World War I memories surface in basement flood at Bay Village hom

Cleveland.com: World War I memories surface in basement flood at Bay Village home
Life is like a flooded basement. You never know what's going to surface.

Such was the case -- or trunk, specifically -- when 6 inches of icy water gushed into the basement of Linda Manoloff's Bay Village home in February, and soggy boxes of memories poured out in the subsequent cleanup.

Among them was an old wood and metal trunk that Manoloff's husband, Samuel (now deceased), packed when the couple cleaned out her father's house in New York after he died in 1970.

She hadn't seen what went into the trunk, but her eyes widened when she saw what came out of it, including her father's wool, button-fly, moth-holed World War I uniform. With leggings.

And a vintage gas mask, too. Old letters written during the war. Postcards depicting scenes of World War I. Military buttons, photos and decorations. A veritable time capsule of the so-called "war to end all wars."

Manoloff, 72, was stunned at the find. "Oh my gosh, this stuff was here all along and I never knew it," she said. "I was too busy bringing up kids and teaching." (Among those three children is Plain Dealer sportswriter Dennis Manoloff.)

She remembered that her father, Fred "Fritz" Bittner, never talked much about his military service, but she did know that he'd grown up on a farm outside Rochester, N.Y., and joined the army right after graduating from high school in 1917.

Severe illness kept Bittner from joining his unit when it left for Europe, and the war ended while he was hospitalized in Indiana. After graduating from the University of Rochester, he worked as an engineer.

And, "he pack-ratted," said Manoloff, who remembered that when they were cleaning out his house after his death, they found filing cabinet drawers filled with empty tooth-powder cans and old razor blades, and a map to sealed mason jars filled with coins buried around the property.

She pulled out the gas-mask instructions which advised: Read this booklet until you know by heart what it contains.

"Not memorize. 'Know by heart.' I found that so touching," she said.

The uniform and war memorabilia will be kept in a safer and drier place until Manoloff figures out what to do with it.

But before she packs it off again, would she consider trying it on for size? You know, literally get the feel of history?

"Oh no," Manoloff said, waving the notion aside like a pesky fly. "It looks terribly . . . itchy."