08/26/2026
A Life In West Park: An interview with Carol Thomas
For Carol Thomas, childhood in West Park meant the streets could be her playground.
“We’d play baseball in the street” she remembers. And when winter came the streets themselves could become skating rinks where water was allowed to freeze over the pavement and neighborhood children would strap on their skates and play hockey.
There were plenty of places for children to play. These were new developments, after all, so there were still numerous empty lots in the neighborhood, and a large open area near West 130th Street and Lorain Avenue served as a makeshift baseball field. Front porches were gathering places. Jefferson Park became an even fancier ice rink in winter.
It’s a West Park that one would barely recognize, today.
Carol Ann Neiger Thomas was born at Lakewood Hospital on November 4th, 1939. Her family's connection to West Park went back another generation. Her grandparents moved to West 135th Street in 1927, near San Diego Avenue, and Carol's father grew up in the neighborhood. Carol spent part of her early childhood on Ralph Avenue before returning to West135th around the fourth grade, when her family moved in with her grandparents.
Her father, William, spent approximately 35 years working for the Nickel Plate Railroad, eventually as a yardmaster. Her mother, Julia, was a homemaker. Extended family was an important part of Carol's childhood. Relatives came from Norwalk and Akron on old state and national routes, long before the interstates were built, and family gatherings could be large.
"Nothing like having 25 people for a Christmas dinner," she remembers.
Carol's father had watched West Park itself grow. She recalls him telling her that, as a young man, he helped with the move from the old John Marshall High School on Lorain and W. 152nd St. to the newer building on W. 140th. At the time, much of the surrounding land was still open.
That openness became one of the defining features of Carol's childhood.
Children played baseball and tag wherever they could find space. Walking was her main mode of travel. Carol remembers the paper-and-rags man making his rounds and the ice man delivering blocks of ice because her grandmother still used an icebox.
For the neighborhood children, an ice delivery brought a small treat. "I remember him bringing ice," Carol says. "He'd give us ice scraps off the truck.”
She was a small child during World War II and remembers blackouts in West Park. Her grandfather served as an air-raid warden, going through the neighborhood to make sure residents had their lights concealed and curtains closed. Carol was young enough that she didn't fully understand the war. She understood enough, however, to be frightened. Every time she heard an airplane overhead, she wondered if it might be coming to bomb them.
After the war, the neighborhood continued to grow and change.
One of Carol's favorite childhood baseball fields was the open land around West 130th and Lorain. Eventually the children lost it to development. A shopping center went up.
"We were very upset when they put that in there," Carol remembers.
Stores including Fisher Foods and Kroger arrived, along with Society Bank, Red Robin and Davis Bakery. The children had lost their play space.
Carol admits that her opinion changed as she got older. Having shops nearby became considerably more attractive than having another baseball field.
Before the era of large shopping centers, Carol remembers Bradnan's, a neighborhood store where families bought meat, vegetables and other groceries. Customers could buy on credit and settle their accounts at the end of the month. The Bradnan family also owned a bowling alley at Southland and a roller skating facility on Brookpark Rd.
Carol remembers walking to the Variety and Lyric theaters and occasionally going to the Riverside in the opposite direction. Her grandmother sometimes took Carol and her sister to the Variety for "bank nights," when moviegoers had a chance to win prizes before the feature began.
For trips downtown, there was the streetcar on Lorain Avenue.
Then a remarkable new form of entertainment arrived directly in Carol's house. Her grandparents won a television. It was the first television on their street. Suddenly, Carol's house became the place to be. Her friends would come over just to watch the test pattern.
Another institution running through Carol's memories is Christ United Methodist Church at West 138th Street and Lorain Avenue. Her grandparents joined the church in 1927. Carol remembers being told that the congregation's early home was little more than a basement before the large stone church was constructed.
Nearly a century after her grandparents joined, Carol still considers it her church.
John Marshall High School is a part of several generations. Carol attended the school, as had her father, and her own children later went there. Her father's diploma eventually became part of the collection of the West Park Historical Society.
Carol herself left John Marshall during her senior year when she married at 18, something far more common for young women of her generation than it would be today.
Her working years provide another glimpse of local history. As a teenager she worked at Abers Dry Cleaners. For a short time she worked in a candy shop inside the old Cleveland Hotel on Public Square. Later came jobs at an Open Pantry on West 130th and Tony's Diner on West 117th.
Through it all, West Park remained the center of gravity.
Carol eventually raised a family whose roots in the area continued into new generations. Asked what she is most proud of, she doesn't mention a place, a job or an accomplishment.
"My kids and grandkids and now great-grandkids," she says.
She has six great-grandchildren. Two of her grandsons became Cleveland firefighters.
Carol’s memories are that of the little things in life, a block of ice arriving at the house, a street frozen for hockey, a movie at the Variety, candy from Bradnan’s, the hypnotizing glow of a black and white TV. Quaint memories amidst the growth of a city all around her.
Asked near the end of the interview what she would want future generations to know about being raised on Cleveland's West Side, Carol's answer was simple.
"I thought it was a great place to grow up”, she stated.
More than eight decades later, she still calls West Park home.
Send a message to learn more
