A Place to Be Kids: Wolfe Playground and Black Childhood in Segregated Wheeling

We do not have usable photos of the actual Wolfe Playground from the time period. However, we do have archives of black children at Wheeling Park day-camps during the same time period. We will use these photos in this post only to represent the spirit of black youth in Wheeling. As the Foundation seeks to source actual photos from Wolfe Playground, we will replace these over time. Thank you for the patience.

This is part one of five on the history of segregated playgrounds in Wheeling

“I just float out of the tube and swim.”

That was how one young boy explained his swimming technique to Mabel M. Hull in 1949.

There was no elaborate lesson involved. An old inner tube provided the starting point. A child learned to kick, gained a little confidence, and eventually ventured beyond its reassuring circle.

Hull had been watching the children at Wolfe Playground, a place she described as one of her annual joys. She enjoyed seeing them play, especially in the pool. The boys and girls had become surprisingly capable swimmers, she reported, despite having no one there to teach them.

In that little exchange between a journalist and a child, we find a whole world.

There is ingenuity.

There is delight.

There is a boy proud enough of his accomplishment to explain it to an interested adult. And surrounding the scene is a segregated city in which access to something as simple as a swimming lesson could hardly be taken for granted.

Wolfe Playground gave Black children in Wheeling room to run, compete, splash, dance, and make friends. Built beside the segregated Lincoln School, it occupied a landscape where the city’s arrangements for education and recreation followed the same color line.

Yet the children filled that landscape with lives much larger than the restrictions imposed upon them.

For the Eugene and Beverly Stradwick Heritage Foundation, the surviving newspaper accounts offer an opportunity to recover a history that deserves a place alongside the classrooms, churches, clubs, and workplaces we have been exploring: the history of Black children simply trying to be kids.

A New Playground Beside Lincoln

In June 1944, the Wheeling News-Register announced that the new Wolfe Playground near Lincoln School was approaching its grand opening.

Recreation Superintendent Warren W. Pugh was arranging an elaborate program. The newspaper anticipated that Wolfe would be among the finest playgrounds in the city. A newly constructed basketball court would serve several purposes: a place for games, a dance floor, and, when winter arrived, a surface that could be flooded for skating.

That versatility mattered. A carefully planned piece of pavement could help serve a neighborhood across the seasons.

For readers following our Lincoln School history, the setting is especially meaningful. The school’s story stretches back to Wheeling’s establishment of public education for Black children in 1866. By the 1940s, generations of families had invested their hopes in what education might make possible.

The playground extended that world beyond the classroom.

Children could leave lessons behind and enter another kind of learning: how to join a team, settle a disagreement, take a turn, lose a game, or try something frightening until it became fun.

Its location also made the city’s racial arrangements unmistakable. A segregated school had a segregated recreational space beside it. Public investment could improve Black children’s daily lives while preserving the boundaries governing where they were expected to gather.

The families who used Wolfe had every reason to welcome the improvement. Their children deserved a good playground.

They also deserved a city in which the quality of their childhood did not depend upon their race.

Basketball at Six-Thirty, Jitterbugging at Seven-Thirty

The dedication program advertised in August 1944 sounds like an evening the neighborhood would have remembered.

At 6:30, Harryette Dennis’s girls’ basketball team was scheduled to meet June McNutt’s team. At seven, Cleve Mason’s Wolfe Playground team would face Andy Tonkovich’s All-Stars.

Then the evening would change its rhythm.

At 7:30, a jitterbug contest would begin, followed by dancing until dark. Norm Campbell and his orchestra would supply the music. Playground instructor Vivien Grey would serve as mistress of ceremonies.

The new concrete court measured eighty feet by forty feet. The newspaper praised its smooth finish and invited Black couples from Wheeling and surrounding communities to enter the dance competition. A wallet and a compact awaited the winning couple.

What a marvelous introduction to a public space.

The court could hold the concentrated excitement of a basketball game and, an hour later, the energy of couples dancing before their neighbors. A younger child might come to watch the players and remain to marvel at the dancers. Parents could see familiar faces. Teenagers could enjoy an evening organized with their participation in mind.

Weather had already forced postponements, and the surviving announcement describes plans rather than confirming every detail of the eventual celebration. Even so, it preserves the spirit in which Wolfe was being presented to its community.

This would be a place worth coming to.

A Governor, a Picnic Ground, and Supper Outdoors

The recreational landscape soon extended up the hillside.

An October 1944 newspaper photograph recorded Governor M. M. Neely dedicating a new picnic site above Wolfe Playground. Dr. G. A. Banks introduced the governor, and recreation commission member Albert J. Mooney appeared in the photograph.

The dedication stone identified the site as built by the State of West Virginia for the people of Wheeling. The caption also stated that it had been constructed entirely with prison labor—a detail belonging to the history of how this public amenity was created.

The picnic ground and the city playground were connected parts of a growing recreational setting, although the state’s picnic project was distinct from the municipal playground.

Five years later, Hull was still encouraging families to use that hillside.

Bring supper, she suggested. There were tables and outdoor ovens. Steak and potatoes cooked in the open air made a fine reason to gather.

That invitation gives us something valuable to picture: families claiming an evening together, children moving between play and supper, adults lingering over conversation while the city continued below them.

An oasis could be quite ordinary in its ingredients.

A table. A fire. Something to eat. People glad to be together.

The Playground the Children Kept Coming Back To

By June 1945, Wolfe was drawing attention for another reason: attendance.

The News-Register reported that it again led the city’s playgrounds, recording approximately 4,200 attendances during the reporting week.

These were attendance counts, rather than a claim that more than four thousand different children had visited. Even with that distinction, the figure is striking. Wolfe was attracting repeated, substantial use.

Its senior and junior basketball teams were organized and eager to meet teams from other playgrounds. Children also took part in scheduled cleanups.

The previous summer’s weekly reports had already captured the place’s growing routine. Wolfe defeated Bridge Park in basketball. A wiener roast was declared a success. A spelling bee for younger children was planned. Instructor Joe Williams was preparing to take a group on a hike.

Those small announcements are full of life.

A child who had little interest in basketball might enjoy a hike. A younger pupil could have a turn in the spelling bee. An evening gathering could bring together children who spent their days in different activities.

The playground offered a reason to return tomorrow.

And when cold weather came, its usefulness continued. In December 1944, the Intelligencer reported that Wolfe’s skating surface had been cleared and was in excellent condition.

The same court carried the neighborhood through changing seasons.

When Wolfe Took on the Rest of Wheeling

The playground’s segregated identity did not mean that its children were absent from citywide competition.

One of the most exciting accounts in the collection concerns the annual playground track meet held at Tunnel Green in August 1947.

Tunnel Green won by a single point: 56–55.

Wolfe came that close.

Floyd Wilson of Wolfe was the leading individual scorer in the boys’ events, winning two events for ten points. Ollie Gentry led the girls’ scoring with ten points. Another Gentry—whose first name appears with varying spellings in the report—finished close behind with nine.

The results preserve an energetic assortment of childhood contests: short dashes, sack races, rope skipping, standing broad jumps, piggyback races, and softball throws.

Donald Miller placed in events for Wolfe. George Sanders won the boys’ rope-skipping contest. Patty Abrams appeared among the girls’ successful competitors, while the Gentry name returned repeatedly in the results.

It is easy to imagine the attention shifting from one event to the next as the points accumulated and the finish tightened.

One point.

For those children, that narrow margin could have supplied conversation for days.

The record also complicates any simple picture of separation. Children associated with a segregated playground competed against other neighborhood playgrounds, appearing together in the newspaper’s accounts of the city’s sporting life. Such encounters existed within a wider system that continued to organize important parts of their lives by race.

Wolfe’s children were making themselves known across Wheeling.

They continued to do so. In July 1953, a report on the city’s playground Athletic Carnival credited Wolfe with basketball honors.

The school beside the playground was cultivating students. The playground was cultivating neighborhood pride.

Lincoln Came Outside to Celebrate

On May 17, 1950, after repeated weather postponements, Lincoln’s elementary pupils finally presented their May Day program at Wolfe Playground.

Children from all six grades participated in a spring pageant featuring dances and other activities under the physical education department.

The photograph published the following day gives us names and faces.

Benny Benson was king. Mary Elizabeth Betts was May queen, elected by her schoolmates.

Also pictured were Hershall Frieson, Shirley Pritchard, Sandra Miles, Robert Reed, Charles Johns Jr., and Gwendolyn Whitaker.

Here was another familiar American school tradition unfolding beside Lincoln.

There were classmates to impress, a program to remember, and the considerable excitement of being chosen king or queen. Parents and neighbors had children to watch for.

The photograph carried their celebration into the newspaper.

These moments belong in our understanding of segregated education.

Lincoln’s history includes unequal opportunities, determined educators, institutional achievement, and the eventual upheaval of desegregation. It also includes children dressing for a spring program and waiting for their turn.

Wolfe provided a stage for that part of their lives.

The Playground Became a Camp

Our recent exploration of Wheeling’s Black Girl Scouts introduced Wolfe in another role: the home of Camp Maynor.

The new collection adds especially rich details.

In May 1950, a photograph showed Lincoln Girl Scouts registering for camp. The caption identified Betty Winston, Hattie Milliken, Betty Mae Kent, and Ann Prince, along with Mrs. Brown, who was handling registration.

Cookie-sale credits would help meet the girls’ expenses.

The camp, directed that year by Mrs. Fred Stumpel, brought Scouts from Lincoln and Blessed Martin schools to Wolfe for a program spanning two five-day periods. Activities included outdoor cooking, crafts, games, songs, storytelling, and dramatics.

A Court of Awards added recognition to the adventure.

In the photograph published June 2, Miss Addie Hill, chairman of the Central Committee, presented camp ribbons. The girls included:

• Sara Jane Miller, receiving a first-year award;

• Carolyn Hill and Mary Elizabeth Betz, receiving second-year awards;

• Effie Burrus, receiving a third-year award;

• Anna Smith, Anita Waldrum, and Areena Catlin, receiving first-year awards;

• Hattie Milliken, receiving a fourth-year award.

Those different years of participation tell their own story. New campers were entering a program in which other girls were already experienced hands.

A playground could become a place of continuity, where a child returned older, more capable, and ready for another summer.

The connection between Lincoln and Blessed Martin also matters. Public-school and Catholic-school girls shared this experience through Scouting. Wolfe helped bring together children whose daily classrooms were in different institutions.

Mabel Hull Watched Closely

For all the schedules, scores, and photographs, Hull’s June 1949 column remains the emotional heart of this collection.

Its title was beautifully direct: “Every Child Likes To Go Swimming.”

The accompanying subheading made the local situation clear: “Wolfe Playground Girls and Boys Teach Themselves.”

Hull admired the children’s determination and enjoyed their pleasure. She also noticed what they lacked.

There was no one teaching them to swim, she wrote.

The drinking fountain was not yet in use.

Some children traveled far enough to reach the playground that going home for a drink was impractical.

When she asked a youngster about the milk provided through the News-Register Milk Fund, he told her that a cold drink made him feel good when he was hot.

The milk was welcome. The unavailable fountain remained a problem.

Hull’s column allows both truths to stand.

Children were making joyful use of the place, and adults still had obligations to fulfill. A swimming pool needed more than children willing to teach themselves. A busy playground needed dependable drinking water.

Her reporting turns an apparently small matter into a question of whose needs receive attention.

For a thirsty child who had walked across town, a working fountain was hardly a minor convenience.

Tennis at Five in the Morning

Hull’s observations reached beyond the playground fence.

She hoped a tennis court might be included when the recreation center was completed, space permitting. She remembered an earlier group of Black boys and girls using courts on Wheeling Island—but having to get up at five in the morning.

They had enjoyed the game despite the hour, she recalled. In more recent years, she wrote, Black young people had been denied the sport.

That recollection offers a revealing measure of recreational access.

The question was larger than whether a city possessed courts, pools, or amusement facilities. It included who could use them and when.

Hull also remembered moonlight boat rides on the Ohio River and the roller coaster at the old Island fairgrounds. She had enjoyed the front seat herself and recalled the excitement carried into the walk home across the bridge.

Her memories gave young readers a glimpse of pleasures that had become less available.

They also strengthened her argument for more opportunities in the present. She knew what recreation could mean because she had enjoyed it.

The children at Wolfe deserved their own stories to tell.

A Pool Could Be a Public Improvement—and Still Carry a Racial Label

In 1950, plans for new city swimming pools placed Wolfe within a wider municipal undertaking.

The Intelligencer reported in June that City Council had hired swimming-pool consultant Wayne Becker of Cincinnati to work with local architects. Councilman Joseph J. Gilligan chaired the pool committee.

The newspaper discussed proposed pools for several sections of Wheeling and identified the Wolfe location in explicitly racial terms, connecting it to the Negro Recreation Center.

That language is important.

The city was planning improvements to recreational infrastructure, and a designated facility for Black residents formed part of those plans. The investment promised an amenity while continuing to map recreation along racial lines.

The distinction between the existing water facilities Hull described in 1949 and the new pool proposed in 1950 should also be preserved. A planning announcement establishes what officials intended; it does not, by itself, establish when construction or opening occurred.

For the families waiting, however, the practical hope was clear: better opportunities for their children to swim and play.

Behind the Fun Was Civic Work

Wolfe’s story also connects with another familiar Foundation subject: Harry H. Jones and the organized effort to expand Black recreation.

In September 1947, Jones’s “Along the Color Line” column discussed recreational leadership and plans for a proposed center.

He identified Albert J. Mooney as a promoter of improvements to Wolfe Playground. Dr. R. M. Hamlin appeared as chairman of the recreation committee of the Ohio Valley Negro Post-War Planning League. Jones himself was identified as a continuing member of the Negro Recreation Commission.

The proposed center discussed in that column involved a recommended Handlan Playground site, so it should not be collapsed into Wolfe’s history as though the two locations were interchangeable.

What the account establishes is the larger civic effort around recreation.

The children’s games had adult advocates behind them. People attended meetings, promoted improvements, studied proposals, and kept recreational needs before public officials.

Hull and Jones preserved different parts of the same community enterprise: the experience of using a place and the work of securing better places.

The Children Kept Giving Wolfe Something to Celebrate

Wolfe’s life continued beyond the years of school segregation.

In July 1965, a newspaper advertisement celebrated its selection as an “Olympiad” Playground of the Week. The program was sponsored by the Wheeling Jaycees and By-Rite Foodland.

The award recognized the playground with the largest percentage of participants in the Young Olympic program.

Instructor Anna Miller accepted it. The photograph also identified coordinator Robert Roe, Youth Federation chairman Edward Young, and district supervisor Robert Leech.

That measure of success is particularly appealing: participation.

Children had turned out and taken part. Their playground had something to show for it.

More than twenty years after its opening plans appeared in the newspaper, Wolfe was still providing occasions for achievement and recognition.

When Parents Had to Fight for the Oasis

A playground’s importance can become especially visible when its condition deteriorates.

In January 1966, the Intelligencer reported that a large retaining wall beside Wolfe had collapsed.

By August 1967, parents were pressing City Council about conditions at the playground and the Charles Street Recreation Center.

One was Mrs. Sydney Cochran of North Chapline Street. According to the News-Register, she complained that rocks and dirt from a landslide remained at Wolfe, the wading pool had not operated all summer, and cars were using the playground as a parking lot.

City Manager Charles W. Wasemann promised to investigate with Recreation Superintendent Jack C. Maloney. Councilman Peter J. Kamell expressed frustration over the delay in repairs.

Two days later, the newspaper reported that basketball-court resurfacing was scheduled to begin the following Monday. A contractor had also been engaged to rebuild the wall and construct a shelter, although the starting date for that work remained uncertain.

The parents’ intervention belongs in the playground’s history.

They were defending a place their children needed. A damaged court, an unusable pool, or a neglected gathering space represented summer days being lost.

Their insistence carried a straightforward expectation: a public playground should remain fit for children to use.

Remembering Childhood in Full

There are many ways to tell the history of segregation.

We can examine laws, public budgets, school policies, housing conditions, and the campaigns that challenged exclusion. Those records help explain the structure of the world Black Wheeling residents inhabited.

Wolfe Playground helps us enter that world at a child’s height.

There is a girl preparing for the May Day pageant. A boy learning to swim with an inner tube. A Scout receiving her fourth-year camp ribbon. A basketball team eager to challenge another neighborhood. A jitterbug contest waiting for the orchestra to begin.

The setting was constrained. The children’s lives were full.

That fullness is central to the Eugene and Beverly Stradwick Heritage Foundation’s work. We preserve evidence of what Black communities endured, and we recover the friendships, celebrations, creativity, and everyday pleasures that made those communities home.

Wolfe was an oasis because people used it, cared about it, and demanded that it serve their children.

Some of those children may still remember the games. Their families may have photographs, camp ribbons, or stories about the walk to the playground. We would welcome the opportunity to preserve those memories alongside the newspaper record.

And somewhere within that history remains a boy who had figured out how to leave his inner tube behind.

He wanted Mabel Hull to know he could swim.

We are glad she wrote it down.

-T

Historical Terminology Note

This article includes historical terms such as “colored” and “Negro” when quoting original sources or identifying organizations as they were known at the time. These terms reflect the language and racial conditions of their era; their inclusion is not an endorsement of their use today.

In our own narrative, we use Black and African American, as appropriate. We preserve historical wording to document the past faithfully while honoring the dignity, humanity, and experiences of the people whose stories we share.

Sources and Notes

• June 11, 1944, Wheeling News-Register. “City Playgrounds Open Diversified, Fun-Packed Season,” including the “Grand Opening Planned” item describing Wolfe’s new court and intended uses.

• July 30, 1944, Wheeling News-Register, p. 12. Playground reports documenting Wolfe’s basketball activity, spelling-bee plans, wiener roast, and proposed hike with instructor Joe Williams.

• August 20, 1944, Wheeling News-Register. “Wolf Playground Ceremony Tues.,” announcing the dedication program, court dimensions, basketball games, orchestra, dance competition, and instructor Vivien Grey’s role.

• October 8, 1944, Wheeling News-Register, p. 12. “Picnic Site Dedicated,” photograph and caption documenting Governor Neely’s participation, Dr. G. A. Banks, Albert J. Mooney, the hillside location, and construction through prison labor.

• December 30, 1944, Wheeling Intelligencer, p. 9. Recreation report describing Wolfe’s cleared skating surface.

• June 24, 1945, Wheeling News-Register, p. 17. “Playground Attendance and Activities Increase.” The article’s introductory and individual-playground figures differ slightly; the narrative therefore uses “approximately 4,200.” Attendance totals represent recorded use, not necessarily distinct individuals.

• August 10, 1947, Wheeling News-Register, p. 13. “Playgrounds Meet Won By Tunnel Green,” reporting the 56–55 result, individual scoring, and event results.

• Harry H. Jones, September 7, 1947, Wheeling News-Register. “Along the Color Line,” discussing recreational leadership, Wolfe improvements, and the proposed recreation center.

• Mabel M. Hull, June 19, 1949, Wheeling News-Register, printed p. 12, Part III. “Every Child Likes To Go Swimming,” with subheading “Wolfe Playground Girls and Boys Teach Themselves.” Principal source for the children’s swimming, milk distribution, drinking fountain, tennis access, recreational memories, and picnic-ground invitation.

• May 14, 1950, Wheeling News-Register, printed p. 10, Part IV. “Lincoln Girl Scouts Enrolled for Camp Maynor,” photograph and caption identifying participants and describing the camp program and cookie-sale credits.

• May 18, 1950, Wheeling News-Register, p. 4. “Lincoln School Holds May Day Program at Playground,” photograph and caption identifying pupils, the king and queen, and participation by six elementary grades.

• May 31, 1950, Wheeling Intelligencer, p. 13. Girl Scout day-camp report describing Camp Maynor’s activities, leadership, and participation by Lincoln and Blessed Martin troops.

• June 2, 1950, Wheeling News-Register. “Lincoln, Blessed Martin Girl Scouts Are Honored,” photograph and caption naming Addie Hill and the girls receiving camp ribbons.

• June 14, 1950, Wheeling Intelligencer, p. 13. “Council Hires Cincinnati Swimming Pool Engineer,” documenting Wayne Becker’s appointment and the proposed pool locations.

• July 26, 1953, Wheeling News-Register, p. 18. “Dimmeydale Playground Near Crown,” crediting Wolfe with basketball honors in the playground Athletic Carnival.

• July 14, 1965, Wheeling News-Register, p. 26. “Olympiad Playground of the Week,” paid promotional photograph and caption documenting Wolfe’s participation award and identifying Anna Miller, Robert Roe, Edward Young, and Robert Leech.

• January 8, 1966, Intelligencer, p. 1. Report documenting the retaining-wall collapse at Wolfe beside Lincoln School.

• August 2, 1967, Wheeling News-Register, p. 23. Council report recording residents’ complaints, Mrs. Sydney Cochran’s statements, and officials’ responses.

• August 4, 1967, Wheeling News-Register, p. 11. “Wolfe Playground Repairs Scheduled,” reporting planned court resurfacing and arrangements for wall and shelter work.