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Baltimore Swim Clubs – A Look Back
Looking Back On The Neighborhood Swim Club
Written By Simone Ellin
Long before video games, full-time camp and required summer homework, Jewish Baltimoreans spent long hours each summer, wiling their days around the neighborhood swim club.
This month, iNSIDER takes a look back at three swim clubs with Jewish roots and captures some of those fond memories of how we spent our summers.
Rob Ellin
Green Valley Swim Club
Although I’ve heard the stories dozens of times, I never tire of hearing my husband and his family recount happy memories of summers spent at Green Valley Swim Club in Reisterstown.
“In the mornings, we’d load up the car, my sisters and I would pile in and we’d drive out to the club,” my husband Rob recalls. “The drive from Pikesville to Reisterstown was far in those days. There was no 795. It wasn’t like it is now where people may stop by the pool for an hour or two. You were in it for the long haul.”
When you look back at history, Green Valley was established in 1954 by 125 young families, many from the Mount Washington area. According to Larry Ettlin, club manager from 1962-1996, the club was founded because many of the original members were not happy with the restrictions the country clubs placed on kids in their pools. A quick perusal of the first roster suggests that the majority of the members were Jewish when the club opened shortly before July 4, 1955.
When my husband talks about Green Valley, I can imagine how it must have been. Kids splashing in the pool and lining up for the “high dive.” Teens playing Frisbee on the lawn, while 1970s-era moms played cards and cautioned their children not to swim for at least half an hour after eating.
“The moms would hang out and the kids would swim, play ping pong or shuffleboard. There was no TV, no computers or electronic games, just playing outside all day,” he says. “On weekends, my father would meet us after lunch and he’d spend the afternoon playing tennis.”
Tennis, Ellin remembers, was “huge” in the seventies. “It was the day of Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors, and all the grown-ups played. I remember like thirty or forty people just sitting at benches by the courts waiting for a doubles game.” Bobbie Fischer, he adds, was also famous back then, so chess was a popular poolside activity.
“After tennis, at about 5 p.m., all the players would come back up to the pool and out came the coolers. It was a big social scene, with cocktails and food. We’d eat dinner there, and once it was dark, we’d shower and put on pajamas for the ride home. It was all farmland back then. Once, as we pulled out of the parking lot, a cow was blocking the road. My father had to get out of the car and shoo the cow out of the way,” he recollects. My husband and in-laws still refer to their “friends from Green Valley” on a regular basis. Those early connections are strong and deep, and those idyllic summer days and nights are etched vividly upon their minds.
Mark Mittelman
Mount Washington Swim Club
Mark Mittelman, a Pikesville resident, grew up in Mount Washington. His father, Robert, was a founding member of the Mount Washington Swim Club. According to the younger Mittelman, the club was started in the early 1970s to accommodate Jewish residents of Mount Washington who were not permitted to become members of the area’s other pool, Meadowbrook Swim Club. In fact, although it’s hard to imagine, a Baltimore Sun article from June 1965 confirms that the Baltimore Human Relations Commission ordered Meadowbrook to open its facilities to everyone during that summer.
But regardless of the disturbing reasons for the establishment of the Mount Washington Swim Club, Mittelman’s memories at the pool are happy ones. “It was the best place in the whole world,” says Mittelman. “I used to ride my bike there and so did the other neighborhood kids. Everyone was friendly and the atmosphere was so relaxed. I spent all my childhood summers there and I always loved it.”
While he and his family, wife Jennifer and son Zachary, now attend the pool at Summit Chase where they live, friends still living in Mount Washington attest to the fact that the club has retained its community feeling. “It’s more developed now,” he says, “but for most people in Mount Washington, the club really is the communal spot for the neighborhood. Once people join, they almost never leave.
Amy Bell
Worthington Valley Swim Club
Worthington Valley Swim Club opened in the 1950’s, initially as the Spring Valley Swim Club. According to Al Henneman, who owned the club from 1980 -2005, it was initially formed as an exclusive swim club for Jews.
After a storied early history, said Henneman, in which the original owner ran off with the dues only to be found later in the trunk of a car, the Kiwanis Club purchased the site. They ran it until 1980, when Henneman bought the swim club, fixed it up and renamed it, Worthington Valley. During his tenure, he said, he approximated more than half the members were Jewish.
Amy Bell, who now lives with husband Sam and children Alyssa and Ben, spent her childhood summers at the former Kiwanis club. Bell recalls that in those days, cornfields surrounded the Kiwanis Club. “It only took us about ten minutes to drive to the Club, but you had the feeling that you were going way out into the country,” says Bell.
Some of her fondest memories involve diving off the high dive, swimming with her older sisters and playing on the duck-themed seesaws in the Kiwanis Club’s playground. “It wasn’t at all fancy — just very hamish.” In the 1970s, Bell remembers, people weren’t as big on sun protection as they are today.
“I remember my father pouring on his iodine and baby oil tanning mixture, and sharing it with the rest of us. We used those foil sun reflectors too!”
Visiting Kiwanis’ snack bar was another highlight. Bell laughs as she recalls the hamburgers and hot dogs encased in plastic that were served at the club. “It seems so gross when you think about it now, but at the time it was so delicious!” Nowadays, the Bell family belongs to Green Valley…the same place where my husband used to go. Bell’s 11-year-old daughter seems as fond of her swim club as her mother was of Kiwanis. “I love Green Valley, because I love to swim,” she exclaims. “And after all, what else is there to do in the summer?” asks Bell.
