GIRARD Festival celebrates Parkwood

Parkwood Days will run Thursday through Sunday.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GIRARD -- What began as a rivalry among baseball local teams in the Parkwood area of this city in the 1930s was a force in starting the celebration known as Parkwood Days.
Walter Morosko, 86, a Parkwood resident nearly all his life, recalls the era.
"We started to play with a sock. We didn't even know the rules of the game," Morosko said of the various nationalities that immigrated to Parkwood.
Morosko remembers the hardball and softball teams sponsored by the old Block Inn and Parkwood Market that played at a field off U.S. Route 422, near Skoplee Avenue, just south of Trumbull Avenue.
"These foreign people had no other entertainment. It was a place to gather," the Dearborn Street man recollected with fondness.
"Everybody went to the games," said Robin Stears of Lorain Avenue, who has researched Parkwood.
Some say it was those ball games that eventually evolved into Parkwood Days that will be celebrated Thursday through Sunday at Trumbull Avenue and Verona Street.
What started out as a concession stand at the games grew into a festival that will again feature rides, food, bingo, baked goods, games and a beer tent.
Members of the 4th Ward Block Watch will be serving their french fries. "People come just for the fries," Stears said.
"Parkwood is a very close community," Stears said, adding that everybody knows everybody else.
She pointed out that when a car was vandalized in the neighborhood, police were provided information so quickly, the culprits were caught running up the street.
Immigration
Parkwood takes in the southeastern section of the city -- about 1.5 square miles.
According to Vindicator files, immigrants looking for work settled in the area around the turn of the century, and many found manufacturing jobs in factories within walking distance.
At first, they found jobs in a shop that manufactured oil cloth and canvas automobile roofs.
Later, the steel industry provided more jobs.
The area was divided into two sections -- Tod Woods on the south side of Trumbull and Arlington Park to the north.
In the 1920s, Marian Fleming, then principal of Tod Woods School, combined the names of the two areas and called it Parkwood.
In 1927, Girard attempted to annex Parkwood into the city, but residents there favored being taken in by Youngstown because they felt a larger city could provide better services.
The issue was eventually resolved in the courts, but Parkwood has maintained a separate identity, with the Girard Multi-generation Center now the focus.
yovich@vindy.com