One of the early influences on my life and thinking was a result of the accidental design of the street we lived on. Sycamore Street, named for the rows of sycamore trees lining both sides of the block, was a dead-end street with houses built close together—there were even a couple of duplex units at the end of the street—altogether about twenty-four houses and about thirty kids. It was the concentration of houses and kids that made it wonderful. Because of the dead end we could play touch football, softball, or tag and have almost no interference from cars. The dead end was where the cars could go no further, but for us it was the entrance to a hardwood forest where we could play and explore for days on end. As long as I lived there, the woods remained a touch of semi-wilderness for us suburban dwellers.
Life for the children on Sycamore Street was exceptional. Our parents always rose to the occasion of being good parents as well as excellent entertainers. They would consistently make already special days like the Fourth of July and birthdays really memorable because of their extra effort to make it fun for us. For example, the Fourth of July is a national holiday celebrated to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but I think the celebration on Sycamore Street in Cleveland Heights was unique to our neighborhood.
The day was carefully planned by the parents—almost every parent—way in advance, and almost everyone, parents and children, participated in some way. By 9 a.m. the street was blocked off and remained that way until 10 that evening. The first event was a parade with every child—and some adults— dressed in costumes. We paraded from one end of the street to the other, with the youngest pulled in wagons by their parents. Prizes were given for the best costumes. Then everyone ate free ice cream, and balloons festooned the air. The afternoon consisted of all kinds of races and games, some for the adults.
The big treat of the day was a "moving picture." This was 1927 or 1928 when the films were eight millimeter black and white and pretty jerky. One of our neighbors worked for General Electric in Cleveland, and he was able to borrow a projector and films from GE. He also filmed the parade and the day's events. Each year he would show the previous year's film so that all the children and parents could see themselves. In the early evening families ate together and shared in the conclusion of the day's celebration.
Another special occasion I recall was when one of the neighbors, who happened to be a friend of the owner of Rin Tin Tin, arranged a special performance for the entire neighborhood. The famous dog movie star showed up one day with his owner to give us a free show. Rin Tin Tin performed his tricks, and we were all very impressed.
I was born on March 26, 1918. My father was of Scotch/Irish background and my mother of Pennsylvania Dutch. The name Swann with two "n"s is not common, but it appears that a Swann clan settled in North Carolina back in the 1700s, and there is a town near Asheville named "Swannanona." I happened to be in the vicinity once and looked the name up in the telephone book. Almost half were spelled with double "n." My father, born in 1878, told me that his father had moved from North Carolina to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the mid 1800s.
Even though my grandfather lived as a Yankee in Indiana, his roots remained in the South. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he, like many others at that time, had a hard decision to make about which side to fight on. One day while still deciding what to do, his father (my great-grandfather) was shaving when my grandfather asked him what he should do. Which side should he fight on? Without looking up or giving his son a glance he said, "Abraham Lincoln is President, isn't he?" and went on shaving.
My grandfather must have distinguished himself in some way during the Civil War because my father said he was known all over Fort Wayne as Captain Scott Swann, and he had several medals to show. (Scott is my middle name.) I never heard my father refer to it, but I am afraid my grandfather's fame may have depended on his role as a captain in General Sherman's notorious "scorched earth" march through the South near the end of the war.
My father was a member of the Knights Templar (I remember seeing him dressed in the regalia of the Order, including a sword) and the Masonic Lodge. I don't remember that he ever talked about them , and to this day I have very little knowledge of these Orders.
One other memory of interest was that my father had a collection of daguerreotype photos from the Civil War. It was a well-known collection by a famous photographer. He kept these large, very realistic photos depicting the dead and dying men of the Civil War stored on the third floor of our house. I used to sneak up the stairs to look at them—not that they were a secret, but somehow I felt guilty looking at them. I'm sure that on a subconscious level these photos played a role in my later anti-war convictions.
My mother was the second oldest in a family of five girls and one boy. She grew up in Ashland, Ohio. Her father was a police officer most of his life and was known as Bob around town. I don't remember ever seeing him in a uniform, but I do recall him being somewhat of a tyrant at home, sitting in a rocking chair in his large house in Ashland and occasionally giving orders to my grandmother, who was always busy cooking or working in her garden. Grandma had a "summer" kitchen under the porch roof, where she baked. Her fresh bread, especially her potato bread, was a delight I always looked forward to. I also loved to visit Ashland because my grandparents had a player piano that mesmerized me. All I had to do was push a button and out came a song.
My parents met in a restaurant that my mother's uncle owned and operated in a summer resort town outside of Cleveland, near Lake Erie. My dad frequented this restaurant, where my mother was working one summer.
My mother unfortunately did not inherit my grandmother's skills in the kitchen. When she was old enough, it was my mother's responsibility to bring in additional money to help support the family of eight. Large chain stores were already invading small towns. She worked in a local department store, which I think was J. C. Penny. Consequently, she never learned to cook, and when she married my father, she had to learn everything from a book. I remember her holding a book in one hand while with the other she stirred what she was cooking with a wooden spoon.
I began kindergarten in 1923 and loved it. We played games and sang songs. I also liked the social aspect of contact with other kids and generally had a good time. The school was in walking distance of my house, and my mother would take me there and pick me up. On the way home she would buy me a fresh waffle with powdered sugar from the "waffle man." This made going to kindergarten a pleasurable event.
But then it all changed. I moved on to first grade, where we all had to sit in our chairs most of the day and listen to the teacher talk. We had only a brief break for lunch and a ten minute recess. We were learning to read and also to draw pictures on paper. This was all very well, but there was almost no time to play games and have fun. Besides, I found I could do the exercises (drawing pictures and writing the alphabet) faster than the other students. Then, having nothing to do, I would amuse myself by teasing someone. When this activity began to cause a commotion, the teacher reprimanded me, telling me to be quiet. But one day I apparently persisted, and in desperation she tried to catch hold of me. A chase ensued, with all the kids laughing. I managed to get behind an old upright piano where she couldn't reach me. She left the room muttering and returned with the principal. Between the two of them, they managed to pull me out from behind the piano.
The principal marched me to her office and called my father to come for me. It took some time because he was on the other side of town. Meanwhile, I had to sit in the principal's office while she and other staff people glared at me. When my father arrived, he spent some time discussing my fate with the principal, who then announced what my sentence would be: when my mother brought me to school in the morning, the principal would take me up to the second floor, past the sixth grade class. It was humiliating to have these older kids snicker as I went by. Then the principal put me in a coat closet. There I was to stay, locked in this little room with no toys or anything to amuse me. The only thing to look at was a small high window, which was too high for me to peer through. I was to stay there all day until my mother came to pick me up after school. Then, as soon as I got home, I had to go to my room and remain there until the next day. This punishment lasted for two weeks.
I am sure my mother felt bad about this; she spent a lot of time reading stories to me and playing games with me while I stayed in my room. I could forgive her but not my father. From that time on I felt alienated from him, and I suppose some of that alienation rubbed off on my mother. I'm sure I never felt as close to her after that, either.
To address my advanced ability the teacher and the principal decided that I should be advanced one whole year ahead of my class. I think they were right to do this, except that skipping a year of mathematics has always made that subject more difficult for me.
A couple of other positive experiences stand out in my memory. When I was ten years old, I had the good luck of being able to attend an all-boys summer camp in upper Michigan. Although the camp was only for two months, it made a lasting impression on me, as I'm sure many summer camps do on those who are lucky enough to go. I learned to swim and ride horseback; we also camped out, and I had no fear of the wilderness after that. It was a real fellowship, as the owner and director of the camp had promised my parents when they signed me up for it.
Something I remember with particular fondness was spending two summers on my uncle's farm near Wooster, Ohio, beginning the year I turned eight. My uncle didn't own a tractor yet; he still had a team of horses. I learned to drive the team to plow the fields and pull the hay wagon and hay rake. I loved working with the horses, who didn't need much direction. They knew when to turn at the end of a furrow and where to go when my uncle said "go home." I also learned to milk by hand four or five cows each night and morning. I liked the way the animals disciplined all of us—they knew when to come home to wait for their bundle of hay and to be milked.
My aunt Kate always had a big garden, and the food she preserved at the height of the harvest added greatly to their self-reliance during the winter months. I remember fondly the cherry tree, which supplied the household with fresh cherries and preserves. It was my first farm experience, and I loved it. I have identified with farmers ever since.
My uncle was involved in helping to create the first Ohio Farm Bureau as a cooperative. This was in the 1920s, before the Depression, but even then I understood that farmers were struggling for their livelihood. For me the lifestyle was idyllic, and I didn't want to go back to the city at the end of the summer. After those two summers, however, I went back only once or twice for short visits. By then my uncle, who loved machines, had bought a tractor and sold his horses. I was very sad, because I loved the animals and not the machines. The horses had personality, and I missed them. He had also cut down a lot of the large trees that graced the yard. I remember they provided shade and a certain elegance to the house and farm, and with their absence I felt an emptiness to the whole scene. The place felt less human, and the machines could not make up for the living animals and trees. My uncle was later killed, having gotten ensnared in one of his beloved machines. One of his sons then took over the farm.
During my younger years I am afraid that school was never very attractive to me. How much my first grade experience contributed to my dislike of school I cannot say, but I could never—right through high school—overcome my aversion. My lack of interest was in school, not learning, however, and I consumed many books. My father, incidentally, was a self-taught person who never attended school past the elementary grades. He was nevertheless rather well read and had a considerable collection of the classics. I must admit I never saw him reading these books, and I never asked him how he got them. He was also an avid newspaper reader and regularly read columnists like Walter Lippman, with whom I could sometimes agree. But my father and I disagreed more often than not and had numerous arguments on almost every subject. My mother never participated in these arguments. It was simply not her realm of communication. More than anything our discussions would upset her, and she didn't like to listen to us.
When I was in high school, from age thirteen to sixteen, I was fortunate to have the friendship of a true teacher, Reverend Joseph Sitler, the young minister of our local Lutheran church. My school was located a short distance from the church, so I would stop off at his office after school to discuss the books he suggested I read. I spent a great deal of time talking with Joe and absorbing his knowledge of music and books. I read German philosophers like Hegel, Nietzche, and Spengler, and novels by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, authors who are usually read in college. He also taught me to love classical music, particularly Bach, whose music is closely connected with the liturgy of the Lutheran church. I had permission from Joe to play the church organ. I could improvise simple tunes while pretending that I knew how to play. The organ played a special role in my life at that time.
Joe's family came from a long line of Lutheran ministers, and he still had strong family ties in Germany. When Joe returned from one particularly long trip to Germany in 1935, he reported on how the Nazis, since coming to power in 1933, were bringing Germany back to life. They were pouring money into transportation and prided themselves on their effective railroad system, whose trains were running on time throughout the country. This was also the time when the Autobahns were built, providing both employment and transportation not available before. In addition, unemployment was extremely low as a result of all the new projects funded by the German government. I began to feel uneasy because I had also heard about how the Nazis were treating the Jews. When I questioned Joe, he was defensive but didn't push his points.
Joe had a brother, Edward (we called him "Eppy"), who was younger than Joe but older than me and who was an exceptionally talented singer. He and the Sitler family lived in Columbus near Ohio State University. When I enrolled there in 1936, I was often invited to join with the family and hear Eppy sing at their home. Eppy also took a trip to Germany in 1935 or 1936, and he came back full of praise for the Nazis. In fact, he decided to return to Germany and remained there during the entire war. I heard indirectly that he worked for the propaganda organization headed by Joseph Goebbels, but I lost track of him after the United States entered the war in 1941.
During my time at the university, Joe Sitler and I continued our discussions about current events. As the minister of a church, he could not in any way support the Nazis, but his personal experience of being challenged by a Nazi brother and having seen the positive things the Nazis were doing for Germany perplexed him. Although he disagreed with my position, he could to some degree sympathize. His uncertainty was symbolic of the overall tension in the United States at the time. At the beginning of the war I remember Joe saying, "There is no question who is going to win the war [the United States], but the Nazis had a point." After the war I never saw him again, but I heard that he had become chairman of the Luthern Seminary at University of Chicago, a prestigious organization and then later joined the protest movement against the war in Vietnam—he spoke in Orchestra Hall in Chicago with Staughton Lynd at a rally.
By a curious coincidence a similar struggle was going on within the E. F. Schumacher family in Germany at the time. Fritz Schumacher, who was to become my friend and associate many years later, had decided to leave Germany with his young family in 1932 when the Nazis were coming to power. His father, a professor, decided to stay, however, and although he wrote critically of the Nazis, he was not seriously harmed. Fritz and his father were never fully reconciled when they met again after the war.
I believe the experience of the war—the horrific violence and atrocities, the death and destruction, the separation of families—led many to reflect on the causes of war and violence. In his essay "Roots of Violence," Schumacher dealt with their deeper, underlying causes and the scale to which they can be carried, as represented by the Nazis and the atomic bomb.
I had my first love affair when I was seventeen. Mary was, like me, alienated from school and in love with classical music. We weren't in the same class but knew each other slightly—until we accidentally arrived at the same Cleveland Symphony Orchestra concert. We hit it off, and I was sure we would be married. We particularly loved going to the Cleveland Art Museum, which had recently installed a new organ (built by a local organ builder) in one of its large rooms adorned with paintings and sculptures. The sound of the organ in that room was overpowering. Mary and I often went to the museum on our dates.
Marriage never came about, though. She spent the whole summer following our junior year visiting friends in Louisiana, and when she returned the bloom of our romance had faded. From then on we met only casually. Her mother had something to do with it, I was sure, as she had tight reins on Mary, an only child from a broken marriage. I graduated without honors from high school and left home for Ohio State University the following fall, returning only for occasional visits. I was too alienated from my father, who was a staunch Republican, and from my mother, who simply gave her stamp of approval to my father's position on everything. It hurt me to see this because I liked my mother and hated to see her so dominated by my father.