Home of The Bill Steigerwald

This is me.

Bill Steigerwald: Born Baltimore, Maryland May 21, 1951 at University Hospital to Elizabeth and William E. Steigerwald.

I grew up in East Baltimore at 120 S. Madeira Street in an area known as Butcher’s Hill. Madeira is a small side street between Patterson Park Avenue on the east, Collington Avenue on the west, Lombard Street on the north and Pratt Street on the south.

Butchers Hill was primarily a German and Polish neighborhood when I was growing up. The area has changed during the intervening years. Many houses have since been renovated.

Patterson Park; borders the neighborhood. That is were we played baseball and football when the streets got too busy. When no playing ball we used to pretend we were fighting off the British troops on Hampstead Hill. The cannon that looked eastward were all the weapons we needed to keep the Brits away.

The Pagoda stands on the Hill. It was boarded up back then. A disaster waiting to happen. We used to pull the boards away and climb the winding stairs and reach through a hole in the roof while and grab a pigeon that we would later sell to the pet shop on Collington  Avenue.

From Kindergarten to 6th Grade I attended P.S. 27 – Commodore John Rogers Elementary School on Chester and Fayette Streets. It was about a six block walk everyday. I started doing the walk on my own when I was in the first grade. My earliest recollection of school was the first day of Kindergarten when Mrs. Miller asked me if my father’s name was Bill. She then proceed to tell me she was my father’s fifth grade teacher and she was surprised it was still alive. It turns out my 1st, 3rd and 6th grade terachers all shared in the education of my father. On the first day of school each teacher felt it was necessary to share their experiences with my Dad with the entire class. They all cautioned me to not be like my “old man”. It seems that the “old man” was a pretty tough kid who didn’t care much for school, education or the administration.

Early in the sixth grade I was elected captain of the safety patrol. I stood guard on Chester Street and Fairmount Avenue every morning and afternoon. That was a pretty cool experience. Later that year I was robbed, at knife point, while carrying money, for a flower fund, between the main school building and the annex. I think it was then that my parents decided to move us out of the city.

By April of 1963 we were gone. We moved to Glen Burnie and I spent two months at North Glen Elementary School. What a shock that was. I went from being one of the smartest kids in the school to being placed in an average class. I couldn’t believe it.

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