Postcards from Cleveland - Glenmore Road, big houses of Shaker

Methinks this is actually Mary Truby's house. Westchester Road was 'restricted' - no Jews - until the Sherwins of Sherwins Bakery moved in. Their house was pelted with eggs.

We only had six houses on our street. Across the street was 'the island,' a huge patch of land preserved as a field of grass.

The Island.

Mercer Elementary School where the teachers were awesome and guided by the wonderful Mrs. Alice Van Duesen. At the end of the year she passed out to every child a huge green marble inscribed with the Golden Rule and housed in a little ivory box.

Morals and manners were a big part of being raised in Shaker schools, a veritable modern-day Jane Austen microcosm.

Though the school door was locked, I peeked in the window to see the white tile, on the left, which I equated at age 8 with white marble.

The founders of Shaker Heights - the van Swearingen brothers - lived here. They hired an engineer and made it a planned community with wide boulevards filled with trees and great scoops of that midswestern sky that touches the earth.

They also planned for the rapid transit to begin at downtown's Terminal Tower and run out to the suburbs. The rapid glided smoothly on tracks and was surrounded by greenery.

Aunt Selma lives here and was my most gracious host for my four-day stay.