Nancy Kilbride (Cook)

Amy, Gloria, Barbara, I'm shocked by what you said about Mr Craig! Gloria, wasn't he the guy we had for 8th grade math? I had always been bored stiff by math, but in 8th grade SOMEBODY started teaching us algebra, which just wasn't done until high school those days. I ADORED it! And now they start algebra even earlier. 

I do remember the math teacher, whatever his name was, being kinda mean to Jane Handley for messy math homework, but he didn't tear it up. Horrors!

Anna Hoagland

Amy Star, you were a happy place for me in high school. You were so witty and outspoken. Remember the cartoon you put on the blackboard?  I think it was Mr. Barbknect's class when we were studying Shakespeare, the caption was "out, out, damn Spot" and the picture was a dog in disgrace....??

Amy Star

Aw Anna. That's sweet. My sense of humor was not appreciated by all especially the teachers. I remember my freshman Englush teacher actually made me sit in a chair in the corner in high school!! Again a trauma! That is sad. Mr B had a good sense of humor tho and I lived his English class. As a result I'm texting you from the Asheville senior college right now awaiting a class on Orson Welles. Followed by a Shakespeare class where I may try the out damned spot trick! Thanks Anna for ur kind words

Arthur Fried

I have had a class or two on Shakespeare,Amy, but I wish I could could take one on Orson Welles. Sounds really cool. Your dad interviewed my father about housing integration in Park Forest in the 60s. He was the first realtor to openly sell a house in Park Forest to an African-American family. Previous sales had been arranged privately by the owners. I'm glad he did it, but it was overdue. My moother left me the copy of Look that your dad's article appeared in, and I  still have it in an attic somewhere.

Amy Star

Hi Art. Well I guess I never saw citizen cane all the way thru. The 1941 movie was the anthesis of the upbeat and colorful movies of the time. Dark dark dark dark in lighting and themes. Could Hearst have been that bad a character to be portrayed in such negative megnamaniac?

Anyway discussion was interesting  there are a number of retired film people in the class  in the Asheville NC senior college 

I remember an English class where we had to rewrite Shakespeare Cesar in gangster dialogue  I remember doing improv in speech class and developing a monologue of an ice cube who gets drunk and taking it to state competitions  not only was it great fun but it also developed imagination and creative writing tools 

Good for ur Dad for doing the right thing w his real estate  I remember a lovely black family moving onto our block and having to deal w so much crap that they eventually pulled up stakes and moved away  it seems impossible that it happened in our childhood  do I remember this correctly that Jessie Ownes came to Park Forest and was refused entrance to a restaurant in the Plaza? I hope I'm wrong about that 

Charla Repass (Pruitt)

I have really enjoyed reading everyone's comments about our high school years. We had some great teachers and some great times. I remember liking most of my classes, but unfortunately the teacher and the class that overshadows all the others was Mr Janota's freshman biology class. At the beginning of the year, he promised to surprise us one day and bring a snake to class and have everyone hold it. I had a HUGE fear of snakes (still do) and so every day I lived in fear of going to class.....and it was my last class of the day. That made for a very long, stressful day. My guardian angel was watching over me though and on the day he made good on his promise, I had a dental appointment and had to leave school before last period. Hallelujah! I was saved from the embarrassment of becoming hysterical and probably fainting in class! But reading all the comments about other teachers and fun times has dug up some good memories, so thanks everyone. Keep the comments coming.

Arthur Fried

I remember that Jesse Owens came to Rich East and spoke to the entire school in assembly. I don't remember which year, but I covered the event for the Reveiller and met him personally -- with Alan Mandel, I think. The person who was denied service, I believe, was the folk singer Huddy Ledbetter -- Leadbelly. He had performed locally -- at the Unitarian Church, perhaps. His hosts took him to dinner at Mickleberry's restaurant and the owner, Bud Mickleberry, turned them away. Studs Terkle accompanied him that day. When I interviewed Studs in 1980, and told him I grew up in Park Forest, that was all he wanted to talk about. He was still angry, for which I don't blame him, but I remember feeling guilty by association. I remember that Mickleberry's went out of business in the 60s, probably when we were still in high school. 

Tony Scariano the elder played a major role behind the scenes in integrating Park Forest. He handled the first private sale to an African-American family at the end of 1959, and he supported open housing legislation in the state legislation. I believe the Army played an indirect role in integrating the town, as members of the first generation of black army officers sought housing for their families. By the mid 60s the Army had a genuine commitment to integration and it would have been foolhardy for real estate companies to stand in their way.

Nancy Kilbride (Cook)

Charla, so glad to hear that you disliked Mr Janota's class! I had always thought he was a creep, but somebody, somewhere said something about Janota being his/her favorite teacher, so I wondered if I had just been GRUMPY all through my sophomore year! The room stank of god-knows-what & the stench got worse as the year progressed. I had a stomach ache almost every day & needed to go to the nurse's office. He may have thought I was malingering, but male teachers were probably hesitant to ask female students about their physical ailments. He had this thing about calling us our given names, so Jack Pitsch was "John" and I was "Anne." Although Anne was on my birth certificate, nobody in my life had ever used that name on me, so I didn't always even realize he was speaking to me. He also had a way of talking stream-of-conscious & saying "AAAAAND" between thoughts. One day I was dreaming or sending notes to somebody, and he said what sounded like "AAAAAAAANNE." I was so startled I jumped out of my skin and said "WHAT!?!" That in turn startled HIM, and he never called me Anne again. As for your situation, it's sssssso nice that you didn't have to deal with that sssssssnake!

Nancy Kilbride (Cook)

Amy, it's completely insane that a high school teacher would make you sit in a corner! Did he have a southern accent perchance? Good that this trauma didn't give you a lifelong hatred of classrooms!

Robert Singerman

Art...interesting you should mention integrating park forest....when on the board (and, i think, prior to being village presedent) my father went door-to-door talking to folks prior to the first black family moving in (something he did not do to win elections)....this was all part of what then was called "integrtion maintenance" and i think one of park forest's city managers went on to shaker heights, ohio (where i lived for a while) and worked on integration there....one of normal rockwell's paintings...the one of a black family moving into a house with moving van in the picture and someone pulling apart curtains in the distance to peek at the action was about park forest...i think it was done in line with his other fabulous "integration" paintings like the one of the young girl shown full height and the bottom half of the (i think) u.s. marshalls walking into a school....shaker heights was an interesting example because the city as a whole was integrated but within the city limits there was a ton of racial separtion...i remember that in park forest there was an effort to get the second black family to move to a different part of town (part of the mainenance bit)

Arthur Fried

CORRECTION: After ransacked my memory,  I  realized that the singer who was not allowed into Mickleberry's restaurant was Bill Broonzy, not Huddy Ledbetter. I looked up their dates and Ledbetter died in 1949 in NYC. Broonzy died in Chicago in 1958, so he seems the more likely candidate. This story, bad as it is, should not make us forget that many Park Foresters worked long and hard to achieve peaceful integration in Park Forest and the entire state of Illinois long before federal civil rights legislation was passed.

Bob Singerman-- I remember your dad very well. He was one of those dedicated men and women who helped make Park Forest such a great place to live when we were growing up.

Deborah Garretson

wow! Big Bill Broonzy! How sad.

Mike Shea

Art. Jesse Owens came to talk to us our Freshman year in 1959. My idol. I always dreamed of running in the Olympics. Fast, but not that fast!

Anna Hoagland

Sometimes I wish I hadn't suppressed some memories from PF, I could provide more specific info. My mom picked up a well known member of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago. She said he was terribly concerned about her welfare, being white and in a car with a black man. My mom assured him it was okay in Chicago (not so much in PF).  My dad was a long time member of the NAACP and Unitarian minister and his connections brought "trouble" to PF.  A family history of activism and passivism. You may also remember Sospeter Opee who lived with us my junior year. My boyfriend lectured me about how whites and blacks should live separately and then said he couldn't date someone who had a black in their home. It was a rather lonely time for me and I so admire people who live their sense of justice. I admired my parents so very much.

Anna Hoagland

p.s. thanks for identifying the year, 1959, for Jesse Owens. My older sister and I were talking about mom picking him up at the airport and we couldn't remember.

My favorite biology teacher was Albert Gray. His teaching style was my learning style and he had the prettiest eyes!

Amy Star

Yes come to think of it the teacher who made Baby sit in the corner (Dirty Dancing reference--I was baby in this freshman English class) did have a southern accent. Do u know whom it might have been?  Now that I live in Asheville NC where people come from all over, but even so there are some strong southern accents which trip me up and have caused some humorous misinterpretations. 

As to Mr Janota, I liked his class. I hated collecting and killing bugs and after trying to unsuccessfully exterminating the first few bugs, I refused to do the bug project. I might have been Rich East's first conscientious bug lover.  But inspite of that I went on to do a biology project of growing plants w different colored lights and project and me went on to some regional event where I presented a paper on my findings  my knees were knocking and my mouth went dry but it helped me to have a life long interest in science  plus I think Mr J was the fund raiser faculty member for Apple sales although I forget what we were raising the money for

Anna, I'm sorry I didn't know that you felt isolated in junior year  I wish I had known and had not been so much inside myself that I didn't notice  I really like your mom and her sense of beauty in nature and her general kindness and gentleness

Penny ("Trish") Douglas

I remember Jesse Owens coming to our high school to speak...and he only spoke to the boys in the boy's gym. Girls were not allowed to hear him (I think they had some kind of "home ec" demo for us in the girl's gym).  We had segregtion in PF.  Not all of it racial.  I cannot tell you how disappointed I was in not being able to see/hear Jesse Owens.

Michael O'Bryant

Nancy, I'm sure that smell in Jonata's class was formaldehyde.

Arthur Fried

I remember once going with a couple of other guys to Mr. Janotas classroom after school. A student I didn't know was working on some sort of experiment.  One of the guys I was with asked him how  he could stand the smell. Oh, he said, your sense of smell fatigues after a few minutes. 

Mine didn't, but I have always remembered that reply. 

Nancy Kilbride (Cook)

Art, MY sense of smell didn't "fatigue" either -- I got to know the nurse's office pretty well.

Michael, formaldehyde may have been part of the smell, but decaying animal & vegetable matter was a bigger part!

Amy, I'm glad that you liked Mr. Janota's class & that he didn't penalize you for your consciencious objector status! ... and I can't remember that English teacher's name either. Freudian forgetting.

And actually, I thought we DID hear Jesse Owens. If we didn't & the boys did, that is REALLY strange. 

Barbara Mears

I remember one time as Mr. Janota's class was ending, a rather scrawny cat wandered by me (didn't see where it came from, but it was in the classroom).  Mr. Janota removed it pretty quickly as I started to pet it.  Later in the year, a cat skeleton appeared in his room.  I always feared it was the same cat.

Amy Star

Nancy, Mr J. did penalize me for my reluctance to kill bugs. I got a D that semester

Penny ("Trish") Douglas

I remember going home and telling my mother that Jesse Owens had come to the school to speak and that the girls weren't allowed to listen to him.  My mother was stunned.  She had been the president of several PTA's and PTSA's - and couldn't believe a school would do that.  I believe she even called the principal - but it was, of course, after Mr. Owens was long gone.

Mostly my memories are great of Rich East (and Park Forest).  I loved most of my teachers and the school spirit we had.  I had to move during the last quarter of junior year due to my mother's illness.  We we moved to Lombard, IL and I finished jr. year and sr. year at Willowbrook H.S. in Villa Park, IL.  The school was new - and so beautiful.  But the kids were so different...there was not the sense of community we had in PF - and absolutely no where near our level of school spirit.  I was so surprised.  Having spent almost every day in PF schools  - from kindergarten on - no school spirit was foreign to me.

I don't know if any of you remember Ash St School...but that's where I started kindergarten.  Then on to Forest Blvd...then Dogwood.  We moved to PF in March or April of 1950...and watched the town grow up.  I loved walking to the Shopping Center and going in-and-out of the stores.  I loved Maeyema's (sp?)...and the hobby shop store.  My first "official" part-time job was at the Bank of Park Forest...beat babysitting for sure!  The Bank was close to a restaurant (the only fancy one in town) - I think it was called Mickleberry's - but am not sure of that.

My favorite grammer school teacher was Mrs. Ruby Schauer.  Her husband built the frames for the more than "life-size" Santas we paper mached, painted and then displayed in the lobby of the Holiday Theater.

In 7th or 8th grade at Westwood, does anyone remember Mr. Shimizu?  Or Mrs. Lyman?  And how about an English teacher named Mr. Tranchina????  He was something!

Living on Ash St. - we had tons of kids to play with.  I look back and think how lucky I was to grow up in Park Forest.  I can still "smell" the Aqua Center...

Seth Eisner

Another Jesse Owens/Park Forest story.

Sometime in the early 1960s, the local B'nai B'rith chapter had Jesse Owens as a guest at a Sunday morning meeting.  Rather a special event -- not often that this rather small and mostly undistinguished chapter of B'nai Brith had guests of distinction, much less an Olympic Gold Medalist who embarassed Adolph Hitler.

After the meeting, they went over to Mickelberry's for lunch.  Bud Mickelberry himself, as I recall the story, refused to serve Mr. Owens, who wound up having lunch at Joe Rosenberg's home.  Joe's son Marc (not sure if spelled with c or k) was a year ahead of us at Rich.

I had the story second-hand.  From my father, a usually reliable source, on the day it happened.  He was a first-hand witness, there for the meeting and the lunch.  If anything in the narration is inaccurate, it's due to the imperfection of a 50 year-old memory making its residence in an almost 70 year-old memory.

Not everything about growing up in Park Forest in the 1950s and early 60s was so wonderful.

Ann Moon