It was the year 1935 and a year I will never forget. Several events took place that made me remember it.
In that year, the country was in the middle of a deep depression that began with the stock market crash in 1929 and finished in 1939 when the Second World War broke out in Europe. Unemployment was 25% compared to 6-1/2% today.
Although I worked during that period, it affected me as well. I had built my house in 1928 on a shoe string and I had two mortgages to pay at 6%. I had a very good cellar in my home and bench saw so I began to go out and do side jobs for extra money. It was a difficult time for my wife and 3 children but we survived and still managed to keep up the mortgage payments. That was the first event.
The second event was the time that I won the contest for the Pure Oil Gasoline Company that I spoke about in one of my other chapters. I won a gold watch for coming up with a jingle for the company and I didn't even own a car at the time.
The third event that makes this year stick in my mind was that my brother Tommy took a job in Charleston, South Carolina in the Shipyards.
The last event of course, was the start of the Scottish Games. In the beginning of writing one of his books, Charles Dickens, the British author used this phrase, "It was the best of times and it was the worst of times". And it was surely the worst of times for Clan Douglas to promote anything such as the Scottish Games.
We were in the middle of a depression and there was very little money in the clan treasury. We had about 40 members who attended the meeting and many of them were out of work and could not pay their clan dues. Despite the odds, the members voted to proceed with the promotion of the games. A ballot was taken to find 10 members most capable of running the games. They formed a committee with the 2 top members in the ballot to become directors. I was chosen to become one of those directors. At our first meeting, we discussed a suitable place in Syracuse to hold the games and the only place was the State Fair Ground and that was too big and would cost money, which we did not have.
I don't know who suggested that we hold the games in Auburn, a town 26 miles away from Syracuse and we decided to look into it. It was an ideal setting. It was an amusement park, along-side Owasco Lake and it had a nice restaurant on it and also a merry-go-round like the one in the Carousel Center. The park belonged to the Enna Jettick Shoe Company in Auburn and rented out to a Mr. Haefner* who put on different kinds of shows every Saturday to attract the crowds. Most of us knew about it and had been there on family picnics.
The committee decided to talk to Mr. Haefner* and an appointment was made to meet him in the Osborne Hotel in Auburn. The three directors went there, Art Fyfe, Sam Kennedy and me. He did not know anything about Scottish Games, so we had to tell him that we could put on a good show that would attract a good crowd. We promised to have 3 pipe bands and also girl dancers and other events. We talked for 4 hours and at the end, he agreed to give us 100 dollars. It was not much, but we accepted his offer. The clan agreed with our decision and we were in business.
Now we had to start work on a program of the different events that would take place. The first item we discussed was the amount of pipe bands we could afford. We settled on three. We knew that there was a pipe band in Rochester, and Schenectady and Syracuse. We invited them to come and they all came. We printed what were called flyers, a sheet of paper describing all the events on the program and spread them around the three cities.
The most difficult part we had was raising money to pay for all the events. Advertisements in our program cost $3.00 and $5.00 and we all tried to sell them to business shops and even to people who sent good wishes. I won't go into the details of all the problems we had, I will just say we managed.
On the day of the Games, the sun was shining and as the song says, "Everything's going my Way". The pipe bands, the dancers, and the public all came. All the clansmen were there setting up everything for the different events. We had our two Scottish flags on a pole flying high at the edge of the lake; The Saint Andrews and the Red Rampant Lion.
What I am writing about happened 59 years ago and my memory "ain't what it used to be." The pipe bands played and the dancers danced on a nice platform and nobody could toss the caber, except Duncan Thomson, the first chief for our clan in 1916. At the end of the event, Duncan walked over to 18 feet long section of a tree, picked it up and upended it. In the evening after the games, Mr. Haefner* invited the band that won the competition to his camp a mile or two up the lake to entertain them. Although we only made a profit of $37, we learned a lot and did better the next year.
Before I begin to write about our second year at Auburn, I must give you some information about our future in Auburn. We held the games there for 7 years until 1941 when war broke out and the games were canceled. Each year saw improvement over the years as we were getting more money from Mr. Haefner* and we were adding to our events. I can't remember all the changes, they would just bore you, so I will write about the changes that I can remember.
In 1936 we made our second visit to Mr. Haefner* at the Osborne Hotel and discussed our improvements we were going to make that year and he gave us $200.00. We increased the number of pipe bands to 4 as the Yonkers band from New York was coming. At the meeting with the promoter, I had asked him to contact the city council to see if they could give us some bleacher seats to use that day and we could charge a small fee to keep with our expenses and he did.
The Yonkers band took the first prize and after the games, they were invited to the promoter's (Mr. Haefner*'s) camp on the lake. With the help of Mr. Hislop, who owned a department store in Auburn, we were getting to know Auburn better. The profit on our second year was around $50.00. In our third year, the Yonkers band came back and repeated their win.
In Syracuse, we had 4 young girls being taught the two highland dances, the Highland Fling and the Sword Dance by a very good teacher named Kay Potts. My daughter, Irene was one of the girls. They could not compete with the other dancers, so we made up a special event to encourage them to keep practicing and improve, which they did.
The promoter kept raising the money to us and we kept adding events and raising the prize money for the pipe bands. In 1938, the Ford Pipe Band from Detroit came and they were very, very good and took the first prize. They did not come back the next year, but the General Motors band from Detroit did and they too were very good. We were not able to pay one of the bands to play on the main street of Auburn on the morning of the games. In 1938 and 1939 times were getting better due to the war. We were getting orders from Britain and many people were working and coming to the games. Our last year in Auburn was 1941 and I remember it well. The war was spreading in Europe and before the year was out, American was in it.
In 1940, in Syracuse a group of people, mostly British, organized themselves into what they called Bundles for Britain. They sent money, clothing, cigarettes and other items to Britain. The Clansmen knew that this would be our last year at Auburn and dedicated all of our profit to this organization. The front cover of the program of events which we sell at the games had the Bundles for Britain written in large letters all over it. The people responded to our appeal. We received a lot of donations of two, three and five dollars from people and we put their names inside of our program. The clansmen also gave willingly and worked all day too. That day, we made a profit of $1,100 and we donated $1,000 of that to the Bundles for Britain and kept $100.00. Strange that was what we started with in 1935.
We did not know that 1941 would be our last year in Auburn and that our promoter Mr. Haefner* would die from a heart attack during the war. We did not know that we would start with Games in 1945 with our $100.00 in an enclosed park where we could charge admission. We could also sell hot pies and bridies and hot dogs and beer and we also had 10-12 vendors selling all kinds of Scottish items. We did not know that we might have as many as 15 bands competing.
In 1945, Clan Douglas began to hold Scottish Highland Games again, which had been cancelled during World War II. This time, they would be held at Griffin Field in Liverpool, and we could charge admission at the gate. We had a lot of planning to do and that started at the beginning of the year after every clan meeting. All the Clansmen were involved and the Chief was appointed the Chairman.
The first item was to create flyers with all the details of our program, like the number of band contests, the prize list, the dance competitions and all the prizes for that. There were other details, such as the price of admission, but the flyers were sent to pipe bands and dancers and other people we thought would be interested. Later, we tried to have some of the stores display our flyer in their windows, anywhere to get publicity.
There was a lot of paperwork involved and we knew we would need a secretary and Sam Kennedy's daughter, Janet, said she would help us by taking the job. We now had an address to receive mail in all forms, and we did from pipe bands, dancers and vendors who wanted to rent space for a stand to sell Scottish items in all forms.
It is very difficult for me to be back to 1945, our first games at Griffin Field and write everything in order, I can't do that, but I will tell you all the things that had to be done before we had our first games at the park. We had to arrange the price of admission and the park wanted 10% of the total of admission. We had the use of a large area outside of the field for parking cars. We also had the use of the bleachers for people to sit and watch the dancing and the pipe band competition and the tossing of the caber and other contests. We had the use of several small buildings, one for the nurse and one for our treasurer. There were several picnic tables within the park that were at our disposal. We had to build the platform for the dancers, as there was none available.
We planned to sell hot pies and hot dogs and had a set up to heat them. Bill Wall, one of our clansmen, was the one who made the set up. We needed a piece of 1" diameter pipe 24 feet long and Bill cut 3 eight foot pieces and joined them together. To this piece of pipe, we needed connections to attach 3 hot plates to heat the pies and the hot dogs. We also needed 3 connectors to 3 containers of propane gas and one connection to heat a coffee urn. We needed 6 connections to heat 6 stoves for the pies. We requested 3 tables to support all this equipment and it was quite a job, but we made it work. All of this equipment was under a food tent, large enough to handle a large group of people. We contacted a baker in New Jersey who made the pies and the night before the Games, the baker brought the frozen pies to Griffin Field. The firm that sold us the hot dogs was kind enough to allow us to use his van, which contained the frozen dogs. The night before the Games, we transferred the pies into the van and set the gauge to keep them frozen overnight.
The Friday before the Games was a busy one for the Clansmen who could take time off to be on the field. We had to order tents from a tent maker and on Friday, we had to tell them where to put them, set up the food set-up, and also a tent for the beer and some tent for the vendors selling Scottish souvenirs of all kinds.
We picked the second Saturday in August for our Games as the date did not conflict with other Games in the other states. Everything seemed to be in order for our first Games at Griffin Field. The food tent was ready, also the beer tent and the places where the vendors would erect their stalls. The dancing platform was set up in the middle of the bleacher on the field and the park people erected a 3-1/2 foot high snow fence 30 yards away from the bleachers. This gave the pipe bands room to march during the competition. There was plenty of room outside the field for parking and the park took care of that, parking was free.
We always started the program with our dancing contests for young children, as there was not much interest in it and our people did not come until about 11:00. I don't remember all the details of our first games, only that it was a success. We made mistakes, but they were corrected the next year. Each year, we had more bands and dancers from other states and Canada.
Year after year, we were like a dog chasing its tail. Now many bands came, sometimes as many as 15, which meant more prize money. More dancers came, sometimes 185 which meant more money for medals. So we raised the admission fee year after year and raised the price of hot pies, hot dogs and beer.
Our agreement with the vendors was 10% of their profit and we had to take their word for the amount they sent us. I told the committee we should set a figure for the stands and the committee agreed. George Berry and I were the auditors for the games and we noticed when we had 15 bands that we did not make much profit. I told the committee we should just invite 10 bands, no more.
For the first 6 or 7 years, I was in the field near the dancing platform adding up the scores of the pipe bands and the dancers. It was a very hot day one summer and I felt a little dizzy so I went home.
The next year, I got my new job in the food tent where I would be in the shade. My new job was to move the frozen pies from the van into the food tent and lay them out on trays and put the trays into the ovens. I was kept busy, but could rest a little by sitting on my table.
It will take too long for me to describe every year of the Games, instead I will give you the highlights as I remember them. Besides the piping and dancing, we had the caber tossing and a man came from another state with a collie dog and several sheep and gave us an exhibition of the dog herding and guarding the sheep into a small fenced area. We also got some of the local high school bands to perform.
Another interesting item was one I had read about, tossing a burlap bag filled with straw over a bar with the air of a pitchfork. We kept raising the bar until one of the two winners could pitch the bag over. There was also professional dancing for money prizes for adults, both men and women. The vendor’s stalls were also busy with people looking and buying. There was much to see in one day if the weather was good.
We had only one day when we had to cancel the Games due to rain. They were held the next day and as I remember, we made a profit of at least $200. Rain showers did affect our attendance many times.
One year, our Chief thought we should raffle a car. I was against it saying we did not have people to sell the tickets. I was right, we could not sell enough tickets and we lost a lot of money. The winner was a woman who came to the Games with one of the pipe bands. She bought one tickets and won the car.
Our last year was one in which we had only 7 pipe bands and we made a profit of $7,000. This was the reason I was trying to hold the amount of bands to 10. A few years ago, some people I don't know started planning the Games at Long Branch Park. I have not been there due to my age, so I can't tell you much about them. They of course, are small compared to the ones that we put on at Griffin Field for so many years.
As the years passed, we were running into problems, first our workers were getting fewer every year. Them the income tax people came after us and we had to have a lower profit to prove to them that the Clan Douglas was a non-profit organization and it cost us $8,000 for the lower.
Then a question came up whether we or individuals could be sued is some accident happened, so we had to do something to prevent this by obtaining liability insurance. At one of our meetings, I told the members that we should ask one of our local pipe bands to slowly take over the games. The first year, they would get 25% of the profit, the second year, 50% and the third year all of the profit.
The clansmen still worked with them and I kept my job in the food tent. We had one day insurance at the booth to take care of any accidents and for some reason the insurance company raised our insurance money to $2,000 dollars because we were selling beer. The city officials were asking us to handle more of the work at the field, and we did not have the help to do so.
There seemed no answer to all the problems to the Clansmen and the Pipe band members decided to quit. We had been at Griffin Field for 40 years and it was time to go.
*Mr. Haefner* appears to be the promoter for events at the park during that time. I cannot verify who he actually is.
