WASHINGTON — Steve Roosevelt was 12 years old when he came home from Washington Middle School without his baseball glove one day in 1955.
That glove finally circled the proverbial bases and came home to Roosevelt on Tuesday — a journey only 4.8 miles to his house in a mystery that took 70 years to solve.
Seventy years. And that JC Higgins glove, model 1638 with Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller’s name etched inside, finally made it home to a kid who was too afraid to tell his dad he’d lost it.
This is a story that will make you feel good about people, romantic about baseball and in awe about fate.
“It’s just incredible,” said Roosevelt, 83. “It’s like I went back in time and bought a second chance with history. Honestly, I’ve thought about that glove a lot over the years. I never really lost any sleep over it because I figured it was gone such a long time ago.
“I never thought I’d see it again.”
How a kid lost his glove in a wall
Washington Middle School opened up on Spruce Road in 1953, and work on the building was ongoing. A hallway designated to hold lockers for the students sat ready, holes here and there in the walls where the lockers would eventually cover them and be mounted.
A temporary measure was a shelf put up at head level along the wall, above the voids. Roosevelt was in seventh grade and eventually went on to graduate from Washington High School in 1960.
One Friday at the end of a school day, little Roosevelt stuck his glove on that shelf on the top. When he came back to school the following Monday, that shelf was gone and the lockers were installed on the wall.
“My glove was gone,” Roosevelt said. “It was a Bob Feller glove. A good glove. My dad (Fred) bought it from a store on Main Street in Peoria, can’t remember what it was but it’s long gone now.
“I played baseball when I was a kid, but nothing fancy. I was never on a team, it was just pickup games in the neighborhood.”
Roosevelt went on with life, working for 40 years for a Ford car dealership in Washington. That dealer changed ownership several times over the years, but Roosevelt stayed “I was everything, parts manager, service manager, sales, everything.”
He retired briefly in 2001, then quickly went to work for Anderson Auto Center in Washington, retiring for good in 2011. Along the way, he moved to Deer Creek for 10 years, then returned to Washington. He fell in love with the Chicago Cubs, was inspired by Ernie Banks and met him on a visit at the car dealership.
And he fell in love with Beatrice Ernest, marrying her in 1961. They were together more than 60 years before she died in 2024, eight days before Christmas.
They had sons Spencer and John, and watched a family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren build around them.
Spencer became one of the final pieces in bringing the glove home.
‘A dark blob in the corner’
Washington Middle School was taken over by the Washington Park District about 20 years ago to serve as the park’s recreational facility.
A little more than a year ago, the facility was undergoing a maintenance project.
“There are a lot of parts of that building that could still be a school today, not that much has changed,” Washington Park District executive director Brian Tibbs said.
Park District maintenance staff Nick Racich and Jeremy McMenimen were above a drop ceiling, pulling wiring for an upgrade of cameras in the facility.
From the vantage point of the ceiling, they could look down and see a space between the backs of the lockers on the wall, and the interior wall from classrooms on the other side.
“They shined a light in the void and saw beer cans and, in the corner, what was kind of a dark blob,” Tibbs said. “They fished it out.”
It was Roosevelt’s glove, although no one knew that right away.
“The leather had not been exposed to light or elements at all, it was just in perfect shape,” Tibbs said. “It was just untouched. You could play a game with it.”
McMenimen is Washington Park District’s superintendent of parks and property. He was the man up in the ceiling, aiming his flashlight down behind what he thought was a weirdly constructed void in the wall.
“I reached down and picked it up,” McMenimen said. “I thought, ‘We just found something really, really old.’ I could see there was a name on the glove and I tried to research it online. Then I put it in a bag and stowed it in my office.”
And there it sat, a year, 18 months, maybe longer, in a bag in McMenimen’s office.
Fate had one more card to play.
A random visit and glove returned
Washington retiree Bob Linsley comes in and does mowing for the Washington Park District on its properties. On Monday, Linsley dropped by McMenimen’s office to talk about the mowing schedule.
“We were sitting there talking, and I just pulled the glove out and started working it, read the name on it,” McMenimen said. “I don’t know why I took that glove out at that moment. It had been sitting in a bag over a year.”
Linsley saw the glove, heard Roosevelt’s name, and said he knew who it belonged to.
“He said Roosevelt’s son, Spencer, works at the Goodfield State Bank in Washington,” McMenimen said. “Within 30 minutes Spencer called me and I explained the whole story to him. It was headed home.”
‘It gave me goosebumps’
On Tuesday, the Washington Park District arranged to meet Roosevelt at the building, where 70 years ago he’d lost his glove. The park was aware Roosevelt had lost his longtime wife in December, and hoped the wonder of a glove coming back after 70 years might lift his spirits a bit.
” ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to see his facial expression when we give it to him,’ ” McMenimen told the family. “So today we went out in the gymnasium with his glove inside the bag, and I started to explain to Steve that we found something.”
Before McMenimen could finish describing the surprise, Roosevelt interjected: “Did you find my glove?”
“It gave me goosebumps,” McMenimen said. “He looked like a 10-year-old kid that just found his glove again.”
Roosevelt was joined by his sons, Spencer, now vice-president and a loan officer at Goodfield Bank, and John, a Coca-Cola delivery semi-truck driver.
Neither of them had ever heard the story of the missing glove from their father. And right there, Steve Roosevelt led them on a tour back to 1955, down the hallway and right to the locker and showing where he left his glove on a shelf above a void in the wall seven decades ago.
“He told us every once in a while he thinks about that glove,” McMenimen said. “I don’t know why I pulled that glove out at that moment, and with someone standing there who knew who it belonged to from 70 years ago.
“It’s just incredible to be able to give it back to him.”
No one has played catch with that glove for 70 years. Perhaps there’s a Roosevelt grandchild or great-grandchild destined to do just that.
The glove was sold by Sears for $7.95 in 1955. Surviving models of its kind are listed on ebay today for $52. It’s worth a lot more than that to Roosevelt.
“All that time, it was buried in there,” Roosevelt said. “One of the workers knew my son and my son contacted me, said there was something I had to go see. As soon as I saw it, I knew exactly what it was. My name still on the glove.
“I was just kind of shocked. Now all of a sudden they find it, and it has a new place, at home on my table.”
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: 70 years ago, a boy lost his baseball glove. Lifelong mystery solved in Illinois
Reporting by Dave Eminian, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
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