by Suebeth Dusthimer Zartman
Great change took place in Upper Arlington between 1956
and 1966. Bulldozers, road graters and building material were common in the
neighborhoods north of Fishinger Road and south of McCoy Road. The quiet little
New England style suburb was exploding with California style sprawling ranches
and split levels. New roads, schools and houses were appearing and new families
were entering into the formally insular community of Upper Arlington. Construction sites were the norm doing those
ten years.
On the east side of Surrey Hill Place, near where
current Shoreham Road runs, was a shallow pond. It was behind the cement block
home that still stands on Fishinger Road. The Motter family lived in this home
hence the name; however I never saw a Motter family member ice skating there.
Now the area is filled with sprawling ranches and manicured lawns.
We
had moved to Upper Arlington in August, 1956, right before fifth grade. In September
I started attending Fishinger Road School. My parents chose to move to UA
instead of Bexley, which was much closer to our hometown of Zanesville, where
my aging grandfather still lived. In their view UA was a more modern suburb
with new homes and excellent schools. Much to my parents’ horror, my classroom
was one of two Quonset huts placed on the land to the west side of the school.
They couldn’t believe I was attending school in what they considered low- end
military housing.
The overcrowding at Fishinger Road School was caused because
the newly constructed Wickliffe School, which was planned to be ready at the
beginning of the school year, was not finished until January 1957. To solve the
overcrowding problem the Quonset huts were purchased by the school district for
use until Wickliffe was ready for occupation. Later we found out a mistake in room
assignment had been made; I was supposed to be with a classroom in the main
school, because our home was north of Fishinger Road, which was the boundary
line for separating the two schools. So in January of my first year in UA
schools I had to change classrooms and start all over again…but that’s a story
for another day.
During the first few months of school, everyone talked
about ice skating at Motter Pond. Though I had never ice skated in my life, I
thought it would be wonderful to skate on a pond. I think ice skating was tied
into fantasies and fairy tales. I was enthralled, and throughout the fall I
begged for ice skates. My parents were puzzled by this and so I showed them
where Motter Pond was; and told them everyone in UA ice skated. Also nearby was
the pond on the east side of Riverside Drive, where the older kids skated and
played hockey. “Everyone here has ice skates,” I would say; and one or the
other parent would always respond, “We’ll see.”
I recall there was a day or two in December when the
pond was frozen over and my mother took my brother and me to the pond to slip
and slide across the slippery surface. I was right on the border line of it
being OK to be seen with my mother and brother. Afterwards I really began pleading
for a pair of ice skates. I think by this time, they were telling me, “Put it
on your Christmas list.”
Christmas morning finally arrived and I was
overjoyed to get my ice skates. I quickly put them on and wobbled around the
living room in my beautiful bright white ice skates. Soon, reality set in and I
realized the weather had gotten warmer and Motter Pond was no longer covered
with solid ice. I think it was not until closer to my birthday on January 21,
when the ice was safe again. Keep in mind, Motter Pond is what the neighborhood
kids called it. Looking back, I believe it was little more than permanent
shallow backwater from the Turkey Run watershed. But the advantage was that the
ice was thick enough for skating and was still shallow enough to be completely
safe.
Every day when there was ice, except when I had Girl Scouts, I was at Motter Pond skating away. I never had skating lessons; I just
taught myself by trial and error and lots of falls. I loved skating; it was like freedom and
floating all wrapped together. Even though I had heard about Motter Pond at
school, not many of my school mates were there; mostly I skated by myself. Was it
because I was the new kid? I didn’t always
know what other kids were doing after school.
Or, perhaps did it go back to errors in class assignment, because all my
former classmates were at Wickliffe and weren’t permitted to cross Fishinger
Road? Who knows? But I was still happy gliding across the ice. I taught myself
to skate backward and to spin and twirl, but I was never able to jump. I don’t
think I even tried.
On particularly cold days, especially on weekends, an
old oil barrel with several saucer-sized holes along the side would appear with
a roaring fire inside. When you got cold, you would come close to the barrel,
take off your gloves or mittens and hold your hands close to the top. OK, I
know it was 1957, but there was not an adult in sight. A pond, fire, ice and no
adult; can you imagine that today?
Some days I walked to and from the pond, other days my
mother would drive me one way or the other; sometimes both. When walking home I would go north on Surrey
Hill then west on Johnson Road down the hill to Overdale Drive. Then one day,
some kids told me to go down the path to Hillview. Wow, a secret path that
would come out on Anson Drive making the journey back home a little shorter.
Those wonderful days of winter skating only lasted a
few years. Before I was ready to move on to more teenage activities, the pond
was gone. Shoreham Road was built and
several new homes began sprouting up on the east side of Surrey Hill Place and on
both sides of the newly constructed Shoreham Road. But gliding across the ice
in a field within eye sight of Fishinger Road is one of my best childhood
memories from the late 1950s.
