In another time > Hot times at the Starlight, but the fire was hotter

Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Tuesday, November 30, 2010 03:10 pm

Before, during and just after World War II, Hunt’s Starlight Ballroom was a big attraction on the Wildwood boardwalk, as popular as the Steel Pier was a favorite in Atlantic City.

Visitors at the Starlight danced away happy hours, sometimes leading to romance and marriage, while the live music of such big bands as Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, Charlie Spivak and Vaughn Monroe played on into starry nights, cooled by ocean breezes. Tex Beneke, in later life to front the West Coast version of the reborn Glenn Miller band, broadcast in 1948 from the Starlight to an estimated 60 million radio listeners.

Some, now gray haired and walking gingerly, recall their first kisses at the Starlight where people dressed, if not elegantly, at least in more formal attire than one might see at today’s discos. One of the slogans bantered about then by the young and single was “we dressed to impress” as they sought companionship on and off the ballroom floor. And if you didn’t dance, the odds were that you didn’t romance, either .Nobody wanted a “wallflower” who just sat on the sidelines and watched.

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In Another Time > Historic fires cause destruction, tragedy

Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Monday, November 22, 2010 05:41 pm

It is questionable as to which of the many fires that blazed in the Wildwoods during the island’s long history was the most spectacular.

Each has a story to tell, one about the death of three children trapped in an amusement ride, another about the destruction of a famous ballroom that hosted big bands and others focusing on the unlikely subjects of Dracula and a 20 foot tall fantasized gorilla which one publication said, with tongue in cheek, attacked the firemen.

Fires at the seashore, of course, were not unusual in earlier days. Extinguishing them was a big challenge because there was limited access to the beach for the heavy fire trucks, and the boardwalk was not strong enough to hold them even if they managed to get there. It has been recorded that at least one fire engine fell through the boards.

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In Another Time > Fox helped shaped the parks of Wildwood

Written by Jacob Schaad Jr. Tuesday, November 02, 2010 03:50 pm

Even when he was a child and served as a five-language interpreter in his hometown of Riga in Latvia, Edward Zelig Fox seemed to be constantly on the move. He was never content with one accomplishment, always advancing to another before the first had barely become a reality.

Such certainly was the case in Wildwood, where he settled with his family in 1911. When he died at the age of 75 on July 27, 1958, Fox’s obituary credited him with having been the catalyst for 12 of the city’s 13 parks. That was a far cry from the time in 1932 when there were only a few flower beds along the beach and the streets.

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In Another Time > The Man from Latvia launched Wildwood parks

Last Updated on Thursday, October 28, 2010 12:16 pm Written by JACOB SCHAAD JR. Thursday, October 28, 2010 01:00 am

Some of the early immigrants to the Wildwoods came to the island from Europe via circuitous routes and they brought credentials or family backgrounds that contributed substantially to the growth of Five Mile Beach.

Dr. Margaret Mace, who in later life delivered many a new born into this world, some of whom have grown to be today’s still living local citizens , arrived as a 3-year-old from England with her family, first in Philadelphia and then in Anglesea before it was renamed North Wildwood. Her father, Charles, was a mover and shaker in the development of the northern section of Five Mile Beach.

Actor-lawyer Carl Haswin, his name shortened from Hasenwinkle to accommodate show business, came to the island from Prussia by way of Chicago and was active at St. Simeon Episcopal Church as well as in politics.

Merchant Philip Gould, the first of a long active family on the island, arrived from Russia, first in upstate New York and after that Woodbine.

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In Another Time > Tree’s trunk, and history, included some twists

Written by JACOB SCHAAD JR. Friday, October 22, 2010 01:41 pm

An early writer, unidentified in historian George Boyer’s book “Wildwood Middle of the Island,” wrote glowingly of the landscape he visited in the early days of Five Mile Beach. Especially the American holly trees.

The year was 1890 and President Benjamin Harrison was in town to dedicate the Dayton Hotel, and with his entourage to look at that curiously twisted holly tree which was said to be chopped down eight years later and its trunk preserved for either historical or public relations purposes or a bit of both.

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In Another Time > A crooked tree gains fame in resort

Written by JACOB SCHAAD Jr. Tuesday, October 12, 2010 03:44 pm

Those words, to become lastingly famous in the world of poetry, stemmed in 1913 from the pen of New Jersey’s Joyce Kilmer, who was to be killed five years later at the age of 31 in the second Battle of the Marne during World War I. Kilmer’s roots were in New Brunswick in North Jersey, where he attended Rutgers University, some 120 miles north of the Wildwoods.

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In Another Time > Crest dodges the worst, West Wildwood devastated in ’62 storm

Written by JACOB SCHAAD Jr. Wednesday, October 06, 2010 01:00 am

Some called it a disaster, others described it as devastating and then there were those who stood there in the sunny aftermath of what had happened and they said nothing, just sobbed as they looked at the watery nothingness of what they had once owned.

Only a few days earlier, in this March of 1962, these shocked residents had been enjoying the comforts of their seashore homes and the environment in a quiet tiny town likened to that portrayed in the popular TV show, “Mayberry RFD.” Nothing much ever happened in West Wildwood and that’s the way they liked it, even in the summer when the population grew and they sat in the yards or on the porches of their homes and watched the sun set as they enjoyed a beer or two.

Now it was nothing, their homes swept away or hopelessly damaged in what some say was the biggest storm to hit West Wildwood since its incorporation in 1920 and perhaps long before that.

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in another time > First Wildwoods fire companies were little more than bucket brigades

Written by JACOB SCHAAD Jr. Friday, September 17, 2010 04:41 pm

Firehouse, location unknown.

As 7,000 firefighters gather in the Wildwoods this weekend with their families and friends for the annual New Jersey State Firemen’s Convention, it is appropriate to look back to a different time and place, some 90 miles away, where a famous man in American history is credited with having started the first fire department in the nation.

Benjamin Franklin, of course, is best known as one of the founders of the nation and as a diplomat, statesman, writer and inventor. Of lesser fame but important in American history and to every firefighter here is the fact that Franklin set the stage by starting the nation’s first fire department in Philadelphia in 1736. He called it the Union Fire Company, and as in the years to come with other fire companies, he enlisted the help of prominent leaders in the community to join and expand his efforts.

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