When I learned of a unique auction of sports memorabilia belonging to Baseball Hall of Famer Nellie Fox scheduled to gavel-down on Saturday, January 22, I knew I had to be there to watch it sell. The sale was taking place at Kenny’s Auction House in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania under the supervision of Carl E. Ocker. The sale was taking place a mere seven miles from the St. Thomas, Penn. birthplace of the sparkplug MVP second baseman for the Chicago White Sox.
Ocker invited Rhonda and me to a special preview meet and greet with members of the Fox family and childhood friends of Nellie on Wednesday, January 19th. As soon as we walked into the gallery, we knew this was going to be something special. The room was literally bursting with tables stacked with memorabilia of every type: player photos, team photos, family photos, signed baseballs, letters, Hall of Fame memorabilia, bats, gloves, awards, trophies, Stadium relics, gloves, presentation silverware and dinnerware, and bowling memorabilia. Yes, bowling memorabilia. More on that later.
Auctioneer Carl Ocker noted that the Nellie Fox sale is taking place during the 50th anniversary of Kenny’s Auction House. “I started working here at 13, had my auctioneer’s license at 18, and by 28, I owned the business.” Ocker may be the most revered auctioneer in south-central Penn. Everyone I spoke with talked of Carl’s honesty, integrity, and strong work ethic. Carl informed me that daughters Bonnie and Tracy are the end of the Nellie Fox line. Nellie and his wife Joanne had no grandchildren.
I spoke with Bonnie, Nellie’s youngest daughter, to gather her thoughts and feelings about letting go of these precious mementoes. Bonnie spent her business career in the make-up department at the Bon-Ton department store. One look at her and you can easily see why. See is a beautiful lady whose look is a perfect split between her father and her mother Joanne. “I grew up in St. Thomas until high school when my family moved to Chambersburg in 1962,” Bonnie said. Although only a short 7 miles away, “It seemed like a million miles away to me, I thought it was the end of the world.”
When he wasn’t playing baseball, Nellie was a hunter, mostly small game, birds, and deer. He spent a week every winter at the Dixon Hunting Cabin in the Fairhope area near Somerset, Penn. His daughter Bonnie remembered seeing her father and his hunting buddies cleaning their rifles on the kitchen table and loading their shells by hand. “In the wintertime, daddy liked to hunt and bowl and listen to country music. He also worked at the Bob Wise men’s store. Daddy just liked talking to people, he was a people person, and working at the men’s store brought him in contact with more people to talk to.”
Does Bonnie have memories of her dad’s playing days? “We had players coming by to see daddy all the time. I remember Mickey Mantle visited our house to see him. Brooks Robinson too. All of the kids in the family would fight over who got to sit in the chair Mickey sat in.” Bonnie added, “I remember we went up and lived in a hotel in Chicago one summer when daddy was playing for the White Sox. We stayed in the Hotel Picadilly. We had to leave our dogs, Barney and Nelly, with neighbors but I hid my cat in a hatbox and sneaked him up the elevator.”
What was life like in the Fox house during the off-season? “Daddy bowled two nights a week. We always knew it was bowling night when we had hotdogs and baked beans. That was daddy’s favorite meal. Especially every Tuesday night. Hotdogs and beans every Tuesday night.” When I asked if her dad was competitive when he bowled, Bonnie answered, “He wasn’t competitive in most things but when it came to bowling, he wanted to win. He didn’t get mad or anything like that but he bowled to win. Oh, and I guess he was competitive when he played baseball.”
One question that I had on my mind was about Mr. Fox’s name. He signed letters, checks, contracts, photos, cards, and baseballs as “Nelson Fox” but he has come down through the pages of baseball history as “Nellie”. Did he have a preference? His daughter Bonnie answered, “Oh hon, of course to me he was always just ‘daddy.’ But a lot of people called him Nellie and he didn’t mind. My mother once told me that he preferred being called Nelson.”
Darlene Meyers, Nellie’s sister-in-law, recalled, “Sure, we watched him play baseball and we knew he was good, but to me, he was just my brother-in-law. When I got married, Nellie walked me down the aisle and gave me away. He was a great guy. And he was funny too. Once, after Nellie babysat my kids, I forgot the potty seat when I picked them up. Later that night, Nellie showed up and started banging on the front window in the darkness with that potty seat. All I could see was that potty seat and hear Nellie laughing. He had the greatest laugh.” Darlene added, “We always called him Nellie.”
St. Thomas neighbor Sam Hornbacker remembered hitting ground balls to Nellie as a kid. “I was around fourteen and Nellie was in his early twenties. We’d spend three to five hours a day on the old high school field.” Sam was eventually rewarded for his hard work years later when Nellie gave him one of his World Series caps. “Nellie came home one year and said ‘you’re a left-hander aren’t you?’ When I said yes he threw me a first baseman’s mitt and said ‘Here this was Gil Hodges’ glove. You can have it.” Sam adds, “You know, Nellie played on the St. Thomas high school team when he was in the fifth grade.” Sam answered, “I always called him Nelson.”
Jim Feight, who grew up five houses away from Nellie in St. Thomas, shared an evocative memory sure to plant a smile in anyone’s imagination. “I remember seeing Nellie several times out in the front yard playing pepper with the neighborhood children.” The Fox house, which still stands in St. Thomas today, rests directly on the Lincoln Highway. Can you imagine that? Driving down Route 30 on the way to Gettysburg and seeing the A.L. MVP playing pepper with a bunch of kids?”
Jim’s wife Kay, a former school teacher, chuckled as she recalled, “In the 1990s, they named the Junior high school gym after Nellie. I thought that was ironic because Nellie never graduated from high school.” Kay and Jim are active in the St. Thomas historical community. They expressed their hope that much of the Fox memorabilia, especially those related to St. Thomas, will remain in the area. Kay explains that the historic tollhouse on the western edge of St. Thomas will someday be a museum devoted to the history of the borough. Jim and Kay said they knew him as Nellie.
The auction of the Nellie Fox estate literally documents the entire life of Nellie Fox from cradle to grave. Nellie’s widow, Joanne carefully saved every aspect of her husband’s life during his childhood in St. Thomas, his baseball career, his life in Chambersburg, his death at the young age of 47, and the years following his passing including his posthumous election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Both Nellie and Joanne attended St. Thomas High School. Kay Feight noted, “I think there were maybe 20 people in their class, less than a hundred in the whole school. It closed in 1966.” Joanne Fox died in the autumn of 2021 and as daughter Bonnie tearfully noted, “It’s still fresh. Her passing is still fresh.”
Bryan McGinn, a sports agent, baseball historian, and collector, assisted Carl in organizing and preparing the Nellie Fox estate for sale. He stated, “We had this stuff spread out all over the stage up there. We matched photos with objects and sorted photos, papers, and documents by relevance and content. Nellie is the most famous athlete that this area ever produced. Most people don’t realize what a fertile region this was for sports icons. Eddie Plank, Hack Wilson, Chief Bender, Christy Mathewson, Jim Thorpe, just to name a few.” Bryan noted that what made this auction so special is that the collection comes straight from the family and it is taking place in Nellie’s hometown. “That means that many of these items will stay right here where they came from. Any fan of Nellie Fox can take home something that belonged to their hero.”
When I asked the baseball historian to chime in on the Nellie versus Nelson question, he responded, “My brother (Benjamin McGinn) has the largest collection of Nellie Fox memorabilia that I know of. He has over 100 autographs of Fox and only a couple of them are signed as ‘Nellie.’ The most common form of his signature is Nelson. But I don’t think he had a preference when people were just talking to him.” Then, as if to add more intrigue to the question, Brian asked, “You know what his wife called him? She called him “Pug”, like the dog.” There was an item in this auction that speaks to that, a 1946 love letter from Nellie to his wife Joanne written in Korea while Nellie was serving overseas. (More on that later.)
Watching Bonnie and her family slowly circle the auction tables while perusing the items displayed there was a sweet and sad trip down memory lane. As they picked up family photos most comments elicited laughter. “Look at Tracy, she does not look happy… There’s 3-year daddy holding his first bat that grandpa made him… There’s daddy and mommy as kids when they worked at the orchard picking apples together… There’s mom and dad on their wedding day.” As for the objects, the family looked at the treasures and commented accordingly. “Here are all the foxes that hung on the wall, daddy made it a point never to shoot a fox when he was hunting… Oh look here’s daddy’s ashtray stool, you can see it here in this photo right next to Mickey Mantle… This cobbler’s bench was made by granddad for daddy when he was a little boy, it propped open the door to the telephone nook in both houses.”
One lot in the sale that could go easily overlooked unless you knew the backstory, was a set of color photos of Nellie Fox walking his daughter Bonnie down the aisle on her wedding day. Bonnie picked up one of the photos and remarked, “This was taken in October of 1974. Daddy had been feeling terrible for weeks but he said he wasn’t going to the doctor until after he walked me down the aisle. That was right before he found out he had cancer.”
Next week, tune in for Part 3 of Nellie Fox’s story.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
