“This Place, This Time” is pausing to remember.
Today’s feature is devoted to providing updates on local history stories that appeared recently in this space.
Thank you for reading.
Eulogy for a veteran
Kim Stover wanted us to know that her friend and hero Jim Ripley, 71, of Canal Fulton, died Jan. 20 after a long illness.
Last month, we wrote about the 50th anniversary of the letter she wrote as a 7-year-old girl to Santa Claus, asking if he could stop the war in Vietnam. After the letter appeared in the Beacon Journal, she received a Vietnamese doll from overseas and a note from Ripley, then 21, a soldier in the U.S Army.
“I want to thank you for the wish you asked Santa Claus for,” he wrote. “I am here in Vietnam, and I would like Santa Claus to stop the war over here so I could be home with my family.”
The two became lifelong friends.
After exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, Ripley endured a lifetime of illnesses, including depigmentation of his skin, a heart condition and eventually dementia, but he always remembered to call Stover on her birthday.
Stover had a nice visit with him in 2016 when she traveled here from her home in Columbus, Ind. She returned Wednesday for the funeral.
“I know he’s relieved of his suffering, but I am shocked that he died so soon,” Stover said. “And just about a month after your article about him and me appeared in the ABJ. I am even more grateful now for all that you did to help us celebrate him while he was alive.”
Ripley is survived by Linda, his wife of 49 years, son and daughter-in-law Jim and Sheri Ripley, daughters and sons-in-law Sally and Doug Hartline and Melanie and Eddie Torres, and grandchildren Nick, Nathaniel, Jarod, Courtney, Kinsey, Kendra, Kyle, Liberty and Landry.
Ripley was buried at Ohio Western Reserve National Cemetery. The family suggests memorials to the Ohio Veterans’ Memorial Park in Clinton, where a granite tribute to Ripley’s service was unveiled last year.
Brush with celebrity
Jay Carano was a bus boy at the Chanticleer Restaurant on that night in 1955 when newlyweds Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher stopped for dinner en route to their honeymoon in West Virginia. We wrote about the visit in a Jan. 9 column.
“It was quite a treat to see them,” he recalled. “They received a lot of attention, and patrons were taking menus to their table for autographs. Chanticleer was a classy place and had elaborate and expensive menus.”
When manager Charles Samie saw what was happening, he ordered Carano to go to the hostess station and remove all the fancy menus.
According to Carano, Samie said: “These people have no idea how expensive these menus are. Go up front and gather up as many as you can find. I’ll go find some old ones in the back and put them out until the Fishers leave.”
Carano said he was a little surprised, but after thinking it over, he saw Samie’s point. “I wonder if anyone still has one of those menus,” he said.
Hello, Debbie
Maxine Samie, 87, the widow of Charles Samie, was surprised to open the newspaper and see a photo of her husband, who passed away in 1967 at age 51.
She said she really appreciated the article.
“It certainly did bring an awful lot of memories back to me,” she said. “The Chanticleer was really a beautiful place, and the food was superb there.”
She wasn’t present the night that Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher dined, but she did run into Reynolds in the early 1960s.
“We went to Florida one winter, to Miami Beach, and we went there to see Frank Sinatra live at the Fontainebleau.”
They were waiting in line to be seated when Sinatra’s bodyguard Ed Pucci, a Canton native, strolled into the hotel and saw Charles Samie, a friend from Ohio.
“He went over and talked to the maître d’ and got us a wonderful seat,” she said. “Guess who was sitting right next to us?”
Debbie Reynolds and her second husband, Harry Karl.
Reynolds was pleasant as could be, and, yes, she remembered dining at the Chanticleer.
Dellwood revisited
Copley musician Gene Miller enjoyed the Dec. 26 story about Ange Lombardi and his orchestra.
“I had the good fortune to fill in on trumpet a number of times in his band at the Dellwood,” Miller said. “I knew nothing about his background, so your article was fascinating to me. I remember him as a kind man and an excellent musician. The book was fun to play. The arrangements were well done — easy to play and sounded good.”
“Most of the dancers were excellent as well. Entire ballroom dance classes would come to the Dellwood to practice. I memorized most of the music so that I could watch them dance. Everyone would dress up, go there, have dinner and dance. It was a wonderful time. Too bad that people don’t do that any more.”
North Hill’s loss
Akron native Michael Kolody, who now lives in Nevada, was saddened to learn about the closing of the Parasson’s restaurant on North Hill.
As a 1967 graduate of North High School, he has many happy memories of dining at Parasson’s. Every time he came back to Ohio, he would stop at Parasson’s.
“In 2015, we had a North High reunion at Stonehedge on Cuyahoga Falls Avenue,” he said. “I traveled back to Akron from Henderson, Nevada, and I was in Akron for about six days. I probably got to Parasson’s about four times during those six days.”
“The place just always treated my family and friends so well, the prices were great, the food was great, and we always felt so comfortable in there. I’m really going to miss it.”
Beacon Journal copy editor Mark J. Price can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.