Photo Record

Images

1 of 1977

View Image Metadata

Metadata

Catalog Number

2010.14.1

Object Name

Print, photographic

Title

Jenks School class 1B-2A

Description

Jenks School class 1B-2A in 1945. Jerry (Jerome) Choder is in the plaid shirt in front of the radiator, just to the right of the center of the photo. The African American boy was Fred Howard, who was bused in from another neighborhood.

Date

1945

Notes

Max (1904-88) and Rose Lipman (1905-75) Choder operated Choder's Luncheonette or Sandwich Shop at 8520 Germantown Ave., where Caleb Meyer's store is today, for ten years, beginning in 1944. They lived above the store. (There were three windows across the second floor, where now there are two.) They were both born in the Ukraine, then controlled by Russia. Max said he never had any interest in visiting the Ukraine as their family was persecuted by the Cossacks because they were Jewish. Max and Rose's parents emigrated about the same time, around 1908. Both families came through Ellis Island and probably settled in Philadelphia because of a relation or friend there. Their families first lived in south Philadelphia, then the Strawberry Mansion area and then to Feltonville, 518 E. Wyoming Ave. before 1938. Jerry (Jerome) was born in 1939, the only child except for an older sister who died when she was six months old.

Max worked at Lit Brothers department store in Center City from 1926 to 1943. During World War II he was an air raid warden, and would go out at night, watching for planes.

In 1943 the family moved to Chestnut HIll and bought the store. They borrowed $500 from Rose's brother Charles Lipman to help buy the luncheonette business and later, when established, bought the building. They improved the store and put in new counters and booths, hiring people to do this work. They initially worked from 8:30 am to 10:00 pm for six and a half days a week, closed only on Sunday afternoons. Rose was a wonderful cook. After a couple of years they closed on Sundays and for one week in the summer. They had some hired help at lunchtime, and Jerry helped when he was old enough, initially standing on a box, so that he could see over the counter. His father often told him he filled his friends ice cream cones with too much ice cream! Jerry was in Chestnut Hill from ages four to fourteen. They sold Supplee Sealtest ice cream, and only Coke, not Pepsi. They sold much cigarettes, cigars, candy magazines, comic books and newspapers - when newspapers sold for three cents. Their competition was from Mr. Kaybak's drugstore, also serving ice cream and candy, at the northeast corner of Gravers Lane and Germantown Ave.

To the south of Choder's was Hilton Drugs (where Omaha Steaks is currently) and to the north was a cleaners.

Jerry loved Kilian's Hardware, where he would buy batteries and the like, and enjoyed looking around. He remembers Russell Medinger, who had a flower store south of Kilian's. He played baseball at the Watertower field, Jenks School yard and any other open field, sledded in Pastorius Park, which ws partly wooded at the time, and rode his bike all over the Hill. The Saturday matinees at the Chestnut Hill Theater were a highlight for a dime. When old enough, he would take the trolley to Mt. Airy's Sedgwick Theater, or down to the Germantown theaters. in the spring of 1950 the new "modern" trolleys arrived on Germantown Ave.

In Choder's they served hot and cold sandwiches, Heinz soup or beans from the can heated up in special electric pots, made for that purpose, milkshakes, and many varieties of ice cream, that Jerry liked to sample daily. There was a lunch counter with stools. The Choders soon expanded the store out the back. There was a longer lunch counter with stools as well as a long row of booths that would seat four to a booth opposite the counter. They did not have a car in Feltonville or in Chestnut Hill intitally, but they did own a car in the 1920s, and Max was an experienced driver. After World War II they bought a very used 1934 Chevy in which young Jerry liked to sit upon the passenger door's arm rest to better see out the front window. They bought their first new car, a 1948 Oldsmobile, at Allen's Oldsmobile around the corner on West Highland Ave. The existing garage (since demolished) was then extended into the small back yard in order to hold the new car.

Jerry remembers he liked living in Chestnut Hill. His daily world revolved around the area from his home to the Jenks School. Mrs. Kerper was a fourth grade teacher, who died during the school year in 1947. He remembers all her students had to go to the funeral at Ruth's Funeral Home, which made a big impression on Jerry. Ruth's daughter was in the same class at that time.

Jerry was a safety patrolman at the corner of Gravers Lane and Ardleigh St., crossing younger kids. He was made a lieutenant and then walked each day down Ardleigh St. to the distant Willow Grove Ave to check on the presence of the safety patrol team. Walking back up the hill was a bigger challenge. One year the patrol group was sent to Shibe Park where he saw his first professional baseball game, and it was under the lights. He remembers there were conflicts between the Jenks and Our Mother of Consolation School kids with name calling, and such.

Jerry describes it as a "gentler time."

With his friends, Jerry also attended meetings of a group called the Christian Youth Brigade. Organized for kids it met at the Chestnut Hill Baptist Church at the intersection of Bethlehem Pike and Germantown Ave. In nice weather they played games in the graveyard behind the church.

Jerry would have preferred to have a backyard like most of his friends as behind the store was only a small concrete slab. Jerry was always fond of plants so he nutured the big leafed plant that sprung up in the cracks every year. When Jerry went to the Main Street Fair, annually in Chestnut Hill, he would spend all of his money on small plants.

One negative thing about his parent's line of work was that, except for some early breakfasts, they never all three sat down to a meal together. Someone always had to be tending the store. When Jerry came home from school, he felt like he had to run the gauntlet, walking through the store, past all the customers.

For a few years, customers at the store in the evening probably experienced hearing the scales played on the clarinet as Jerry practiced in a room behind or above the store. The practice worked. In the eight grade Jerry was selected to be a clarinetist in the All Philadelphia Elementary School Orchestra. After several practice sessions at Girls High School (then on Spring Garden St.) the orchestra performed at the Academy of Music. Jerry played on in the marching band at Central High.

The Choders purchased their first television in1950. This was a big event, evidenced by the three photos later taken at the time with each family member in turn beside the TV. On top of the set was Jerry's bar mitzvah photograph in a frame. The first television owned among Jerry's group of friends was at the house of Ray Hutchinson, who lived at the northwest corner of Gravers and Ardleigh St. The group visited Ray after school and when not playing ball in his yard, they watched Howdy Doody even thought they were too old for it.

Selinda McCauley was the principal of Jenks School and retired in 1952, the year Jerry Choder graduated from 8th grade. Jerry went to Central High School in 1952. Then the family moved from Chestnut Hill to Willow Grive in October 1953. Jerry had to go to Upper Moreland High School there, which was not challenging enough for him, so after three weeks, he was allowed to go back to Central, for which his parents had to pay tuition. He took the L and S bus to Central, getting on at the First Pennsylvania Bank (Wachovia Bank in 2010) at the corner of Evergreen and Germantown Ave. His many visits to Kilian's hardware, plus a good secondary education at Central prepared Jerry to attend Drexel University and later the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned and MS in Electrical Engineering.

After they sold the shop Max and Rose moved to the Willow Grove Apartments, built in 1898. In an earlier era by John Phillip Sousa stayed there when his band was performing at the former Willow Grove Park, an musement park. The apartments are now near the Willow Grove Mall, at 11 Park Ave. This began their semi-retirement where they owned, operated, maintained and even expanded, this aging, forty-plus unit apartment building. They had worked at the store for ten years and it was a taxing life style with long hours and hard work. Feeling physically worn out, they left the store when they were both about age 50. They later fully retired in 1968, moving to a duplex in northeast Philadelphia.

The store was bought from the Choders by the parents of Louis Fick, a friend of Jerry. This was another hard working family, who had owned the "Bread and Cakes" bakery in Mt. Airy. They bought this store nearer to their home to open another bakery.