A Bit Hokey
I never know what might inspire me when I set off on my daily route. Today it turned out to be a small Virginia Tech yard sign. The house on Hathaway had a large Virgina Tech flag as well, but it was difficult to get a good pic while the flag was waving in the wind. Fans of the school are known as “Hokies” and when I looked up the definition it was simply “a loyal Virginia Tech fan”. Even though their mascot is an extra-large turkey, the word itself has no other official meaning.
When I hear that word, I think of hokey (something overly sentimental or sappy). So I decided to post a hokey (but true) story about Hathaway.
According to Margaret Manor Butler in Romance in Lakewood Streets, “Three streets, Chase, Hathaway, and Giel, were part of the original Kundtz Lumber yards until purchased [in the early 1920s] by realty dealer Claude Oates Frick, who had the privilege of naming the streets he cut through. Romance was uppermost in his mind, for at the time he was courting Urshal Hathaway of Berea and it seemed appropriate to give one street her family name.”
As I was walking down Hathaway this morning, I imagined Claude sitting on an elegant second story porch like the one pictured, sipping a cup of tea with Urshal Hathaway. It was the roaring 20s, and perhaps they would be taking the streetcar from Lakewood to Cleveland for a night out this evening. Maybe they would even go dancing and do the “Hokey-Pokey”.
