Bud & Pat Craven, my GREAT Grandparents!

Bud Craven 1928, his home at 109 W. 18th Ave. in North Wildwood	Pat & Bud Craven on vacation in Yosemite, CA, September 1962	North Wildwood Fire Chief 1951-1973, Giles (Bud) Craven
Scott Jett and Nanny Craven, June 1982	Ed Cox and Bud Craven on 17th Ave.1950s	Scott Jett and Poppy Craven, Feb. 1965

Their real names were Giles and Mamie, but to everyone that knew them they were Bud and Pat. To me, they were Poppy and Nanny Craven, my mother’s parents.

Pop was born in Philadelphia in 1906 and Nan in Highfield, Maryland in 1912. Both families were here on the island by 1921. On a Saturday afternoon in 1925 Nanny was at the movies with a friend when they noticed two older boys sitting across from them. Throwing peanuts at the boys not only got their attention, but also a walk home from the movies and a date the following week.

Poppy was working at Colsons Lumber Yard, across the street from where Nan’s family lived, so he saw her often and they were married on June 17, 1927. The 1930 Keystone Telephone Directory lists Giles Craven Jr., residence, 109 W. 18th Avenue, N. Wildwood, telephone # 68-M. Four children arrived between 1928 and 1937: Giles III, (known as Buster), Albert (Ted), Jay and Cheronne (Ronnie, my mother).

Anne Vinci’s column in the last issue of the SUN mentioned the game on the Boardwalk with boy and girl pigs. Ted worked there and at the end of one summer the owner gave him a pig to take home, where it was given the name of Oink-Oink. Ted came home one day and went out to check on Oink-Oink, but he wasn’t there. When Ted came into the house and asked if anyone had seen Oink-Oink, Poppy told him to sit down at the table, dinner was ready - they were having pork that night.

In 1937, shortly after my mother was born, the family packed up and left for California in search of better income. Things didn’t work out there and before the end of 1938 they were back in North Wildwood. Pop was able to get his old job back at Colsons and the family moved into 103 W. 18th Avenue, just 3 doors down from the house they had left the year before. In 1943 they moved around the corner to 104 W. 17th Avenue.

Poppy had joined the North Wildwood Fire Department as a volunteer in 1927 and was appointed as a paid fireman in 1942. He was promoted to Chief in 1951 and held that position until his retirement in 1973. I was growing up right behind the firehouse and would see Poppy often. He and Mr. Ed Cox were always there. They yelled when I decided to throw my baseball against the back wall of the firehouse (no one else to play catch with that day, I guess), but there were plenty of opportunities to climb in fire engines and blow the noon whistle.

When Piro’s Little Club burnt down in 1957, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Fire Chief Giles Craven had soaking wet clothes on because, living less than a block away, he ran straight to the fire instead of first going to the firehouse to put on his fireman’s attire.

I watched the Hotel Roosevelt fire at 26th & Atlantic from atop the shoulders of a family friend, as Pop and my dad were busy fighting the fire. One memory remains from the next day, when they took me inside what was left of the hotel - the black plastic running down the walls from the melted telephones.

We would stop and visit Nan and Pop every Sunday after church. They had one closet with boxes of toys for us to play with. The first time I ever had headphones on was when Poppy showed me how they worked and then put in an 8-track tape of Eddie Arnold. Poppy was usually there on Sundays, but if you went any other day of the week, he was either at the Firehouse or out fishing, usually at the Wildwood Crest Fishing Pier. It seemed like he brought home a bucket of bluefish every day. He would keep some for himself and Nan, and the rest would be left on someone else’s doorstep. In 1988 I became acquainted with a gentleman from Burleigh named Al Ruthenbeck. I once asked him if he had ever lived on the island or if he had always lived off shore. He replied, “I’ve always lived off shore. But I spent a lot of time in North Wildwood fishing off the rock pile with a fellow named Bud Craven.” Al and I became good friends.

The property at 104 W. 17th Avenue had a house and 2 apartments. When the children were grown, the house got divided, making 4 apartments altogether. Nan and Pop lived in one and rented out the other three. Their four children, when they got married, and most of their grandchildren, lived at one time or another in one of the apartments before moving into their own homes. When someone that was not a member of the family occupied one of the apartments, they were treated like family anyway. Nan and Pop were always taking someone somewhere. They drove tenants to doctor’s and dentist’s appointments and babysat children and took women to the hospital to give birth if the husbands weren’t home. Nan was forever knitting booties and sweaters and Pop was always giving them fish and fixing things. The “Craven Compound” was a tight-knit group of families, no matter what families were living there.

Nan had worked at the theater in the early days as the pianist during the silent movies. She also worked at the Little Club and was the hostess at Johnson’s Restaurant at Burk & Pacific. After retirement she occupied herself with ceramics, making all kinds of things, which she would usually give away to others when done. She made manger-scene ceramic figures for all of her grandchildren to put under their own Christmas trees.

Nan would never pass up an opportunity to make someone laugh. When Poppy died in 1976, she met with Ben Ingersoll to make the funeral arrangements, obituary, etc. Part of the conversation went like this:

Ben: How many children do you have?
Nan: 4 children, 3 still living.
Ben: How many grandchildren?
Nan: 12.
Ben: Any great-grandchildren?
Nan: 12.
Ben: 12 great-grandchildren!?
Nan: Yes, they’re all great.
Ben: The grandchildren?
Nan: I only have great grandchildren - 12 of them.

Nan put him through a family-themed “Who’s on First?” That was how she got through difficult times - laughing, and helping others to do the same. In the early 1980’s she fell and broke her ankle. I never saw her laugh so hard as when Uncle Ted was trying to wheel her out of her apartment on a hand truck. She was the one in pain but made the situation so comical we almost forgot that she was hurt. I don’t know if anyone else would characterize me and my brothers and all of my cousins as great, but we certainly had GREAT grandparents.