Cheesy Grits: Granddad Ralston has many irons in many fires

The period from 1919-1924 appears to have been an extremely busy time in Granddad Ralston's life. He had just taken on the job of director of the phys. ed. program at the new Boys' Welfare Association in Harlem. He and his wife Audrey had just begun their family, starting with Jane's mother, Audrey in 1918, adding young Myrtle Renee in 1920, followed by Vera in 1922. And, it appears, he was also deeply involved in the sports programs at P.S. 89.

Granddad Ralston's influence was quickly felt at the Boys' Welfare Association. He sent out a call for basketball teams to form a league, and by October of his first year (1920), there was an eight-team league providing opportunities for boys to learn and play basketball. (The teams responding were St. Christopher, which had boys' teams as well as a men's team, Lincoln House, 135th St. YMCA, St. James, St. Mark's, Spartans, Columbia Cubs, and Granddad's own Boys Welfare Association.)

Granddad was not only director of phys. ed., he was involved in fund-raising for the Boys' Welfare Association. He apparently wasn't reluctant to call in a chit from his days with the St. Christopher Club to help the cause. The call went out to a member of the St. Christopher championship basketball team whose name would, a few years later, be known far beyond Harlem. And it's not J. Arthur Gaines:

This recital will have been around five years before Robeson took the stage as a professional.

Granddad also seems to have been working at least part-time with the New York Public Schools at P.S. 89: the same issue (17 Jan 1920) of the New York Age that announced his appointment as Physical Director at the Boys' Welfare Assocation also reported on the activities of P.S.89, which stood on the southwest corner of Lenox Avenue/Malcolm X Boulevard between 134th and 135th Streets. Among those activities was the fact that:

...the basketball team of the school, under the able direction of Mr. Ralston, has just carried off honors for the championship of Manhattan, and the team is now engaged with the city championship finals."

So it would seem that his career as a basketball coach in the NYC Public Schools had started off with the proverbial bang.

And, as it turned out, the Boys' Welfare Association wasn't an enduring organization, notwithstanding the glorious launch. It seems to have gone under for want of funding; I haven't yet turned up any more detailed explanation. By 1924, the headquarters at 4-6 W. 131st St., were being sold, definitively closing that chapter of Granddad's life.

It does seem possible that Granddad Ralston saw the financial handwriting on the wall; there are strong suggestions that he had thrown his lot with the New York City Public Schools at the same time he had signed up with the Boys' Welfare Association: the 15 April 1922 New York Age was already crowing about his years of success as a basketball coach at the school:

"Coach Ralston must be recognized as one of the best coaches in the city. In his first year as Physical Director at P.S. 89, he turned out the P.S.A.L. basketball champions of 1919-1920 from that school..."

Many years later, one of the boys from that 1919-1920 team would remember being recruited to play for Coach Ralston at P.S. 89; more about him later.


Note:

There was one benefit for the Boys' Welfare Association, the notice for which was too rich to pass up, although there is no indication that Granddad Ralston had anything to do with it. The following notice ran in the New York Age:

The "mystery painting" which brought 25 cents a head to the Boys' Welfare Association now hangs in Saint Francis of Assisi Mission in Taos, New Mexico.