Courtesy of the City of Grove City
When Lou Ardit first moved to Grove City, he estimates the local population was around 2,500 people. That was 1957. More than half a century later, a lot has changed, but Ardit still calls Grove City home.
Ardit, a veteran of World War II who will celebrate his 102nd birthday this year, has a unique historical perspective on the city and life in general – even some advice for living long.
“Top-shelf booze, not the bottom shelf,” he says. “I don’t know, it works.”
He credits good luck with helping him return from war and live such a long life. His son, David, still lives in Grove City as well, and Ardit has grandchildren and great-grandchildren spread beyond the city.
When Ardit first moved to Grove City, friends struggled to understand why he and his wife, Martha, would want to live in the area.
“When we moved here, it was like the end of the world,” he says.
It was a much different city at the time, though. Ardit recalls the streetcar track that ran through the city roads. He also recalls looking out behind his house on Homecomer Drive and seeing nothing but open fields. Those fields have now become the Jackson Homes neighborhood as part of decades of development.
“This is where I could afford,” Ardit says. “I’m very happy with it. I feel fortunate that I was able to find a nice home.”
Born on July 5, 1920, and raised in Grandview, Ardit found himself traveling far beyond Ohio during World War II.
With the Army, Ardit deployed to France, eventually finding himself at Camp Lucky Strike in the country’s northern region. As a private, he worked as a battery clerk up front with the weaponry, a vulnerable position.
By chance, the misbehavior of a corporal above him led Ardit to a rank and position promotion.
“I look back on it and I think – I know – it saved my life,” he says. “We lost some men. I don’t know how many.”
He still has his uniform, including the two-stripe corporal badge.
After the war, both of his parents having passed away, Ardit took a single room at the YMCA until he met his wife. Really, he and Martha were re-meeting – the two went to school together since the third grade, Ardit says, in a building near what is now Grandview’s Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary.
He still remembers the place they reconnected, on the west side of High Street between Long Street and Gay Street. Two and a half years later, the two were married.
Ardit and Martha were married 38 years and one day when she passed away in 1986. He credits her with shaping him into a respectable man, comparing her influence on him to the polishing of a rough stone into an ashlar, a masonry term for a polished and squared stone.
“She took a rough ashlar and scrubbed it up,” he says. “She didn’t make a perfect ashlar, but she did a bang-up job.”
After the war, Ardit stumbled into a job in finance despite having no knowledge of the industry.
“I didn’t know what a finance company was, had no idea,” he says. “The first thing you know, I got promoted to manager.”
The management position took him to Gallipolis, but he soon returned to Columbus to work for City National Bank of Columbus, Ohio, which became BankOne then eventually merged into JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The banking industry is where Ardit first met Mayor Richard L. “Ike” Stage. The two have become friends over the years.
“He’s always been a gentleman, someone I’ve admired and looked to as a mentor,” Stage says. “He’s very easy going, extremely friendly.”
A classic car enthusiast, Ardit used his 1930 Ford Model A to drive Stage at the opening of the Columbus Street extension in 2021. Stage honored Ardit’s 100th birthday with “Lou Ardit Day” in 2020 and presented a letter from President Donald Trump. That celebration also included a drive-by parade, to which many brought their own classic cars in place of floats.
The cars represent a different time to Ardit, who still remembers his dad’s first car, a 1922 Dodge.
“In 1930, if you bought a Model A Ford you had accomplished something,” Ardit says. “Today, you don’t see Chevrolets or Pontiacs or Plymouths, you see Model A Fords.”
During his youth, Ardit says he sold a Model A for $20 – the same car would cost $25,000 today, he estimates.
Still, accepting modern technology has never been an issue for Ardit. Even cars, he admits, have advanced greatly from his earlier years.
“(Newer cars are) a vast improvement over the Model A,” he says. “They’re much more comfortable.”
These days, Ardit doesn’t do much traveling and tries to keep a low profile. He sticks to his routines and regular Grove City spots. You might bump into him during his haircut twice a month at Hair Shoppe, or while he’s grabbing a soup and a sandwich at Plank’s on Broadway.
While he has plenty of stories and history to share, he’s not one to get caught up in trite memories. If you ask about the past, he quips quickly and fairly literally:
“Oh, that was a hundred years ago.”
Cameron Carr is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at ccarr@cityscenemediagroup.com.
