Weatherwax family ‘not happy’ course may be sold or closed

In his final days, when Russell Weatherwax Sr. knew death was imminent and he wasn’t going to survive heart disease, he made sure his family donated the necessary trees, landscape and money to make Weatherwax Golf Course a 36-hole duffer’s dream.

It was his final wish, his last gift to the city where he made his name.

Russell Weatherwax, 67, died in December 1970, and the golf course on Mosiman Road, referred to as a “gem” in the city, opened two years later. For the past 41 years, Weatherwax has been linked with the city, received countless awards from golf associations and drawn thousands of golfers and visitors to the city. It has hosted yearly charity events and high school postseason tournaments and been the training ground for local professional golfers.

Now Weatherwax is for sale like some used car that requires expensive repairs.

Patrice (Weatherwax) Bowman, 86, of Monroe, the only living child of Russell and Bessie Weatherwax, said she’s “not happy at all” that the city is considering closing or selling the golf course. The trees that line the fairways are rooted in her family history. Bowman said she has had a conversation with City Manager Judy Gilleland — she called her “that lady” — and expressed her family’s feelings. She wants her father’s wishes to continue.

Middletown, which is threatening to lay off 22 public safety employees by 2015 because of budgets cuts, can’t afford to keep dumping thousands of dollars into the golf course, city officials said. The course is operating at a $150,000 deficit, which doesn’t include the $250,000 annual debt payment for past improvements, Gilleland said.

If it comes down to the city repairing pot holes or financing golf holes, the decision is easy, city leaders. Middletown no longer would have a public golf course, a shame for the once proud All-American City.

The city is hoping to sell the course and get out of a golf business. The city said an appraisal conducted last year valued the course and neighboring Sebald Park at $1.2 million. Sebald Park was sold to Butler Metroparks and now the city wants to sell Weatherwax’s approximate 425 acres.

The city said it anticipates Weatherwax will have “a highest and best use” as a golf course, though it would consider alternative uses.

While selling the course is about dollars and cents, it doesn’t make sense to the Weatherwax family.

Bowman, who lived at Mount Pleasant Retirement Village, said her father, who was born in Portsmouth and came from “a simple background,” was an avid golfer and longtime member at Brown’s Run Country Club in Madison Twp. But he wanted golf, the sport he loved, to be affordable to those who worked in the mills, too.

“He was for the underdog,” his daughter said.

Her daughter, Suzanne Francis, added: “The average person.”

The family obviously cherishes its history. On the table of Bowman’s home sits her black and white wedding photo, and on the walls hang pictures of the Middletown homes she lived in growing up and, in the living room, a Tobias portrait of her distinquished father holding a rolled up Wall Street Journal.

Russell Weatherwax lost his father at an early age, and his mother remarried and moved the family to Middletown because her second husband worked at Armco. Russell Weatherwax entered the banking business when he was 16, eventually rising to be president of Oglesby-Barnitz Bank, which today is Chase Bank.

Bowman and her daughter understand the city has difficult decisions to make. They know money is tight and the budget needs to be reduced. They just don’t want the course closed, thus ending their family’s dreams.

If Russell Weatherwax was still alive today, they said, this wouldn’t be a conversation.

Francis said her grandfather had “too much pull.”

Then Bowman, a 1945 Middletown High School graduate, added: “I guess there isn’t much we can do now.”