Mahoning Valley Forum

Youngstown & The Mahoning Valley => Youngstown Memories => Topic started by: sfc_oliver on October 09, 2009, 08:19:45 PM

Title: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: sfc_oliver on October 09, 2009, 08:19:45 PM
OK, Anyone remember Fresh Air Camp and the Greenman? I think I was last there in 59 or 60.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: Why?Town on October 10, 2009, 07:29:17 AM
Wow! pollution must have been really bad back then to have to go to a camp for fresh air! ;)
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: jay on October 10, 2009, 07:40:00 AM
There is some truth to your observation.
As a child, one relative lived by the tracks near the steel mills and was exposed to uncontrolled mill pollution and smoke from passing locomotives.  The Fresh Air Camp was located next to Mill Creek Park on the west side (up wind of the mills).  Children were sent there for recreation and to breathe "fresh air."
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: Towntalk on October 10, 2009, 08:33:21 AM
The Fresh Air Camp was authorized in 1910, so does anyone know when the first group of children got to use it?

Interestingly one of the reasons why Volney Rogers got Mill Creek Park started was because of the air pollution in Youngstown due to the many manufacturing plants here.

Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: Mary_Krupa on October 10, 2009, 11:01:44 PM
I went to Fresh Air Camp for one year in the sixties. I have great memories of the camp and absolutely loved going there. I remember their little library which had some old Nancy Drew books in it that I got to read.

It was a special place.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: john r. swierz on October 11, 2009, 08:38:09 PM


     The Green man lived near New Castle Pa.  His brother and him both worked as Pole lineman for the Electric Company.  The story goes that one night during a lightning storm they were working on  a pole when lightning hit his brother. He went up to assist his brother and got jolted by lightning.  We used to bring him a carton of cigarettes  in the late 50's.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: iwasthere on October 12, 2009, 01:37:52 PM
jrs are you saying you contributed to someone's health problems? :o is that a moral upstanding way that a lawabiding civic servant should act? :o :-X
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: sfc_oliver on October 12, 2009, 03:09:34 PM
It's alright, when I was 6 years old at Fresh Air camp they used the green man to scare 10 years off my life.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: iwasthere on October 13, 2009, 10:34:56 AM
sarge you are in the minus years of your life. ;D
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: sfc_oliver on October 13, 2009, 11:30:49 AM
And that running downhill is a lot harder than running up.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: sfc_oliver on October 13, 2009, 07:11:06 PM
Ok so I made it to zombie land today and it was not at the Church off 224. According to my neighbor it is on New Castle road. between 1 and 2 miles into PA. there is a big down hill as you come up to the Bridge which sits at the bottom of a valley where there is a creek. That area is known as Zombie Land.

Now, the legend as he told it was that somewhere before or near 1900 there was a family who lived near the bridge who had a genetic trait of having a bit larger than normal head. The kids of the day took to calling them Zombies. The entire family would come out and chase them away throw tomatoes and whatever at the kids to run them off. the house is gone, I was told that my neighbor remembers finding the foundations once as a kid but could not remember where it was exactly today.

Anyway I am going to try to post pics of the bridge and the eternal flame area. Only about 25 yards or so from each other.

Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: sfc_oliver on October 13, 2009, 07:12:56 PM
Oh yes the Eternal flame still has some gas in it as when we lit it it did give us a whoosh. Sort of like the old days when we would light an empty whiskey bottle.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: iwasthere on October 14, 2009, 02:56:50 PM
the steep hill's name is Skyhill goes into rt 224.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: sfc_oliver on October 14, 2009, 03:42:30 PM
Yes and if you travel west on sky hill it becomes New Castle road and brings you out almost back to Wilson Ave at Rt 616.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: iwasthere on October 15, 2009, 11:38:10 AM
they say all roads lead to Rome does that include Skyhill road? :o
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: sfc_oliver on October 15, 2009, 11:59:01 AM
In this case all roads lead to Youngstown.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: iwasthere on October 19, 2009, 11:52:30 AM
i wonder if one is lost in this neck of the woods will the zombies give the right directions to go to Rome, or Lowellville or Ytown? ::)
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: sfc_oliver on October 19, 2009, 05:24:29 PM
I suppose that depends on if you can dodge the tomatoes they are throwing at you while giving those directions.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: Towntalk on October 19, 2009, 05:31:10 PM
That brings back memories.

The boys in my neighborhood when I was a child use to raid gardens at night to gather green tomatoes and the next evening have a tomato fight with the boys from another neighborhood.

That was back in the 1940's during WW-2.
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: iwasthere on October 26, 2009, 01:39:37 PM
oh no what kind of hospitality is that for a foreigner? ;)
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: sfc_oliver on October 26, 2009, 02:30:47 PM
We raided a few gardens when I was young, But all the food went home. Mom never asked where it came from.......7 Kids on a mechanics pay........
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: iwasthere on October 27, 2009, 05:16:33 PM
sarge mom knew and other moms of the neighborhood knew but they were happy that it was food that was taken instead of someone's personal property or life. moms of my neighborhood knew what the boys and girls were up to in their little turf of the world too bad it does not hold true in today's society. :-X
Title: Re: Fresh Air Camp.
Post by: Towntalk on October 27, 2009, 07:32:15 PM

Ours was a different world iwasthere, If their fathers caught their boys raiding gardens, they got the strap (literally) where it was most effective.

The families in our neighborhood shared the products of their hard labors with each other because there was a war on and money was scarce, so that food had more importance than it does for folks today.

The ladies would get together for canning bees and the results were split up between them.

If any of the kids came home with bags of vegetables out of the blue, you'd better believe that they'd better have a good explanation, because their explanation would be checked out, and if it didn't pan out, they got the strap when their dad got home.

Yep, those were the days when parents were strict and the neighbors kept out of other people's business. Better dad's belt than a visit from the Chief of Police.