Foster and Honus

Before my brain deteriorates any further, and I forget or confuse more details, I would like to write a few stories from my father, G. Foster Doak, as well as those told in my family's traditions.

Dad was born in Carnegie, Pa and raised at 321 Knox Avenue. The house is still there and I asked him several times late in his life if he desired to go down to walk through the house one last time. He declined. Fronted with the traditional sitting porch, with canvas awning, as I recall, it is a modest, 2 story dark red brick home on a small lot with room enough on one side for a walkway. I remember Grandma's davenport, or glider very well, as well as the cinderblock garage in the rear, which you drove into from the alley that runs between Knox Avenue and the next street over. Mrs. Struzka, of Struzka Hardware loaned Grandad the money to build the house and records show it went on the tax rolls around 1910. Dad was born in 1922, so I am not sure if 1910 is accurate. Dad was old enough to remember helping Grandad form and pour the front steps and walkway which must have happened many years after they moved in, and Dad said that Grandad (Edward Dewey Doak) had intended the curly cues on the sides of the steps to resemble the tail of the treble clef in music, for in Grandma's life, music played a large role and she saw that Dad and Aunt Helen had music training. She was a locally famous soprano soloist, chosen to sing at weddings and funerals, and served as music director and soloist in their church - The First Methodist Church of Carnegie, which Dad discovered years later after marrying Mom, that HER family had helped found.

My maternal grandad, Joseph Hodgson Cole, my Pop-Pop, was born and raised in Carnegie as well. His family had farmlands that were developed into a housing tract and are now part of Rosslyn Heights - Sarah and Jane Streets in Rosslyn Heights were named for my family. The family homestead still stands on the hill on Carothers Avenue. Is the first house on the right up on the hill after you cross over Chartiers Creek from Carnegie. (we say 'crick' in Pittsburgh!)

After starting married life and raising a family in 2 different homes in Rosslyn Farms - first Edgecliff and then Terrace, I think - they moved into a 3 story house on Beechwood Avenue in Carnegie, after - 1) Pop-Pop lost most of his money in high risk investments in the Great Depression and - 2) I think, during the war, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and because of the shakes in his hands, had to quit his dentistry offices, reversing their fortunes even further. He bought the Beechwood Ave. home from his uncle who had built it. (That home was destroyed by a fire in February, 1965, I think.) Pop-Pop would have been about 20 years younger than Honus Wagner, but I am sure, Carnegie being a small town, that Wagner would have known Joe Cole and watched him grow up, as well as playing baseball with the young men of the community. From Dad's house, Beechwood Avenue is just down Washington Avenue a few blocks and up Christie St. It is the street where Carnegie Free Library sits, and just down the street a block or so from Memaw and Pop Pop's new home, Honus Wagner lived.

Honus Wagner holds two major places in history - He is considered the greatest short stop in baseball history by many. And, his baseball card is the world's most valuable card - last selling for $2.8 million. He also was one of the first 5 inductee's into the Baseball Hall of Fame. But being a 'Carnegie Boy' and it being a time before multi-million dollar contracts, he was a common sight walking from the bus stop to his home at night, or perhaps, from bar to bar and then home, making the long climb up Beechwood or Library Avenues, to the ridgeline, with Washington Avenue and Main Street down on either side. He retired from baseball playing around 1917, and then worked as a batting coach for the Pirates into the '40s. He also started a small chain of sporting goods stores, which bears his name in Pittsburgh today.

My cousin Sam told me his touch with Honus. (Forgive me Sam, if I get some of the details wrong, but here is how I remember your telling it.) At some point after the war, Uncle Sam and Aunt Sue were living in the 2nd and 3rd floor apartment above Memaw and Pop-Pop Cole's home on Beechwood. Pop-Pop walked down the street to Honus Wagner's one day, and asked him to sign a ball for his grandson. I guess it had an honored place in their household for many years, until Aunt Sue grabbed it up one day to play catch in the street with cousin Earl, scuffing the signature right off the ball. So, Sam has a ball that USED TO have Honus Wagner's signature.

My dad was quite a baseball pitcher in high school. Mom had more than a few articles in her scrapbook, cut out of the Signal-Item, with headlines about Dad, as well as her brother, Uncle Sam, who was their slugger at the time. "Cole-Doak bring another win for Carnegie" - That sort of thing. Dad even pitched a no-hitter or two.

(Another aside - Mom spent many years in and out of body casts due to surgeries to fight an infection in her spine. Dad must have fallen in love with her back then, in high school, and walked several miles every day after school to see her when she was bed ridden. Early in this love affair, there was a big dance coming up and Mom was fitted in a body cast or back brace and talked just before she died at how they had to fit her dress so that it hid the cast. She kept the invitation to that dance all of her life. After a ball practice one afternoon - could have been football where Dad was team manager, or baseball, a fellow player - Chris Keisling, I think, asked Dad who he was taking. He replied, "Annah Cole." and Keisling smart mouthed back something to the effect, perhaps cleaned up a bit by Mom in the telling, "How can you neck a girl wearing a board?" Well, Dad took a quick swing and knocked him on his butt. Then, Uncle Sam, a teammate and her brother, picked him up from the floor, dusted him off, and knocked him BACK on his butt. Keisling complained to the coach, who, after hearing what had been said, told him he deserved it. Man, were those good times or not! Imagine that today?)

So it is natural to imagine that one evening, when hanging out in front of the drug store on Main Street with his buddies, Dad was approached by Honus Wagner, after stepping off the bus. "Are you the boy I have been hearing so much about up at the high school?" Dad replied that he guessed so. "Do you have a set of cleats?" Yes, sir. "Then meet me here Saturday morning with your glove and cleats."

Honus Wagner took Dad out to Forbes Field that Saturday morning - probably about 1939 or 40, and Dad had an opportunity to pitch batting practice to the Pittsburgh Pirates. He said it didn't go well. He watched his pitches knocked over his head repeatedly. He told me that he was just too small in stature to compete at that level. Dad was probably 5'8" or 5'9".

But the better story is one that preceeds Dad's tryout for the Pirates by a few years. Grandma Doak, Bessie Foster, daughter of former Carnegie Police Chief, George Foster, had several brothers, and my impression from Dad is that they were either a bit lame brained or lazy or both. It seems that one of Grandma's brothers drove a delivery truck for Horne's or Gimbel's back then. It was a time when women could take a streetcar into Pittsburgh and shop, and for a few cents more, could have their packages delivered to their homes a few days later, so they didn't have to carry them home on the streetcar. So one of Grandma's brothers was a delivery man. This uncle would stop at Knox Avenue and pick up my dad,who was a young boy then, and take him out on his route, 'letting' my dad run the packages up to the front door, ring the bell, and make the delivery.

One afternoon, perhaps in summer or right after school, this uncle honked to pick up Dad, who had just made a jelly sandwich. He tore out the front door, sandwich in hand, to ride the delivery truck. The first delivery must have been right down Washington Ave, up Christie Street to Honus's Wagner's house on Beechwood because Dad hopped off the truck with package in one hand and uneaten sandwich in the other, and paused before climbing the front porch steps to set the sandwich down. He rang the bell, made the delivery, and ran back to the truck for the next delivery.

Apparently, the next day, Honus Wagner was seen limping around Carnegie a bit, and when asked why, he replied,"Some kid left a jelly sandwich on the front steps and I slipped on it coming down, and fell on my tail."

(Next episode - Aunt Helen's tale of Dad and FDR)