Barnyard Boys Memories
In a message dated 1/20/2004 5:44:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, rcraigk@optonline.net writes:
I have an UNBELIEVABLE picture of the Boys, [7 of them] and thank God I had my Dad identify them before he died last August. It includes everyone from the Boys except one guitar player [do not know his name but my Uncle Leo Kammerer was the other guitar player & he is in the pix], and my grandma, [wife of Fred Kammerer] who sometimes played the piano with them. It is a super pix and crystal clear!!!! I WILL send to all, by fixing my scanner [cannot tell exactly when but IT WILL HAPPEN] or mail you an actual copy. My family has requested blow ups as it is that good!!! In it, according to my dad, are the following members:
Sy Haupt [played the zither] from East Orange & ran a deli on Main
Fred Kammerer [called Damp sometimes]; my grandpa 1889-1973--played the Jew's harp, harmonica & knife & fork
Bill Tobia [played the accordion] from Bloomfield
Frank Steckel [Banjo] from Millburn; dad was police chief
Hank ? [played the fiddle]
Leo Kammerer [played the guitar]--my great Uncle and brother to Fred above [1895-1984]
Jack Love [West Orange---Fiddle] sometimes called Josh
I have heard that they were really great, professional, and played for the airtime debut of the now famous WOR radio in NY!!!
In a message dated 1/19/2004 10:57:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, njwolves@bellatlantic.net writes:
My name is Jackie Malcolm, formerly Jackie Griswold; I am John Love’s daughter and remember all my life seeing pictures of the Barnyard Boys in our house at 62 Gaston Street even long after he went on to follow
in his father’s footsteps and become a fulltime carpenter.
He built a house on S. Center St. in Orange, NJ, where he and Eunice, my mother, lived until they moved to West Orange. He was quite a man and talked very highly of all the guys in the group. His nickname was “Strad”. I have a violin that belonged to him and I wonder if he used it when he was in the group??? Inside (where the violin maker signs his “work”) it says...can’t make out the first name, but the last name is “Tietjen” and the date is 1898! I brought it to a violin sales store for evaluation a couple of years ago to see what it was worth...he said the outer case had a crack it in which would effect its “tone” and offered me $125.00!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And that “Tietjen” wasn’t a “known” name! Yeh! Well, he must have made a damn good violin because the sucker is sitting here in my house 106 years later !!!!!!!!
At any rate, I will be 65 Jan. 23rd. Life is getting shorter. A year or two ago I gave my two-volume family photo album to my daughter since she has the only living heir to the John Love family. I THINK there are extra
brochures from the Barnyard Boys.... I THINK...I just e-mailed her tonight to look-see. If there IS an extra copy, then I asked her to mail one to you at your P.O. Box. Her return address would be Nancy Drexel, Lafayette, NJ. If there is not an extra copy, I’ll ask her to mail me the only copy and I will at least Xerox it and mail it out to you.
Funny, but my husband and I were just in Basking Ridge Saturday. We were visiting my husband’s mother who lives on Conkling Street... We live in Mine Hill, just above Dover, NJ (it’s only about 2 sq. miles...very small township).
So your Dad lived in East Orange. One of my mother’s sister’s lived on S. Burnett Street with her doctor/husband Dr. Edwin C. Mick (eye, ear, nose & throat). Small world..but then again, the Barnyard Boys couldn’t have gotten together if they didn’t live close.
Thanks for the memories...
Jackie
In a message dated 1/18/2004 8:24:07 AM Eastern Standard Time, rcraigk@optonline.net writes:
I am the grandson of the founder, and nephew of Leo Kammerer!!!! I have their scripts, songs, pictures but did not have the one pix you showed. Love to trade info etc as soon as i fix my scanner.
My dad, Richard H, Kammerer, son of Frederick H. Kammerer, who was brother to Leo Kammerer, lived on 17th Street & Leo on Eaton Place, East Orange, NJ!!!!!!
Best
Craig Kammerer
P.O. Box 505
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
In a message dated 1/18/2004 10:53:33 PM Eastern Standard Time, drumsurn@fireball.blast.net writes:
I am John Love's (Strad) son. I've been at the East Orange house a number of times at practice sessions with my father. I believe I have one of those brochures also somewhere tucked away. The only names I remember are Hank and Abby. My father died in 1983, I believe he was the oldest in the group; and Hank, who was the baritone singer and lived in Montclair, died before my father. My father visited him just before he died.
In the 30's they used to play on the radio in Newark, NJ, for $5 each per session. That was the only work my father had. Every time they played my father, between he haws, would yell "hey Roger" and my mother would say "there it is, did you hear it" but I never remember hearing it (I was 3 years old at the time and we lived in Orange, NJ).
On one trip to your grandfather's house, pranksters in the neighborhood filled the back seat of my father's car with ashes, right up to the windows on garbage night. You see, everybody burned coal in those days and
everybody had two pails of ashes along with their garbage twice a week.
My father played the violin, Abby played the guitar. They used to play at fancy nightspots along the Pompton Turnpike. My father made a fart machine out of a U shaped piece of wire and an elastic band with a big metal washer on the elastic band. He would wind the washer up and put it between two pieces of newspaper and sit on it. The band would hesitate for a moment so everything was quiet. My father would get up and the washer would spin making a roaring brappppp sound, then the music would continue. A natural thing for hillbillys to do.
I am 71 years old and not musically inclined, but it skipped to my sons who all played the guitar and one plays the piano. My father played all musical instruments, but that's another story for later.
I think the Barnyard Boys ended sometime after WWII, I can't say when.
Regards, Roger Love (Strad's son)
908-537-9400 Tel.
908-537-7306 Fax
In a message dated 4/10/2004 11:51:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time, rcraigk@optonline.net writes:One of their favorite lines was:
She was only the farmer's daughter, but all the horse manure [men knew-her]Whoa40 North 17th street, East Orange was my grandfather's house, and as a young twit, I spent much time there, including shoveling coal into the furnace to heat the place.