Ollie's Childhood

---

As told to Theresa Clawson-Christman, his 1945 Royal Oak High School prom date.

Ollie Green's mother was the daughter of Almon Starr, who was the son of Orson Starr, who lived in the home on Main St. and 13 Mile Rd.

It was a pretty full house when I grew up. My mom (Rhoda Starr Green), dad (Oliver A Green), brother (George), Aunt Clara Ellen Starr, sometimes Uncle Alan Starr and his daughter Mary, and Aunt Minnie Starr, who was teaching in Iowa, all lived here together. 

There was nothing but open fields around this area except for across the street, which was Uncle John and Aunt Bessie Starr's greenhouses and seed farm, and north of that Ed and Riz Starr's house, and across on the corner at 13 Mile was Grandfather Edwin Starr and his second wife, Aunt Carrie's house. There were some houses north of Thirteen Mile where I had some playmates, but basically this house stood on a large farm that went west to Woodward Ave. The railroad was there, and my friends and I would walk down the tracks Into Royal Oak. There was a little house at the end of Essex for a while where my Aunt Cora Green lived, later my brother George and his wife. Still, it was very antiquated and eventually torn down. The Red Run River was there too, but it was later diverted. 

When I was little, you could see the outline of the brick kilns. The bellows were still there in what became the chicken houses. There was a barn, a garage, and a milk house. After I inherited the house, the milk house was all that was left and I turned that into a sort of garage. 

And then, there was always the Indian trail. It initially, as you know, went from Saginaw to Detroit. . .my friends and I played a lot of baseball on the front lawn and if you hit the ball toward the Indian Trail, it would veer off into an unknown direction. . .not good. We also played tennis out front. A special kind of grass seed was planted that was used for tennis. 

I went to Northwood School and still have friends that were classmates. (I'm not sure why I didn't go to Starr School since it was a lot closer, but I went to Northwood.) From there, I went on to Dondero High School. 

My friends and I walked over to Woodward Avenue when we were young and took the bus down to Detroit. Sometimes we took the boat to Boblo Island and sometimes we went to Orchestra Hall to hear the great jazz players. My mother took me to Orchestra Hall to listen to the Detroit Symphony and that was probably the basis for my love of music and my career as the bass clarinetist for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. 

In High School, I had a band and we practiced a lot here at the house and recorded in a place down the street on Crooks. There was a lot of music in this house. Aunt Clara was head of music in Detroit Schools and everyone sang in the church choir. Aunt Clara brought her outstanding students to the house on weekends and they put on musicals such as Pirates of Penzance. They all loved Gilbert and Sullivan. 

I took piano lessons in Royal Oak from Mrs. Edna Pewfogle. I started clarinet lessons when I was about age nine. I had to spend a lot of time practicing. . . 

On the farm here, we had an acre and a half of asparagus. It was my job to keep out the weeds and to pick and sell it down in R.O. when it was ready . . .25 cents a bunch back then. I also worked across the street in my uncle's greenhouses. 

We had a lot of fun back then. Where the parking lot is now on the northside of the house was an area where my great grandfather Almon had experimented with growing different kinds of trees. 

In the pine trees out front, we had forts and houses. 

When Grandfather Edwin Starr lived across and up on the corner, I helped with a produce garden that he and Aunt Bessie had, cultivating and picking the vegetables. 

One of my chores was shoveling snow down the driveway to Essex St. My friend Charlie Kashoric and I got paid for mowing all this lawn. . .with a push mower! 

I grew up here, married my wife, Lee, and had two children, Edward and Marian, while we lived here. On my salary as a musician back then, it became too expensive to keep this place up, and sadly, we had to move. 

It's a pleasure to see that this place is so well cared for now, and that people will enjoy it for some time to come.