By JOSEPH KELLARD
In a caption accompany the membership card in ³Images of America, Oceanside,² a pictorial history book published by Arcadia, Woods wrote that in 1925 the KKK held a parade with 100,000 klansmen who marched through Oceanside and at a ³karnival² later that night burned a 40-foot cross. In fact, Woods said, the klansman also burned a cross outside of St. Anthony¹s R.C. Church, and in 1967 did the same outside the Oceanside home of a black family.
Woods offered many such tidbits at his talk and slide show before a modest library crowd Sept. 27. ³Oceanside² hit bookstores last November, selling 2,100 copies during the holiday season. Part of a nationwide regional series that includes books on Levittown and Hicksville, ³Oceanside² is comprised of vintage photos stretching back to the horse-and-buggy era, accompanied by historical anecdotes that capture the town¹s evolution and development up to the modern era.
Woods¹ library talk was only the second he has given since publishing ³Oceanside,² and enthusiasts were on hand holding their own copies, a few of whom were quick to offer their own Oceanside tales of decades past.
³This was a sad part of the book,² one woman said about the stories about the KKK.
³Mostly people thanked me for doing the book,² Woods said. ³But there were also a lot of people saying that I should have done this or that, like the suffragette movement in Oceanside, for example. But I only had so much time and so many pages to do it in.²
Woods showed an early 20th century shot of the First Presbyterian Church, the oldest house of worship in town, near the corner of Oceanside Road and Foxhurst Road. He noted that a lot of the activities in town held or got started at the First Presbyterian. One church member in the audience, named Marian, claimed that that was still the case today.
At the same intersection once stood the Davison general store, now the home of Island Auto Body. Woods showed slides of boys wearing knickers standing outside this store that also once served as the town¹s first post office. The athletic fields at Oceanside High School once were the grounds of both a hay farm and a country club with the first nine holes of a golf course. Woods also provided a shot of Duffy¹s Tavern, which today is the central office on the Camp DeBaun grounds on Atlantic Avenue. ³I used to go to New Year¹s Eve parties there,² Irene Pearsall, 80, called out from the crowd.
Pearsall, a life-long Oceansider whose family tree stretches back to Long Island¹s earliest settlers, made several comments about the photos Woods obtained for his book from libraries, historical societies and personal collections. Prior to his presentation, Pearsall noted that she was seated with women she¹d attended school with in Oceanside but hadn¹t seen in years.
Seeing this reminded Woods of something that stood out since publishing ³Oceanside.² ³I found that the book has been a way to get people together again and talk,² he said.
A biology and environmental science teacher for 24 years at OHS, Woods told the audience he was inspired to compile his history book after attending an induction dinner for the high school¹s Hall of Fame at the Knights of Columbus in 2003. As former OHS athletes gave their induction speeches that evening, Woods was riveted by their tales about growing up in Oceanside.
One such individual who spoke was Earnie Vanderweghe, an all-around athlete who Woods said led ³the ideal life² and made it into the teacher¹s book. A 1945 OHS graduate, Vanderweghe turned down a football scholarship from the University of Michigan to play basketball at Colgate instead. This lead to an eight-year career with the New York Knicks, during which he entered Columbia Medical School. Vanderweghe became a pediatrician and married a former Miss America.
Woods¹ showed several slides of the triangle at Long Beach Road and Lincoln Avenue through different eras. Before and after the turn of the 20th century, the triangle was the center of Oceanside, serving as one of eight trolley stops in town and surrounded by everything from a general store and drug store, to a bank, hotel and firehouse. From a 1930s postcard of the area, Woods pointed out a penny scale at the corner where International Karate does business today, noting that it was still there when he walked to grade school each day during the 1960s.
When a photo from the 1920s that looked east down Foxhurst Road appeared on the screen, Pearsall pointed her finger at the lone house on the barren street and said, ³I was born down the block from that home.² That road was named after the Foxhurst Estate, located near the Baldwin border and originally owned by Senator John Fox, and later by Frank Tinney, a vaudeville star who during the roaring 1920s hosted such Hollywood notables as Will Rogers.
The estate was located in an area known then as the Oaks (from which Oak School 3 derived its name), and in his research Woods found that many sections of Oceanside had their own names: ³Bayside² was where Bayside Road and Nassau Road are today, ³the Woodlands² were north of School 2, and ³the Neck² was around Mott Street.
Woods peppered his talk with many little factoids. Such as the influence clamming had on the economy in the early 1900s led Oceansiders to be called ³clamdiggers²; or that Oceanside during Prohibition was a major northeast rum-running community; the land in the town consisted largely of swamp that was filled in, and that the Chwatskys and Glucks were the first prominent Jewish families in town.
³I enjoyed the contributions from the people who came today,² Woods said after his talk. ³The book always seems to bring out people who have things to say about the town and who express what they thought was more important to emphasize in the book.²
Photos by Joseph Kellard
