HARRY CARAY'S DOGTOWN YEARS

Last updated March 16, 2006

Comments by Bob Corbett
March 9, 2006

For a few years now we have had evidence that Harry Caray went to school at Dewey School, but not much solid evidence. Recently however, thanks to the work a quite a few different people, we have quite conclusive evidence that this is true. What is not yet clear is exact when and for how long he lived in Dogtown.

The key pieces of information

• We began with neighborhood rumors and stories, but until recently all of those were second hand or even further removed from the source.
  
  
• The first imporant advance was one that we didn't know was relevant at the time. Nancy Phelan allowed me to scan her mother's Dewey School graduation photo of 1927. At that time we did not know that Harry Caray (in 1927 he was still using his family name, Harry Caribina).
  
  
• A major break though came from Mr. Vincent E. Stanton who sent me a copy of a page out of a old Dewey School bulletin from which we learned Harry Carabina was a member of the 1927 graduation class
  
  
• The next piece of confirming data came from Harry Caray himself, who in his book HOLY COW, himself claimed to have graduated from Dewey School, and even allowed that he was so poor then that while boys in the class traditionally dressed in white pants, he didn't have any and had to wear non-black. This evidence is confirmed by the photo itself.
  
  I quote directly from Harry Caray's book: HOLY COW!
  
  

  It was grade-school graduation day for me in St. Louis. All the boys in the Dewey School graduating class were wearing blue coats and white flannel pants. All the boys except me, that is. I didn’t own a pair of white pants, and I sure couldn’t afford to go out and buy them. So I wore what I already had, what I wore every day – plain gray pants.
  
  The other fellows really gave it to me. They badgered and ridiculed me, nothing is crueler than the humor of young children. They couldn’t possibly have known the hurt, the embarrassment, I felt. I’m sure they thought I was deliberately being different, while I, of course, would never admit that I was simply too poor to conform.
  
  So on that day is was Laugh, clown, laugh, even though your heart is breaking, laugh. I don’t remember if I really was able to laugh. I doubt it, because my heart really was breaking. But through the tears, I made a solemn vow.
  
  Never again would I be unable to afford a pair of white pants. Or blue ones or red ones or plaid ones, if that’s what I felt like wearing. I decided then and there that eventually I’d be able to buy as many pairs of white pants as I wanted. I honestly believe that my desire for personal success began on that never-to-be- forgotten day of humiliation.

  From: HOLY COW! by Harry Caray with Bob Verdi. New York: Villard Books, 1989. Pages 17-18.
  
  
• The next two critical pieces of information came from a DIRECT source, a person who knew Harry Caribina at that time.
  • Mrs. Martha Rupp who lives on Clayton Ave. just a couple doors from where Harry Caray lived, was married to Bill Rupp, her late husband. He was Harry's closest friend and she knew Harry and Bill at in the 1920s. She confirmed his attendance.
    
    
  • She next found two photos, very similar and taken the same day, of Harry, Bill and two other boys who had been playing baseball here in Dogtown.

Thus we now have quite conclusive proof, and reaseach is being done to learn more of the details of Harry's life in those days of the late 1920s.

Below you will find more details of the unfolding of this story, and links to the photos of Harry both in the graduation photo and the baseball photos.

FIRST: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

First is The Dewey School Photo of 1927 and the class list sent to me by Mr. Vincent E. Stanton>

The second set are the two photos of Harry, Bill Rupp and the Hands brothers

From left to right: Lloyd and Marvin Harms, Bill Rupp, Harry Carabina (aka Harry Caray)

From left to right: Lloyd and Marvin Harms, Bill Rupp, Harry Carabina (aka Harry Caray)

Note below an enlargement of the boys in the class, and Harry on the far right in his non-white pants.

BACK TO THE EARLIER DATA OF MORE THAN A YEAR EARLER THAN THIS NOTE

That note from Mr. Stanton confiming Harry Caribina was a member of this class of 1927 was sent to my Dogtown history e-mail list on Feb. 21, 2005.

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From Bob Corbett

Folks, recall that about a year or more ago we had some extended discussion on whether or not Harry Caray did or didn't graduate from Dewey School.

Lots of people said -- why not write this person or that person and such, but no real evidence every came forward......

UNTIL TODAY.

Today I got a letter in the postal mail and the evidence was there. Real and quite indisputable, but I am utterly frustrated -- I have no idea of the source.

Someone sent me a xerox copy of a piece of a page out of some magazine or book or program. It is obviously authentic since the partial page includes ads from John P. Dolan Realty, H.W. Dudeck & Bros. Contractor and Builder (on McCausland) and Joseph Witek, Florist.....

It's clearly real.

Two of the three columns are

1. January Graduates of Dewey School
2. June Graduates....

This is from 1927.

The 7th graduate in the June 1927 class is:

Harry Carabina (Harry Caray's name at the time).

So, we have solid and confirmed evidence. Another "Dogtown Legend" can be transferred to the column of "Verified Dogtown FACTS."

OLDER NOTE FROM BILL VORBECK FROM A YEAR OR TWO AGO

Bob

You may recall several years ago I had learned that Harry Caray and graduated from Dewey School. It is mentioned a book written by him titled Holly Cow. The question came up with one of the teachers, at Dewey School, who knew him and his notoriety. She knew he had graduate from Dewy School.

In is book he is very explicit about going to Dewey School and graduating. He mentions an embarrassing moment when he didn't have a band uniform as the other children, but only a gray suit to ware on that day.

There were strong implications that Harry may have been living at The Jewish Orphan Home located just a few blocks from Dewey School, at the time. He worked at Medarts restaurant, after he graduated he became involved in sports broadcasting, very early. He was persuaded to change his given name from Carabina to Harry Caray, a much easier name for an announcer, by a KMOX official and friend.

Harry's past was very ambivalent in his book. He said he lived with an aunt on Salisbury Street which is quite a distance from Dewey School. If fact it was probably out side of the area where Dewey School students came from. But there was another odd thing that suggested he may have been raised in the Jewish Orphans Home. He claims he never spent Christmas with his family and children, ever! That for a few weeks each years he spend the Holiday Season in Palm Beach (or Springs) Florida a week or so prior to Christmas, which is a Jewish holiday season. He states he just didn't like to spend Christmas with his family, go figure?

Putting that all together I believed he may have stayed at the orphan home and attended school there in the higher grads while spending his younger years being influenced by the Jewish Religion teachers.

I sent a letter to his son Skip, the broadcaster, regarding these discrepancies in his narrative in the book regarding his childhood being orphaned at an early age but Skip didn't receive a reply, to my letter.

My main reason for believing that is he wore cloths that all orphaned wore at that time. They wouldn't have permitted him to purchase a Band Uniform because in those days the orphanage children wore the same cloths if my memory serves me correct. My classmates and I often played with them at the home because they had an excellent well equipped play ground.

I would be very interested in the article mentioned in the previous E-mail.

Bill V.