The Society Scroll
Newsletter of
The Ocean County Historical Society
26 Hadley Avenue
Toms River, NJ 08753
Phone: 732 341-1880 FAX: 732 341-4372
“Telling The Stories Of Ocean County”
President’s Message
By Cynthia Smith
As I begin my
tenure as
president of the
Ocean County
Historical
Society, I do so
with the greatest
appreciation for
my predecessors
who served in
this position
during the past
sixty-three years. The Society has grown not only in the
size of its membership and budget, but also as an
enduring and respected institution in Ocean County.
Without the devotion of time and effort by the hundreds
of officers and trustees over these many years, we
would not be as effective and viable an organization as
we are. And, yet, like any organization, we have had
our “ups and downs.” Fortunately, the “ups” have far
exceeded the “downs.”
Recently, I mentioned to one of our dedicated members
that our volunteers are the heart and soul of the Society.
Today, there are no paid full-time or even part-time
employees of the Ocean County Historical Society. Of
course, we do engage the services of professional
advisers and consultants when specific expertise is
required for such functions as accounting, auditing, and
legal, etc. However, all day-to-day services, programs,
June 2013
activities, and operations are managed and performed
by volunteers. Open Monday through Friday, the first
Saturday afternoon of each month, and scheduled
weekend afternoons and weekday evening programs/
meetings, the museum attracts an extraordinary corps
of volunteers. The Research Center is enthusiastically
staffed Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons and the
first Saturday by still more volunteers. Over 13,100
total volunteer hours were logged in 2012!
The Ocean County Historical Society has promised to
be a good steward of its resources held in the public
trust and faithful to public accountability and
transparency in its mission and operations. My pledge
to you, the membership, is to do my best to lead fairly,
prudently, and wisely and to ensure that the Society
continues to serve the people of Ocean County.
Thank You Volunteers!
OCHS Volunteer
Coordinator Kevin Neary
has announced that our June
19, 2013 Morning At The
Museum will be a very
special event. At 10:00 AM
on that morning a pancake
and sausage breakfast will
be served to recognize our
volunteers for more than 13,000 hours of exceptional
service that they have dedicated to our Society. The
invitation is open to all, but reservations are required
due to limited seating in our Birdsall Room.
winter and spring of 1910-11 to finance this expensive
dream. They received gifts of about $27,000, using
$3000 to buy land for the hospital.
Kimball Medical Center:
A Friend in Ocean County for One Hundred Years
By Barbara Reusch
Historian Betty Grant tells us that thanks to generous
gifts from the wealthy George J. Gould ($7500, surgical
equipment, and an ambulance) and John D. Rockefeller
($5000) to the buildings and grounds fund, as well as
memorial gifts from donors and support from the Ocean
County Board of Chosen Freeholders and the Township
of Lakewood, the Paul Kimball Hospital opened in 1913.
Named after a wellknown young doctor who
attended not only the
Gould family, but also
many less wealthy
patients in Lakewood for
twenty years, Paul
Kimball Hospital had
“sixteen beds in two four
-bed wards, two isolation
rooms, and six private
rooms. That first year of
operation Paul Kimball
Hospital was so crowded that patients had to be placed
on waiting lists….During the first year 259 patients were
admitted; nine were newborns.”
Readers were treated to an overview of health care in the
United States in Paul Kimball Hospital’s Caring, a
newsletter sent to friends in Fall/Winter 1978.
According to this publication, inadequate medical
facilities and untrained personnel prevailed from the
Revolutionary War era to the mid- nineteenth century.
Towns didn’t plan for the future; they merely tried to
cope with the present.
At the beginning of the
twentieth century, the
answer to health care
needs seemed to be
hospitals that were
supported by voluntary
contributions. All the
major cities boasted of
these by around 1840.
Influenced by nursing
teachers such as Florence
Nightingale and Linda
Richards, health care practice and recordkeeping
improved in the late 1800’s. Thanks to scientific
research and discovery, health care embraced
immunization, anesthesia, laboratories with microscopes,
and extended knowledge of antisepsis and asepsis.
Considering the rates of hospital visits today, we would
be happy to pay per diem hospital room rates in 1913:
$1.50 for general room patients; $2.50 for isolation room
patients; and the huge sum of $5.00 to $10.00 per day for
those in private rooms. The one consolation was the
reduction in cost for a private room patient who paid
weekly charges!
Ocean County, carved from Monmouth County in 1850,
had its share of contagious diseases and felt the need for
a hospital after outbreaks of rubella (1908) and
diphtheria (1909). As Lakewood, formerly known as
Bricksburg, became a busy town that welcomed tourists
from New York City and extolled its healthy “pine
scented breezes,” it had to deal with tuberculosis and
polio, too.
During its first fifty years, Kimball handled patients
from two well-known disasters, the 1935 fire and
destruction of the ocean steamer Morro Castle and the
1937 explosion of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst Naval
Air Station. Responding to the county’s needs, Kimball
opened a physiotherapy department and orthopedic clinic
Acknowledging an urgent need for a hospital, a group of
committed women in Lakewood raised funds in the
2
County Observer, October 15, 1986, p. 7.
in 1932, as well as a separate isolation unit for
contagious diseases in 1942. It was the first hospital in
Ocean County to perform vascular surgery in 1958.
One Hundred Years—Kimball Medical Center—A Century of
Caring, May 2013.
Paul Kimball Hospital, Caring, Vol.5, No. 1, Fall/Winter 1978.
By 1984, Paul Kimball Hospital offered 354 beds to
patients and was renamed Kimball Medical Center. The
first hospital in the county to provided inpatient mental
health services, Kimball’s Psychiatric Evaluation and
Screening Service (PESS) became invaluable to the
community in the 1990’s.
Paul Kimball Hospital Edition—Supplement of The Lakewood
Daily Times, Sept 12, 1959.
“Paul Kimball Marks 50 Years of Service”, Ocean County
Observer, June 20, 1963, p. 20.
Schnitzspahn, Karen, “Inland was a ‘winter paradise,’ ” Asbury
Park Press, January 9, 1995, p. B1
In 1996, Kimball Medical Center (KMC) joined the St.
Barnabas Health Care System. By 1998, it served more
than 11,000 inpatients, 103,000 outpatients, and more
than 42,000 emergency room patients annually, with
nearly four hundred doctors on the medical staff.
Upcoming Events
Themed Exhibit “Victorian Secrets:
Undergarments of the Past”
Exhibit Continues Until……………..… January 3, 2014
Themed Exhibit “Answering President
Lincoln’s Call: Civil War Volunteers of
Ocean County”
Exhibit Continues Until…..… Friday, October 18, 2013
Continuing to evolve as its nurses, doctors, and staff
endeavored to provide excellent care to the changing
communities it served in Ocean County and beyond,
Kimball instituted a Center for Healthy Aging.
Collaboration with Monmouth Medical Center led to
enhanced pediatric emergency services and a satellite
facility for comprehensive breast care, serving two other
segments of the population.
Volunteer Recognition Breakfast.. 10:00 AM
Reservation Required
………………… Wednesday, June 19, 2013
OCHS Board Meeting in the Birdsall Room, 7:00 PM
…………………...…….……….. Monday, July 1, 2013
One hundred years after its humble beginning, Kimball
Medical Center still takes pride in its outstanding
physical plant with 350 beds, and its treatment of 15,000
inpatients and 50,000 emergency patients annually. Its
Centennial publication in May 2013 states:
Through a proud and rich tradition that combines a
legacy of community support with quick thinking, skilled
physicians, nurses, and employees all under the
umbrella of a thriving health care system in Barnabas
Health, Kimball Medical Center is poised to do what it
has always done—answer the call of the community it
serves, no matter the challenge.
OCHS Museum Closed Independence Day
……..……..……...…... Thursday, July 4, 2013
Museum and Research Center Open… First Saturday
…………...… 1:00 PM-4:00 PM Saturday, July 6, 2013
Morning At The Museum... 10:00 AM
Members Welcome….…..… Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Museum and Research Center Open... First Saturday
………..… 1:00 PM-4:00 PM Saturday, August 3, 2013
OCHS Board Meeting in the Birdsall Room, 7:00 PM
…………………...………….. Monday, August 5, 2013
The Society Scroll Staff
Sources:
Grant, Betty, An Early History of Paul Kimball Hospital,” January
1984, pp 1-4.
Barbara Reusch, editor, Ora Parks, Frank Parks
Miller, Pauline, “How Paul Kimball Hospital Began,” Ocean
3
was born in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1912. His mother
died giving birth to her fifth son, my Uncle Charley. I’m
sure it wasn’t easy raising five youngsters. My dad
attended school only through the fifth grade, and then set
out to help the family survive. While his father worked
for Standard Oil of New Jersey, Dad ran a shoeshine
stand in front of a local variety store. Mobsters ran the
streets of New Jersey cities during this time and your
grandfather witnessed it first hand. He was standing
outside the variety store when a car pulled up. The
driver got out and yelled, “Hey, kid, get in the alley.”
Though your Pop-Pop was the inquisitive type, he didn’t
ask why, he just did as he was told. Almost immediately
he heard machine gun fire…..but they took care of the
women and children, right?
Growing Up Beachwood
Part I
Joan Fuccile Fitzpatrick wrote the following account for her
children. She says, “We raised our five children in Massachusetts,
and although the kids spent many summer weeks with my parents,
and with us in Seaside for our two-week vacations, I wanted them to
know what life was like for me growing up in Beachwood. Amazing
how memories flow once you get started!” Thank you, Joan, for
recalling details that so many of our long-time residents share. It’s
also important for those who have recently moved to this area to
know how life used to be in Ocean County “back in the day!”
The sign as you entered the small town proudly
displayed its name….Beachwood, with a depiction of the
beach on one side and pine trees on the other. And that’s
how the town was split. Although the Toms River side
was never referred to as the “front,” it was common
knowledge that the trees represented the “back” of
Beachwood. The two sides were divided by the
combined railroad station
and post office. It was a
beautiful little building,
and I never questioned
the logic behind the
pagoda style architecture.
He spent the next several years in Bayonne doing odd
jobs. He took up boxing and even fought in a Golden
Glove event in the Featherweight division. At
seventeen, he moved to Lakehurst, New Jersey to join
his older brother, Harry, and be his apprentice at
barbering. Your grandmother’s dad also worked for
Uncle Harry and that’s how the two met.
Pauline (Ruzzo) Fuccile was the second child of Jennie
(Lista) and Joseph Ruzzo. She was born in Lakehurst in
1914. She graduated from
Lakewood High School and she
married Dad soon after. They were
living in Lakehurst when my
brother, Joey, was born. Although
Dad continued to work with his
Joan and Joey
brother, he was also the “ship’s
barber” at Lakehurst Naval Air Station. Because of that,
he was offered an additional fifty cents to help hold the
lines of the large airships that moored at Lakehurst. The
Hindenberg was the most famous. I know you’ve all
heard the story of your grandmother being on the
switchboard in Lakehurst when the explosion occurred
and not knowing for several hours whether your
grandfather had been injured or killed.
The founder of the community, Bertram Mayo,
collaborated with the New York Tribune and offered the
following:
Subscribe to the New York Tribune and secure a lot in
Beautiful Beachwood. Act at once, secure your lot in
this Summer Paradise now!
They came by the trainload and after a tour of available
lots were treated to lunch at the beach.
Mainly a summer community for semi-affluent (at least,
we thought they were rich!) North Jersey and New York
families, Beachwood attracted some year-round
residents. In the late 1930’s, my family was among
them.
Very few things end up as they began. My father was
one of five boys born to Italian immigrant parents. He
4
My family moved to
Beachwood in 1938, when I
was two, and Dad was able
to open his own barbershop.
He never regretted taking up
barbering. On the contrary,
he loved every aspect of
being a member of a
community. He made friends with barbers in Toms
River and loved “talking shop” with Johnny Placente and
Paul Deck. I wish you could have witnessed his twicemonthly Sunday ritual! We always went to 9:00 Mass at
St. Joseph’s in Toms River. If Father Walsh were saying
Mass, we’d be home by 9:45. Dad would grab the black
bag filled with his tools and make the rounds of
Beachwood’s elderly shut-ins. He knew they’d feel
better after a trim and a shave and I know he felt pretty
good about it, too. There was never any money
exchanged during these “house calls” and Dad never
talked about it. He just did it.
one, would expire and the owner would opt to rent to an
officer from the Naval Air Station who could afford
more! I don’t think I was traumatized by all the packing;
it was just a natural, yearly event. Those were war years
and looking back, I guess everyone had to make
adjustments. At least I learned to pack!!
Your grandmother was somewhat of a pioneer in the
work force. I don’t ever remember when she didn’t
work! Joey and I spent a lot of time with our
grandparents in Lakehurst and it’s still time that I
treasure. I can’t smell a lilac or a lily-of-the-valley
without seeing my grandmother’s face and knowing how
much she loved me. My cousin, Janice, and I would
spend time slapping pages of the Sears Catalog (who
picked the prettiest dress?) and collecting rain water
from the downspouts for our dads’ car radiators. Back
then, there was no thought of acid rain!
My Mom-Mom was very
active in the USO and would
cart Janice and me across the
street several times a week.
She cooked, baked, and did
basically whatever she could to
make a young sailor’s or
Mom-Mom with Joan on her 16th birthday
marine’s time away from home
a little easier. Uncle Bill was flying missions over
Germany on a B-17 and these volunteer hours helped
her, I’m sure.
My earliest recollections in Beachwood are of riding a
tricycle in front of the shop. At that time, the shop was
located across from Disbrow’s Market. There were two
retail spaces on the first floor, the barbershop and
something else. We lived upstairs and one of the
favorite Pop-Pop stories during that time had to do with
a fire. Mom had just gotten home from the hospital after
major surgery when Dad bolted up the stairs,
admonished her not to get excited, then told her the
building was on fire
and help was on the
way. Beachwood
had a Volunteer Fire
Department and I’m
sure that Mother was
grateful that we lived
Beachwood Volunteer Fire Department
in the “center of
town.” Dad became a life member of the BVFD.
We didn’t have a Big Ben to tell us what time it was in
Beachwood. We had the Friday night siren! At 7:30
every Friday night, the siren would blare to let the
volunteer firemen know it was meeting time. When that
alarm sounded at any other time, it meant there was a
fire, and it was usually at night. If I close my eyes, I can
still smell the smoke on my dad’s clothes. It permeated
the air—fascinating and frightening at the same time.
All of these men had jobs that they had to go to in the
morning, and I’m not sure that, as a kid, I appreciated
what they did.
We didn’t own a home until I was in high school. As a
result, we moved many, many times. A lease, if we had
5
Society Establishes Endowment Fund
A lot of interesting people lived in Beachwood, and
some were famous! Helen O’Connell sang with the
Jimmy Dorsey orchestra and lived in the pagoda house
while her husband was stationed at Lakehurst. The
Thomas Bread people (as in English
muffins) owned a home on a very
large piece of land. That impressed
me. Most Beachwood lots were 80’
X 100’. Lanny Ross (he was even
before my time), a singer, had a
summer home in Beachwood.
Yeah, we lived there, but only for
three months while waiting to move
into our first real home at 501
Joan at 501 Barnegat Blvd.
Barnegat Blvd. (to be continued in
the August issue of The Society Scroll)
The Ocean
County
Historical
Society
(OCHS) is
pleased to
announce the
establishment
of an endowment fund, the purpose of which is to
provide perpetual financial support to the Society.
Initial funding for the endowment came through the
generosity of a bequest from the late Robert H.
Staples, a long time loyal member of the society. The
twenty member Board of Trustees has established the
OCHS Endowment Management Policy which
outlines the conditions under which the endowment
will be managed. The policy calls for the chartering
of a six person Investment Committee.
Mary Todd Lincoln Visits OCHS
By Barbara Reusch
The Investment Committee has been chartered and,
acting in a fiduciary capacity, is accountable to the
Board of Trustees for managing and overseeing the
investment assets owned by the Society. The
committee is structured by position, with the Society's
Vice President as the chairperson. The remainder of
the committee consists of the President as ex officio
member, the Treasurer, and three board members
selected by the chairperson, one from each of the
three classes of trustees. Officers are elected for twoyear terms, and classes of trustees are elected for
three year terms, with a class up for election every
year. Committee members may remain on the
committee as long as they hold a qualifying position.
The committee has established its own Investment
Policy Statement which states as its objective, "The
fund is to be invested with the objective of
preserving the long term, real purchasing power of
assets while providing a relatively predictable and
growing stream of annual distributions in support of
the Society."
Linda Turash, playing Mary Todd Lincoln in her docudrama entitled Pass My Imperfections Lightly By,
entertained a full house at OCHS on April 14th, the one
hundred forty-eighth anniversary of President Lincoln’s
assassination.
Mary, in her dramatic reading, took us back in time to
her childhood and later years, painting a picture of the
events in her life that brought her both pain and joy.
Losing her mother at age six, Mary was brought up by a
stepmother who didn’t want her around. Although she
felt very lonely, she was also afforded the opportunity of
nine years of education, including the fields of history
and politics that most women of her time were not
privileged to enjoy.
Abraham Lincoln was the new partner in the Springfield,
Illinois law firm of Mary’s cousin, John Stewart. In
1837, Mary left Lexington, Kentucky to visit her sister in
Springfield, meeting Lincoln at that time. It wasn’t
“love at first sight,” Mary explained, and she viewed
(Continued on page 7, column 1)
6
to share her emotions with the nation. She took her grief
“into private places.” Abraham pretended in public that
he’d accepted Willie’s death, but he wept in private, too.
(Continued from page 6, column 1)
Abraham as a “freak of sound and sight, but a genius of
mind.” She understood that he was not “of the common
mold” and was capable of astounding himself and others.
They married in 1842 and she enjoyed being “Mary from
Springfield, Illinois.”
Despite his premonition in a dream of upcoming
violence, the President and Mrs. Lincoln still went to the
Ford’s Theater to watch a play, Our American Cousin.
After Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s
body was carried across the street. Mary,
alone, followed. Nine hours later, she was a
widow.
Accused of pushing Abraham into politics,
Mary argued that she only helped him to
focus on what was already there. The couple
became President and Mrs. Lincoln on
Ironically, although three out of the four
November 6, 1860. The triumphal train ride
Lincoln sons had died, Mary considered the
from Springfield to Washington, DC with
one remaining son, Robert, a traitor. He
newly-elected President Lincoln and his
convinced a jury and judge that Mary was
family aboard was subjected to acts of hatred
insane and she was sent to Batavia, Illinois
and violence, with crowds en route yelling
Linda Turash as Mary Todd Lincoln and the Bellevue Insane Asylum. Because
insults such as “Traitor!” and “Black Ape!”
she was, in her words, “polite, acquiescent, and a friend
and trying to climb onto the train. Taken off the train
to all,” she was released after a short time and returned
before it reached Washington by Pinkerton security
to Springfield to live under the care of her sister. She
guards, Lincoln left Mary and the frightened children on
never wanted to see Robert again.
the train to deal with the “danger evaded, but not
vanquished.”
Mary felt like an outsider for most of her life. In her
opinion, a person in the public eye was “…demanded to
show feelings to a public that is waiting to feed on
them…” Instead, she shielded her feelings after the
deaths of her sons and her husband. She understood that
the country had to move on to find a new leader after
Lincoln’s death; however, she preferred to “stay
behind,” wait until she could be reunited with the ones
she loved after her death, and hope that her fellow
countrymen and women would “pass her imperfections
lightly by.”
Unimpressed by their new home, The White House,
Mary nicknamed it “The Executive Pigpen.” She was
infamous for spending not only the $20,000 allocated in
the federal budget yearly for White House expenditures,
but also the allocations for former Presidents. She
justified her profligate spending by saying that she was
only repairing the neglect of previous administrations!
Only the best decorations bought from shops in
Philadelphia and New York would suffice.
Election Results ~ 2013
Knowing that most people with real influence have
enemies, Mary confessed that she knew some called her
mean-minded because she would not accept abuse from
her lessers nor her betters. Others may have thought her
selfish because she bought what she wanted, pointing out
her one hundred pairs of gloves! When her son, Willie
died in 1862, Mary was criticized because she chose not
Officers 2013 ~ 2015
President - Cynthia Smith
Vice-President - Hal Unger
Secretary - Kim Fleischer
Treasurer Franklin A. Reusch, Jr.
Membership Secretary Donna Davis
7
Trustees ~ Class of 2016
L. Manuel Hirshblond
Frank Kowalczyk
Richard Kuntz
Ora Parks
Barbara Reusch
Ocean County Historical Society
26 Hadley Avenue
Toms River, NJ 08753
Rutgers University Oral History Archivist at OCHS
Ocean County Historical Society hosted the Alliance of Ocean County Historical Societies
and Museums on April 30th. Participants toured the museum and viewed our current
exhibit, Answering President Lincoln’s Call: Volunteers of Ocean County. After sampling
refreshments, history lovers from several areas of the county were treated to an interesting
presentation by Shaun Illingworth, from Rutgers University Oral History Archives. Begun
in 1944 to document the Class of 1942 at Rutgers, the Oral History Archives was opened
after five years to all Rutgers University alumni and eventually to every New Jersey
resident. The Archives currently contain 1300 interviews, with 685 transcripts.
(L-R) Tim Hart, Cultural & Heritage
Administrator, Hal Unger, OCHS President,
Shaun Illingworth
Historical society members learned about pre-interview preparation, interviewing issues
and ethics, and post-interview pointers as Mr. Illingworth contrasted oral history interviews with journalist interviews,
memoirs, court testimony, and recorded speeches. He stressed the desire for spontaneity of the interviewee, with the goal
of making him or her comfortable as specific periods of life are recalled through questioning.
All those present could agree that interviewing seemingly common people in our communities gives information that may
not be in official records, diaries or letters. Powerful personal recollections make history come alive for the generations
who follow, as they seek to understand the impact of past experiences on contemporary life.
The Ocean County Historical Society received an operating support grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the Department of State
Publication of The Society Scroll is made possible in part by grants from the O.C. Board of Chosen Freeholders and The OceanFirst Foundation
Printed by Central Printing, Island Heights, NJ