In 1939, according to Wooster City Directory of that time, there were six other coal dealers, in addition to Minglewood. Gray & Son, Julius Grosjean, George Klinger, Mike Silver & Company, Warren Snyder and Charles Stelzer.

Elinor Taylor continues her article by describing other food items that were delivered to homes in those days, such as fish, meat and bread. I too remember from my very early childhood bread and milk deliveries. We even had a periodic visit from the Jewell Tea man, who had all sorts of wonderful surprises in his little panel truck.

In closing, Elinor writes:

The old Minglewood on summer evenings was a little like Moore's Coffee Shop is today. Everybody was there. Some people drove, some pulled little wagons to get their ice.

I hate to see these parts of Wooster's past go the way of the horse and buggy, but no thanks — I don't want to eat ice from the street; I don't want to have to empty the drain pan and I don't want to shovel coal.

But I do like to remember, don't you?