I was born to Lila and Edgar Conover in October of 1933 at Atlantic Shores Hospital, what is now called Shore Memorial Hospital. My mother’s maiden name was Sutton, and she lived in Linwood with her parents and two brothers. My father had three brothers, Calvin, Chester, and Farrest. His three sisters were Lillian, Helen, and Julia. My father’s full name was Charles Edgar Conover and I am a junior, although from the first day of birth I was given the nickname of "Skip" which I still use today.

My grandparents, Joanna Shinn Conover and Chester Conover, started Conover’s Market at 759 Shore Road in 1916. They had the following children, my aunts and uncles:

Chester: He built much of the shelving in the store and died at the early age of 26.
Calvin: He died at the age of 44.
Julia: She married Jack Steelman and lived on Gibbs Avenue and had a daughter, Katherine.
Helen: She married David Smith and lived next to the store on Shore Road and had a daughter, Dorothy.
David and Helen then moved to First and New Jersey Avenues where they owned and operated the coal yard.
Lillian: She was married to Jack Mathis, and had a son, Orville. She later married Jack Snyder. Her son, Orville, married Frannie Oliver and they have two sons, Orville (the current Somers Point chief of police) and Jack.
Farrest: He lived on Gibbs Avenue. After his wife died, he married Jean and they moved into the house next to the store where Dave and Helen Smith had lived before they moved to the coal yard. Farrest worked in the store and handled the meat products. He also was the secretary and treasurer of the Somers Point Volunteer Fire Company #2 for over 60 years.
Edgar: My father, who was the youngest, worked on the construction of the Dennis Hotel in Atlantic City prior to entering the family store business. He handled the grocery side of the business. In approximately 1952, he sold his share of the store to his brother Farrest, and went to work in Millville for the Armstrong Cork Company until his retirement. He died in 1996, the last of my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

My brother, James Farrest Conover, was born in 1939, attended Somers Point schools, Ocean City High School, and upon graduation joined the army. He volunteered for the army, a three year program in order to select a specific school and career. The school was Criminal Investigative Division. However they neglected to tell him you had to be 21 years of age for that program and Jim was 17. After his three year obligation, he joined Prudential in Linwood and remained there for several years. Jim left Prudential and then worked for an aircraft repair company in Millville, NJ until his sudden untimely death in 1989.

My parents built a home at 10th and Pennsylvania Avenue in 1930. It didn’t have a house number at that time, but it eventually was listed as 922. Also there were no homes west of 10th street at that time. The woods beyond 10th Street became my playground, where I built forts, hit stones and golf balls into the wooded area, etc. Subsequently a home was build there, destroying my private playground. I don’t recall the original owner, but it was rented in 1955 to Peg and "Mac" McCausland and their daughter, Jean. The roads out there were gravel and dusty, but there was very little traffic. My mother died in 1989, my father in 1996 and I sold the home in 1997.

INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE

My parents, grandparents, and other relatives naturally had the greatest influence on me during my early years, but some of the locals that I admired and respected are listed here and in no particular order:

Dick Searfoss- The Somers Point beach of the 1940’s had a fenced-in clay tennis court. It was later converted to a combination asphalt tennis/basketball court. Dick Searfoss was a very good tennis player, but few people played tennis in those days. I wanted to learn the game and Dick had no one else to play so he taught me the game. He was very calm, patient, and understanding. For two summers I never beat him. I think his instruction prepared me as George Grillo and I were the Ocean City High School doubles champion my junior year, and I was the singles champion my senior year.

Mr. & Mrs. Marts- They were my neighbors at 9th and Pennsylvania Avenue. They raised goats and pigs and did some minor farming. They were originally from Germany, were unusually kind to me, and taught me how to play pinochle. They, along with their son Ed, and I would play cards for hours. From them I learned an international outlook upon life, and a kindness not expected from non-immediate family members.

Mrs. Gath- She was my eighth grade teacher at Dawes Avenue School. All of my teachers in the Somers Point school system were good and I learned something from each of them, but Mrs. Gath was something special. She taught us about caring, concern, planning, forgiveness, and understanding, things not found in books.

Charles Adelizi-He was on the Somers Point Council in 1949 and was responsible for hiring lifeguards for what is now Bill Morrow Beach. Bill Clark and Ed Haines were the lifeguards in the summer of 1949, but Ed did not want to work the last two weeks in August so he could get ready for football practice at Ocean City High School. Ed recommended me to Charles Adelizi who hired me to complete the season. I was also there the next summer. This was my first job outside the family store which was a good experience and headed me in a different direction.

William "Bill" Morrow- I often marveled how one man could do so much. Bill had no equal in those days. I saw a toughness with police work when he had to be, a gentleness with children that parents would drool over. Bill would drive kids to school, pick up and deliver voters that had no transportation, and be ever present in front of the city hall waving daily to all passers by. But his greatest asset in my opinion was his keen insight into what the city needed for present and future youth. He developed, oversaw, and personally ran a girls club, a boys club, basketball leagues for all ages and levels. Bill’s programs gave someone like me, an overweight kid, an opportunity to learn and compete. As I look back, the baseball scholarship I received from Temple University and the basketball scholarship from Southeastern University ( eventually I used the one from Southeastern University) all started with Bill Morrow.

                                         VIVID IMPRESSIONS
The Graham family who lived next door had an annual Easter egg hunt in their back yard. Since the kids could all run faster than I, they always found all the eggs. Then someone would purposely direct me to a couple so I never went home with an empty basket.

It was a sad night when the original Smith Lumber Yard, located on Shore Road, caught fire and burned to the ground. I remember sitting on the New York Avenue School coping to watch in horror.

Bobby and Clyde Fensky and I would go to the woods and find a two story pine tree. One of us would climb about half way up and hold onto the trunk. The other two would cut the tree down. The wide branches would prevent the rider from ever hitting the ground when the tree fell. This was better than a roller coaster.

Ed Marts and I would play on the Somers Point Golf Course. Not the normal or legal way. We would drive off the 17th tee to the 17th green. Then reverse direction, hitting off the tee apron and playing back to the 16th hole. We would do this until chased off by maintenance, which was daily.

The 14th hole had a water distribution system for the course. The water came from a pond about 15 feet deep and was about the size of a small home. The pond had fresh water crabs and snakes in it. My friends and I would jump off the piping and swim there in the nude. Naturally, we were chased from there constantly. I guess the fear of being caught was exciting in those days.

My biggest mistake and an embarrassment to my parents was caused by my irrational behavior resulting in personal injury. The Shuman family, good friends of my parents, lived in a house across the boulevard from the present location of Joe DeOrio’s. The Shore Fast Line trolley rounded a curve behind their house, went under the bridge on Shore Road and would stop at the station by Tony Mart’s. Johnny Shuman and I tied a rock on a string, threw it over the trolley electric power line, and we hid in the bushes waiting for the trolley. The trolley came around the bend, hit the rock on the string, broke the trolley window and the conductors glasses. I immediately started to run home along MacArthur Boulevard. Within minutes or less than two blocks, Bill Morrow pulled up in his police car and asked where I was going. He asked me to get in the car and he took me home. It was the longest ride and longest lecture ever received. I was too young to go to jail, but I learned a hard lesson that day.

Another disaster witnessed by me. Our Boy Scout troop went to an air show on Memorial Day at NAFEC. (Naval Aviation Facilities Experimental Center), now Atlantic City Airport. I do not recall the exact year, possibly 1942 or 1943. As part of the performance, a fighter plane was supposed to dive and pull out at the last minute. The plane failed to pull out, it hit the wing of a B17 bomber on the ground and the pilot was killed instantly. Occasionally, I have thought about confirming the date with the Atlantic City Press.

My friend and neighbor Ed Marts was an excellent maker of model airplanes. It would take days to complete one and it would be propelled by a rubber band. One day we decided to take a completed model to the roof of their family garage and set it on fire (the plane that is). This would simulate real World War II fighter combat as the flaming fighter dove to the ground. We didn’t calculate for the wind and the burning model flew flawlessly approximately 50 yards to a field of dry Indian grass. A half block of grass and woods burned between 9th and 10th Streets, and between New York Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue. I ran home and hid in the basement of our house before the fire engines arrived. Then I remembered I had left my baseball glove in the burning field. I ran back to retrieve it and was questioned by the fire department. Nothing was ever done or said but I am sure they knew what happened.

In fourth grade at the New York Avenue School, classmate Donald Cramer was being punished and banished to the cloak room. The cloak room had two windows in it and although the classroom was on the second floor, Donald climbed out the window and went home. He is the only person I have ever known who was able to scale a two story brick wall.

Our fifth grade teacher Mrs. Capelli at the New York Avenue School had a reputation that put the fear of God in you. She had a paddle in the closet behind her desk that supposedly had a notch for every student paddled. Our class must have been good because we never saw the paddle. Myth, psychology, or truth. We did not want to test the reputation.

Anyone remember who hung a bicycle on the flag pole at the New York Avenue School during Mischief Night?

Who could ever forget the famous "uptown/downtown" athletic contests? I believe the dividing line was Groveland Avenue. Guys from my era would get together and play football in the middle of the Somers Point Circle. Remember the traffic was light in those days. Once in a while play would be stopped to retrieve our one and only ball that would land in front of a vehicle rounding the circle. Play also included baseball, although neither side had enough players for a full team.

The same total number of guys would challenge a baseball team from Linwood. We would walk up the railroad tracks to the Belle Haven Elementary School in Linwood and play with one new ball and one taped up ball. Linwood kids went to Pleasantville those days and they were always good. I don’t believe we ever beat them.

My classmate Ray Smith and I have not found many people who remember the carnival held on what was an empty lot on Shore Road between Annie Avenue and Somers Avenue. There were the usual vendors, games, the booths to operate a mechanical arm to grab prizes and so on. The highlight each night was the "Iceman". A truck would arrive from Ocean City with a solid block of ice with a man inside. The ice was placed on a stage, the ice cut apart and a man would emerge. Still makes me shiver to think about it.

In 8th grade, Helene Hawn, Jim Isard, and I were being punished for talking and were not allow to go to recess one day. Since no one was left to watch us during recess, we decided to have our own baseball game. Jim was the catcher, Helene the batter, and I the pitcher. The bat was a long handled blackboard pointer and the ball was an eraser. I threw, Helene missed, Jim missed and the eraser blew a hole in the blackboard. They just don’t make them like they use to. Once again my parents had to pay for the damage of my creation.

My grandparents, on my mother’s side, Mabel and Clarence Sutton of Patcong Avenue, Linwood, were fortunate to have one of the first television sets. Harry Scott and I were probably the most avid professional baseball fans at that time, and we were invited to my grandparents’ to see a game on TV. We walked the railroad tracks to their house and settled down for an advanced technological thrill. The viewing area was about the size of our hand. My grandfather said "Isn’t that a great picture"? There was no picture, just an awkward image and background like snow. However the sound was good. Just like my radio at home. The whole experience made the walk home a lot longer. My, how television has changed.

Many of my Somers Point memories centered around sports. Harry Scott had a new Chevrolet and he, Alan Bird and I went to a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game at the old Shibe Park. It must have been early April or late September because it was cold. I don’t know how the manufacturer got away with it, but Harry had the only car in the history of the automotive industry made without a heater. Harry had to keep wiping off the windshield in order to see and sometimes looked out the side window. It had to have been warmer in Alaska.

Edward Haines had just completed building his own outboard motor boat. His family lived on Bay Avenue at the time, so putting the boat in the water was an easy task. One night long after dark we thought it would be fun to take a ride in his new boat to Ocean City, under the 9th Street bridge, toward Beesley’s Point and return. We had no lights and no idea of the channel or its depth. About half way through our journey with only the light of the moon to guide us, we ran aground in the middle of the meadows. Edward jumped overboard and literally pushed the boat across the meadows for nearly a quarter mile. Great fun but another stupid idea.

I am not sure of all the players in this one. Long before the Garden State Parkway was built, the area where the Somers Point-Ocean City exit is today, was used for Boy Scout camping and general hiking. The area also was called Bear Island and we as kids would build huts or forts there. My father could never understand why his nails, tools, and boards kept disappearing. One cold night in October, I believe it was Ray Smith, Billy Woolbert, and I camped in that area with only sleeping bags. To keep warm, we started a huge bonfire. It was beautiful, colorful, and definitely warm. The warmth became hot, and hot became a blazing inferno. A very large pine tree caught fire and the area looked like a wonderful Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. It eventually burned itself out which was good since the area was not accessible by fire trucks.

Harry Scott and I would go to Philadelphia to see professional boxing bouts, usually world championships. His favorite sports writer was Grantland Rice, and Harry had hoped to be a sports writer himself. After one fight, I believe it was between Jersey Joe Wolcott and Rocky Marciano, we went ringside to watch the sportswriters do their newspaper stories. In those days writers did their own typing at the event location. We expected to see flying fingers from the hands of Grantland Rice, who was considered to be the best writer in his day. To our surprise Grantland was typing like a rocket with two fingers, one from each hand. Somehow his stories never seemed the same after that.

The first of my friends to obtain an automobile drivers license was Edward Haines. He did not have his own car but occasionally his father would let Edward use his. Naturally this meant it was time to see how many friends would fit into the car and go joy riding. The car was a Hudson which was unique in that the rear doors opened backward by today’s standards. Instead of opening at the back part of the door, they opened at the front. A record number of guys were in the car on the causeway from Somers Point to Ocean City. Someone thought it would be a good idea to open the rear door at 40 mph. The wind caught the backward door, flung it open and it hit the guard rail. I don’t know what Edward told his father, but we never saw the inside of it again. Who would have thought that a little thing like opening a door would cause our lives to go from riding to walking?

One of the vocations I wanted to pursue was that of a detective. Jackie Hickman, who lived at the corner of 7th and New York Avenue, and I created our own little detective agency. The office was in the basement of his house complete with criminal cards and fingerprint cards. Since the two of us were the only members and had only our own records and fingerprint cards, we had to alternate being detective and criminal. To sharpen our gunslinging skills, we would shoot a pellet gun out the basement window at targets in the trees. We never caught anyone or shot anyone so this exciting, unexciting lifestyle soon ran its course. Beside that, the local police department wasn’t hiring 10 year old detectives who wanted to start at the top.

There is not enough space for all the little stories, but I hope others will contribute their remembrances to help keep the wonderful spirit of Somers Point alive.
                                    
                                   
                                   My Life After Somers Point

Graduation day from high school is supposed to be the first day of one’s chosen future career. While many of my friends were off to college, in the fall of 1951, I was not. One might say I was chosen to stay behind and protect Somers Point and Ocean City from foreign invaders. The next two years were local, working at Mapes Atlantic Service Station at 10th and Bay Avenue in Ocean City. Then a short stint with Lou Ingersol of Somers Point doing cement labor work. This was followed by carpenter work in Ocean City working with former classmate Bob Adams.

In the spring of 1953 during the Korean conflict, Harry Scott and I volunteered for the Army draft. Volunteering meant we were moved up to the top of the list to be drafted. We tried to time this so we would not have to take basic training during the hot summer months at Fort Dix. I guess the Army didn’t understand our tactic because we were there in the summer. During basic training at Fort Dix, the Korean conflict came to an end and now the Army had thousands of personnel they didn’t know what to do with. Harry became an amphibious vehicle instructor at Fort Story, Virginia, and I got a cushy office job (because I knew how to type, thanks to Mrs. Kreps at OCHS) in the Transportation Research and Development Command at Fort Eustis, Virginia. A lot of this time however was spent playing on Army baseball and basketball teams.

After my Army discharge in 1955, I lived at home and worked at Armstrong Cork Company in Millville where I operated a sand blast machine in their mold shop. This facility made glass products. In the next few months I applied and was accepted by the FBI in Washington, DC. During the next six years at the FBI, I earned a bachelors degree from Southeastern University, married, had two daughters (Diane and Debbie) and then did a career change from the FBI to IBM.

In 1966, my wife died, and IBM provided a transfer from Arlington, Virginia to Camden, NJ. My daughters Diane and Debbie were age 4 and 5 at the time and we moved in with my parents at Pennsylvania Avenue. The train from Ocean City was my transportation to work in Camden. I met Ruth Clarke, Ocean City High School class of 1960, Ohio Weslyan University class of 1964, on the train. Ruth was working as an editor in the college book division of Lippincott Publishing Company in Philadelphia. In 1967, we married and have a daughter, Pamela.

My 32 year career with IBM had always been in the area of accounting as an employee, manager, and eventually as a participant in the company’s Faculty Loan Program teaching at the University of Cincinnati. I retired from IBM in 1993, then worked in real estate for a couple of years.

I currently am the treasurer of the Lawrenceville Water Company in Lawrenceville, NJ and am on their board of directors. In addition, I currently am the chairman of the board of directors of the New Jersey Gateway Federal Credit Union in Dayton, NJ.

Ruth works as a secretary at the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, and has served on several committees within the church. She enjoys various needlecrafts and belongs to a group that makes quilts for hospitalized children.

Our daughter Diane is a physical therapy assistant in a hospital in New York.

Our daughter Debbie works at Oceanpoint Center in Somers Point.