Time to tie down some loose ends. In the letters column of Mimosa 11,
we promised an article about the infamous 'Midwestcon Door' incident from 1954. In
fact, it seems like we haven't really mentioned much at all lately about the
Midwestcon, which remains our favorite convention. In an attempt to rectify this,
here's a look back at some of the earliest Midwestcons.
 The first Midwestcon I drove to see was the
last one held at Indian Lake, Ohio, in 1953. The first one I attended, however, was
the first one held at Bellefontaine, Ohio, in 1954. The reason for the difference
is mostly that I'd grown up in a small town and was ignorant of certain aspects of
U.S. culture in the 1950s.My first convention of any kind was the
Chicago Worldcon of 1952, but I was too much of a neofan to meet anyone there; I
didn't even know about parties. It wasn't until 1953 that I discovered the
Indianapolis Science Fiction Association; I attended a meeting in February 1953, and
I met my first real fans (including a Juanita Wellons, who became important later).
In March of that year, I met Gene DeWeese; he lived 20 miles from me and didn't have
a car, so he needed a way to the meetings. Gene had corresponded with several other
fans, had written fan fiction, and knew his way around fandom better than I did (not
that I was willing to admit it). He'd been corresponding with a girl, Bev Clark, in
northern Indiana, and wanted me to go with him to meet her, which suited me fine; I
was finally finding girls I could talk to. Gene arranged things and we went up. It
was the first time I'd met a black (or African-American, if you prefer) person
socially. We got along fine, and later on we'd arranged that the three of us would
drive to Midwestcon, again in my car; that car got a lot of use that summer.
Juanita and her friend Lee Tremper would meet us there, and we'd have fun.We arrived at Beatley's Hotel (or
Beastley's-on-the-Bayou, which was one of the fannish descriptions at the time) but
Bev was refused admittance. No blacks allowed. None of us had even considered the
possibility. On the way out, we talked to a few fans sitting on the hotel porch and
some anger was expressed, especially by Harlan Ellison, who said that all fandom
would hear about this outrage. We drove home, and as far as I know, nobody ever
mentioned the episode again. Except me, of course. The con site was changed the
next year, but I've been told that this was because Randy Garrett was surprised by
the house detective in a compromising situation, there were blows exchanged, and the
convention was invited to go somewhere else.Later on that year, Bev did go to the
Philadelphia Worldcon with Gene, me, Juanita, Bob Briney (a Michigan fan who later
became a partner in Advent:Publishers), and Eleanor Turner (a friend of Bev's), and
there were no room problems. In fact, one evening when we hadn't seen Bev and
Eleanor for a while, and had worried, they came in late to a party and said they'd
been at a reception for Sugar Ray Robinson, and gee, we could have got you in, if
we'd known where you were... Last time I saw Bev was at Chicon V in 1991; she
didn't attend the con, but she and her son came to the hotel one evening and sat
around and talked to Gene and Juanita and me.Next year, 1954, we had a lot less trouble
at Midwestcon in Bellefontaine (Bev didn't go), and enjoyed ourselves. The
convention was spread over two hotels; we went to the Ingalls because it was
cheaper; it was something like $1.50 per night. There was a reason for this, of
course; even in those days, that was a cheap room. The bed was okay, but there was
no attached bathroom. There was, in fact, one bathroom per floor, with tub and
toilet. If someone actually took a bath, everyone else on that floor held
themselves in or hunted another floor. Our room did have a laundry tub, however.
Juanita commented that this was all right for the males, but uncomfortable for
females. One year the hotel manager caught a bat in the lobby, and Noreen Falasca
convinced him to take it outside and let it go. You don't have entertainments like
that these days.Those were the days when the trains still
ran, and big-name pros occasionally came to the con. Bob Tucker, of course, was a
regular. Bob Bloch showed up a few times, and Evelyn Gold at least once. Isaac
Asimov came one year, and was induced to give a talk. Sputnik had just flown, and
Asimov berated scientists for taking the bread out of the mouths of hard-working
science fiction writers, ending with the ringing declaration, "If God had meant for
basketballs to fly, he would have given them wings!" Edmond Hamilton and Leigh
Brackett were also regulars at Midwestcon, as they lived in Ohio. At one later con,
a fan asked Leigh how she could live in Ohio and write for the movies.
Straightfaced, she said, "I commute." The first time I met her, I was too awed to
say anything. (I know this is hard to believe, but it's true.)Eventually, Midwestcon had to leave
Bellefontaine as well. This came the year after a group of fans went down to the
center of town for some reason, and Harlan Ellison was inspired to auction off Lynn
Hickman's pregnant wife on a street corner, with spirited bidding from the rest of
us. Doc Barrett, who had been making most of the arrangements for the convention
and who was a resident of Bellefontaine, reportedly announced, "I've got to live in
this town!" The convention moved to the North Park Plaza hotel in Reading, a
northern suburb of Cincinnati.Before the convention moved, however, the
Broken Door Incident occurred. The Ingalls Hotel was old-style, opening directly
onto sidewalk and street, and the front rooms overlooked the sidewalk. My knowledge
of the event is mostly hearsay; Mary Southworth, who was on the spot (and who still
comes to conventions here and there as a huckster), had a somewhat less dramatic
and perhaps more factual account, but I don't recall it well enough to retell it
exactly. The report I heard was that Harlan Ellison was amusing himself by dropping
water bags out the window, restricting himself to fannish targets. Jim Harmon, who
was both a big-name fan of the day and a rather large, rotund one as well, got
splashed and resented the fact. He stormed up to Harlan's room, where Harlan had
prudently locked the door. When Harlan refused to come out, Jim began to batter his
way in, knocking out one panel of the door. There was a lovely story that Harlan
was frantically calling the police while Jim was trying to drag him out the hole in
the door, but this seems to have been fiction -- for one thing, the Ingalls didn't
have telephones in the rooms. Someone did call the police, however, and Harmon
disappeared leaving Harlan to explain things, while most of the rest of the
convention milled about in the hallway enjoying the show. The police left and that
evening Harlan came around to various room parties, apologizing for the affair and
taking up a collection to pay for the broken door. A bit later, Harmon came around,
'disguised' in Lynn Hickman's coat (which was about half the size he usually wore),
apologizing for the incident... and taking up a collection to pay for the broken
door. Our group tossed quarters to each one.The next year, we were back at the same
hotel, to find that the broken door had been repaired with a piece of unstained and
unpainted plywood, and that the hotel now had a redecorated meeting room. I've
always wondered just how much money was collected for the door...Affairs at the North Park Plaza were
relatively sedate, though I did get my one and only experience with 'Detroit blog'
there. There were usually several Detroit fans at the con; "Big-Hearted" Howard
DeVore was the one I knew best, since I bought quite a bit of stuff from him (mostly
science fiction magazines in those days). Howard and Martin Alger, from some place
in Michigan, were the major hucksters in the midwest at the time. Alger would come
down from his home with a hearse full of books. There was no huckster room at those
early cons; you sold out of the back of your car (or hearse). In Bellefontaine, the
dealers parked along the street and sold; at the North Park Plaza, the huckster room
was the parking lot. I remember Howard telling me once that I qualified as an
'old-timer' because I'd done some selling from my car.I can't recall what year it was that a group
of Detroit fans made blog for their party. It consisted of sweet wine, dry wine,
vodka, a quart of 200-proof medical alcohol, frozen lemonade, fresh lime juice, and
some cherries to give it "body," and possibly a few other ingredients as well. The
cherries sank to the bottom, and the lime halves floated on top rather like little
green corpses. It was mixed in a galvanized bucket (this was before plastics); the
color was a revolting shade of brown. Harlan took one look at it, and stabbed it
several times with a butcher knife to make sure it was dead before he drank any.Filk singing got a boost at the North Park
Plaza. The con suite -- the only public room in the hotel that I recall -- was in
the basement, and a door from it led to the furnace room, which was also used as a
corridor between the two buildings that made up the hotel. This room was well
soundproofed, with concrete walls that gave great resonance to voices. The singers,
who were none-too-popular at parties, could go in there and not disturb fans in the
con suite next door. The usual group was Juanita, Les Gerber, Sandy Cuttrell,
George Heap, and occasionally others. Nick Falasca was there once, and gave a
stirring rendition of the KKK marching song that he'd learned from a 78 rpm
record that he'd picked up secondhand.Eventually, the convention moved on to other
hotels and motels in the Cincinnati area. Don Ford took over the organizational
duties from Doc Barrett when the con moved to the North Park Plaza, and other people
took over when Don died in 1965. In the 1970s, Rivercon began in Louisville;
Juanita and I went to both conventions for a few years and finally decided we
couldn't afford both. Rivercon won, and we haven't attended a Midwestcon for years.
These days we need income from huckstering to offset expenses, and Midwestcon was
never a good convention for hucksters -- the fans who attend already have what
science fiction books they want. But Midwestcon was always a lot of fun. There was
the time in the 1960s that Tucker brought along neofan Roger Ebert (yes, the same
Roger Ebert who reviews movies on television). Roger ended up wearing a wastebasket
on his head in lieu of a lampshade, and Tucker went around apologizing for him.
And... but enough is enough (for now)... Title illustration by Charlie Williams |
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