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Delray Stories |
Growing Up in Delray |
as rememberd by |
Bill Kemeny
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I too have many fond memories of old Delray as I grew up.
All four of my grandparents immigrated to America before WWI and eventually settled in or around the Delray area. My paternal grandparents István and Julia Kemény owned and ran the Hinky Dink Bar and boarding house on Jefferson. When I was a child, my parents and I would drive over to the bar every Sunday to visit. All my dad's brothers and sisters did the same, so it was a family gathering every Sunday then. All the men would stay down in the bar and drink and play cards while the little kids and women would gather upstairs in the living quarters.
Here are some of the things I remember from those days:
As we drove down Jefferson on a sunny day, folks would be out strolling in their Sunday best and gypsies would be playing folk music on the corners.
There was a large round cast iron horse drinking trough in front of the Hinky Dink bar. Also, at that time, there was a street cleaner who would broom and clean Jefferson. He pushed a two wheeled cart in front of him as he cleaned the street. He wore a white uniform and had a peg leg.
Grandma would take me to Holy Cross church when I was there. The priest gave his sermon from the pulpit that is still there right above the pews on the right side. I was baptized at Holy Cross and am still a member of the parish. We attend Mass there whenever we are in town. I have already told Fr. Barnabás, the current pastor, that I want to be buried from there as well.
After grandfather died, my dad took over running the Hinky Dink bar for a good many years and, then, my aunt Margie took it over. It has since burned down. Next to the bar was Budai's shoe repair shop. You don't see too many of these any more. Above the bar, there were rooms that were rented out to single men workers most of whom worked across the street at Solvay. As a teenager, I had to help my mother clean those rooms every Saturday.
I also remember as a child that there used to be many dances, dinners, and grape festival events that we would attend. At one of the grape festivals, I still remember my dad raising me up to steal grapes that were hanging overhead. The custom was that if you got caught stealing, you had to pay a fine that was used for charity or to support the event.
Delray was not just a Hungarian neighborhood, but over by St. Johns church was a large Polish neighborhood. There were many Armenians that lived there too.
My other grandparents, Joseph and Klara Csóka owned a small grocery/candy store somewhere on one of the side streets in Delray. The story I heard was that the store was just a front for grandma to make and sell moonshine during the prohibition. I think there must be some truth to the story though, because I still remember all the large copper kettles she had stored away in the attic as I grew up. My grandma Csoka was the only one who taught me to speak Hungarian. Whenever I would stay with her for a week or so, she would only talk to me in Hungarian and by the end of the week, I knew everything she said. Some of it stuck and although I am not fluent in Hungarian, I can get by even in Hungary. later, I taught myself to read and write in Hungarian. My mom and dad were very fluent in Hungarian, because that is what they spoke at home as they grew up. However, they never passed it on to their children, only grandma did.
My aunt Margie, my dad's sister, and her husband Leslie Torok owned a bar on Jefferson near Joey Stables. As I recall, it was named Les' Bar and we would visit there too occasionally. Later they sold that bar and bought the Blue Ribbon Bar on Fort street near Dragon and Livernois.
My uncle Joe Molnar and aunt Elsie, who were from Delray, also owned a bar further up Fort St. called the "Hi Joe Bar".
I too remember the old Delray hospital on Jefferson and visiting people there. Further down on Jefferson, during the war, there was prisoner of war camp that was all fenced in. I remember seeing the prisoners out on the lawn there playing soccer.
I could go on and on, but the fondest memories are of the family gatherings at the Hinky Dink. I had several uncles and older cousins who were in the army during the war. We would gather there when they were home on leave and take pictures. My uncle Charlie was one of them who died in action in France and got the Silver Star medal. There was a big funeral for him out of Holy Cross when my grandparents had his body brought back from France. As a young teenager, I'll never forget the 21 gun salute at his grave site. There is still a small park on Fort St. near Shaffer Rd. named in his honor.
There were a lot of nice shops in Delray and, of course, the Delray Show. There were really two movie shows next to each other, as I recall, One showed movies in English and the other in Hungarian.
There were lots of bars in Delray. After my dad left the Hinky Dink Bar, he was a bartender at Gabel's Bar. There was also Rose's Bar, the Delray Cafe, Ideal Bar, and Hungarian Village, just a few off the top of my head.
Most of my family moved out to the suburbs south of Detroit....Allen park, Southgate, Wyandotte, Dearborn, etc. That happened as they prospered more and Delray grew older and started to deteriorate. Even so, most of them, especially grandma, would drive back to Holy Cross every Sunday. Now that I think back, we have lived through a miraculous time of great changes. As a youngster, I lived while milk was still delivered by Wayne Creamery using horse drawn wagons in parts of Detroit. That is why there was still a water trough in front of the Hinky Dink and why the street cleaner was cleaning up the horse dung along the curbs. I also remember the ice delivery truck that would bring big blocks of ice to those houses that still used ice-boxes for refrigeration. While the delivery man would use heavy tongs to take the big blocks of ice up to the second story flats, we kids would sneak up behind the truck and reach in under the canvas that covered the rear of the truck bed to grab a piece of ice on a hot summer day. What a treat! And, we thought we got away with something without getting caught.
In grade school, about the 4th grade, my mother made me wear hand-me-down knickers from my older cousins Teddy and Jimmy. I didn't know any better, but it turned out to be quite embarrassing! I must have been the last one ever seen in those things.
In high school and college, I used a type writer for my reports; now, I use a word processor. Wish I would have had one then to avoid all the erasing, white out and re-typing.
When I started out in engineering, I worked on a drafting board and we designed everything on paper with pencils. Of course it was all two dimensional. When I retired as supervisor of the department, everything was done on computers and all the objects were in solid geometry. What a difference! I could never have even imagined the change in technology when I first started out.
I'll never forget the night I was driving north to go hunting with my dad and uncle Al when the Russians shot sputnik up. Or, the first summer we operated the resort in 1969 (I think) when the U.S.A. landed men on the moon.
I even remember watching the trials of Cardinal Mindszenty broadcast in black and white on TV. I must have been about 10 or 12 then. My kids probably don't even know who Cardinal Mindszenty was or what the trial was all about.
I also remember riding in the rumble seat of a car that one of my older cousins had. Don't see many rumble seats anymore.
When my mom and dad owned a corner grocery store on Pleasant street, there was a bar and restaurant on the next block. Can't remember the name of the place now, but it had one of those kugli bowling alleys with the dirt alley and long wooden trough ball returns. There was a high wooden fence behind the bar and it was right next to where the pins were set. I somehow would climb over the fence in the evening to set pins when the men were bowling. Every once in a while one of them would yell down to me, "gyere ide, fiu" and I would run up and they would give me a hand full of coins. I felt really rich then. I used to do the same thing every Sunday in the summer at all those Hungarian picnics I attended with my parents.
As a youngster, I would climb up on the stage at Holy Cross downstairs when the Gypsies playing were on break between dances. I was enthralled with the cimbalom and would try to play it. I would pound the strings with the cotton baton and of course, as soon as the musicians saw and heard me, they would yell and chase me away. What a naughty out-of-control kid I must have been.
I also remember when the end of world war two was announced, all the factory whistles blew, people were honking their car horns and were shouting to everyone in joy. I really didn't really understand the reason, but I knew it was important to make noise, so I grabbed a big wash tub and started banging against it as I walked up and down in front of our store.
During the war gasoline was rationed. I remember after the war we were driving down Fort St. and my dad said, "Look, gas 10 gallons for a dollar." The gas station was on Fort near Dearborn Ave. and the name of the gas was "Joy" gas.
Do you remember the big statue of a tiger that stood high on a pedestal on the corner of Fort and Dearborn? It was on the right side as you traveled south. It was there for some kind of advertisement. Can't remember what for though. Some years later, I saw that same big tiger statue in Taylor at a place called "Szabados and Szabados". I think it was some sort of salvage enterprise.
I have a lot more stories about living in those days and could go on and on. For instance, we used to take the electric street cars that traveled along Fort Street from Outer Drive to downtown Detroit. The tracks were in the middle of Fort St. and there were electric wires high above the tracks. There was a long type of antenna that attached the street car to the wire pretty much like the ones you see in Hungary at least when I was there. Every once in a while the antenna would become detached from the wire and, of course, the car would stop, so the conductor had to get out and use a long stick to reattached the antenna back to the wire. The electric cars were quite long and had basket weaved type seats. There were two doors, one in front to get on and one in the middle to get off. At the rear door there was another conductor to open and close the door. The conductor in front drove the car by turning a kind of rotating switch that had an upright wooden handle. The more he turned the devise, the more electricity the car received and the faster it went. Makes me wonder if the new electric automobiles will also have such a devise for acceleration.
While that's enough stories for now.
Most of my family pictures are taken at or in the vicinity of the Hinky Dink Bar that my grandparents owned and that my father later ran. I also have a few pictures of my uncle Charles P. Kemeny's funeral. He was a war hero in WWII, was killed in action and was honored with the Silver Star for saving the lives of his fellow soldiers in France. My grandparents had his body brought back to Delray after the war ended. There was a funeral Mass at Holy Cross and a parade from there to Woodmere Cemetery where he was buried with Military Honors. I was there and was about 10 or12 years old at the time. I have a number of pictures of family members standing at the grave site. I also have a few pictures of him with his parents and other family members before he was shipped off to war.
After the funeral, A recreational center in Detroit was named in his honor. I have a news article written in Hungarian about the dedication of the Charles P. Kemény Recreation Center located on Fort Street just south of Shaffer Road. This dedication ceremony was attended by Mayor Louis Miriani and Father András Jakab. I will send you a copy of this article and I will also translate it into English. I think the article probably appeared in the Detroiti Újság newspaper, but I don't have a date, just the small article. I also have another article in English on the same subject but with more elaboration; however, I have yet been unable to find it among all these boxes.
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This entire site Copyrighted 2011 and Forever by R. S. Bujaki |