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06/18/15 01:46 PM #134    

 

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. 

 


06/18/15 02:40 PM #135    

 

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.


06/18/15 03:49 PM #136    

 

Amy Star

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


06/18/15 03:58 PM #137    

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...

 


06/18/15 10:39 PM #138    

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.

 

 

 


06/19/15 12:22 PM #139    

Ann Moon

Penny
We went all through school together. Ash Street. Mrs. Schaur's class. The Santa Claus. Your memories of growing up in PF are very similar to mine. And now I know why I have no memory of Jesse Owens at Rich.
I describe my childhood as an Ozzie & Harriet one. Especially after I got out in the world .

06/19/15 04:01 PM #140    

 

Larry Toy

Trish and Ann, thanks for rekindling the early memories of Ash Street School in KIndergarten (Bob Reinach reminded me that he and I were in the same Kindergarten class.) And Mrs. Shower (that is how I remember speilling her name!) and the big Santa Claus we made in 2nd grade in Forest Blvd. School.  Don't know whether we learned much academically, but we certainly learned cooperative and team building skills, way before it was fashionable.

I never had Mr. Janota - Mr. Matheny was my biology teacher. Nice man, but several years later I learned that the human cell had 46 chromosomes, not 48 as Mr. Matheny taught. Bert Gray may have replaced Matheny within a year or two. Bert was my brother Alan's favorite teacher and he took Alan and a bunch of his classmates on an extensive camping trip in Canada, if memory serves. A few years later Bert and his girl friend visited our family who had moved to Connecticut.

Our classmate, Henry Lehmann had it in for Mr. Janota, and I remember several occasions that he called I.C. Pizza to make a late night delivery to Mr. Janota's home. After a few times, they would call Mr. J to check whether he had actually ordered the pizza. I guess that almost had the same effect - waking him up with a late night phone call, instead of ringing the doorbell.

We got a bit of revenge on Henry in the spring of senior year. He had been accepted at the U of I to major in art, and I asked our classmate Steve Tang, who had moved to Champaign Urbana when his father changed careers to become a professor of architecture there, to mail me a few pieces of stationary from his father's department. I then composed a letter from an imaginary administrator, saying that Henry's admission was being reconsidered because of a letter they received from his high school biology teacher. I sent the letter back to Steve to mail from Champaign. Of course, I told his parents and sisters about the prank well before it happened and they thought it was hilarious and might even teach Henry a lesson. Anyway, it worked!  Her mother and sister told me later that when the letter arrived, Henry started stomping up and down and letting loose a stream of cursing, until they finally told him it was a prank. When I saw Henry in Quebec back in 2008, a year before he died, he brought up the prank in our reminiscences, blaming Steve Tang for it. I admitted my guilt, but it seemed that Henry didn't hear me. Pearl said that Henry was one of a very few people who talked even more than me!  One year later he was gone.

My remembrance of Jesse Owens' visit to Rich was when Principal Metcalfe introduced Owens, he said as a reward for his Olympic triumphs and public service, the State Department sent him abroad. Of course Metcalfe was oblivious to the pun. There was some tittering in the audience filled with adolescent boys.

Larry

 

 

 


06/19/15 04:08 PM #141    

 

Larry Toy

As one of a handful of minority students in PF, I really only felt discrimination a couple of times.  One was a pretty funny.  When I started playing Little League baseball, a reporter for the PF newspaper, heard about me and in his column mentioned that there was an Eskimo playing Little League in PF.  Another not so nice event occurred when I was walking down Orchard Blvd, near our home and some kid knocked me down with his bike and called me a rude ethnic name.  

Not bad for 14 years in PF.

Larry

 

 


06/20/15 07:28 AM #142    

Joan Dutt (Crocker)

I moved to PF in 1949-went to Ash st. school-started kindergarten. The first day of school at recess I thought school was over and walked home-a few courts down on Ash st. My mother found me sitting on the back step and walked me back to school. Imagine the teacher's shock and embarrasement when she discovered she had lost one!

I was with the class until mid junior year when my father was offered a big promotion in Dayton Ohio. He broke the news to me at the Grill over cherry cokes and french fries. Very traumatic to leave then, but it all worked out and I went to the 50th reunion there. Wish I could have done both.

I've been in New England since 1979-and Rhode Island since 1984. Currently living in Portsmouth-not far from Newport. All classmates are invited to visit if you get "out East". We will go for lobstah!

 

 


06/20/15 12:34 PM #143    

 

Peggy Magnusson

Anna, my apologies.  I had forgotten that your Dad was our UU minister.  And, Deborah, my belated gatitude for your Mom's efforts that established the RE program.  My family joined the Congregation in the early 50's, but then I strayed. When I moved to LA in the 80's, I joined the Pacific UU's, put my son in the RE classes, and taught the OWL program.  Thankfully, the UU values stuck, despite Garrison Keillor's continual ribbing.

 


06/20/15 12:37 PM #144    

 

Susan (Sue) Klinger (Nally)

Gosh Larry.  I didn't remember you being in our second grade class with Mrs. Schaur.  What a great memory, and great Santa. For whatever reason, my mom ended up with a pumpkin pie recipe from Ruby Schaur.  Somewhere I may have it.

  Penny, do you remember walking home from school with Anne (Tootie) Borton and cleaning all the snow off the windshields of the cars parked on Ash Street?  How about a gal by the name of Candy Cane who lived across the street from our court? 

Poor Mr. Tranchina.  All I remember is that he always picked his nose. Ugh. 

Fun times in our sheltered world.


06/20/15 02:28 PM #145    

 

Joe Nicolosi

For those of you who have been reminiscing about Westwood Junior High, Bill Summers was kind enough to scan and send 16 shots from his Eighth Grade (1959) yearbook.  They're posted in the Photo Gallery section, on the "We Grew Up Together" photo album (pictures 102-117).  He included all the home room class pictures.  How many people can you still recognize?


06/21/15 05:36 PM #146    

 

Bill Paul

Thanks Bill Summers as the we grew up together is fascinating. Finding myself and friends is a blast. Bill


06/22/15 03:27 PM #147    

Larry McDaniel

Echoing Bill's comments - cool to see old classmates as we grew up together.  Speaking of royalty that visited PF, I remember Ernie Banks and teammates coming to the Shopping Center.  I seem to recall they stood out in front of a bar or lounge in the middle of the Center - does anyone remember such a place?  Dunno when that was, but I'm guessing mid-late 50's. Paul Minner, Bob Rush, were there and I got everyone's autograph, including Ernie's.  I would like to say I still had that baseball, but one day we needed a ball for a pickup game - and that was the only one I could find.  Slowly but surely the autographs faded and it became just another ball in the bucket.  But a good memory...


06/22/15 04:49 PM #148    

Steve Kane

I nelieve the bar was called "TheVillageInn".
Forst owned by Mr. Aaron Rosenberg. Then later dold to Joe Bianuci.Sun

06/22/15 09:01 PM #149    

Gail Richardson (Brindle)

You are right Steve.  The Village Inn.  I never went there but heard that they had excellent food and it wasn't referred to as a bar :)  It was one of the first places in PF shopping center.  A drug store, grocery store, movie theater and them.


06/22/15 10:20 PM #150    

Deborah Garretson

My mother directed plays for park Forest Playhouse. Sometimes returned in basement of The Village Inn, sometimes Basement of Shelly's Deli. I remember the PF art fairs with Art Hodes jamming outside the Village Inn. Good memories.


06/23/15 10:36 AM #151    

 

David Clayton

Dear Anna,

I had no idea that your parents were so active in the civil rights movement. I appreciate their awareness and courage, given the times in which we lived. I realize now that even though my father too was a minister and worked for WTTW, I lived in a bubble. As good as our education might have been for the time, we were not educated about the lack of civil rights in our country nor our involvement in Viet Nam..which was to take the lives of so many of our generation (and some classmates) and the millions of Vietnamese that died.

I'm sorry to hear that your boyfriend was a bigot and you had to go through that rejection because your parents were willing to host a black exchange student. It must have been a lonely time for you as a impressionable teenager. I'm sorry.

Your parents were progressive and active. Good for them. I can see why you admire them so much.  So many around us must have been racist. I was totally unaware. 

I'm now sorry we didn't know each other in high school. I think we could have been friends. I hope that your life has been rewarding. 

Dave Clayton


06/23/15 12:55 PM #152    

James Kiley

For those of you who still live in and around Chicago I'm sure you have enjoyed the wonder that is Millennium Park. 53 acres in the heart of downtown Chicago built over the old Illinois central railroad tracks. It's an absolute masterpiece. On June 13 we were invited to the dedication of the Maggie Daley Children's Park just to the east of Milleninum Park at Randolph Street and Lake Shore Drive. The new park has to be one of the most delightful places in our city. A series of calming walls, tree forts, sliding tubes, hiding places and a ribbon that swirls though the entire park and turns into a skating rink in the winter will delight visitors for years to come. It is a very special place and a tribute to a woman who spent 22 years trying to make Chicago a better place for kids. Google it and bring the grandkids.


06/23/15 01:02 PM #153    

 

Arthur Fried

The jazz concerts under the clock tower in the 50s and 60s were organized by Art Hodes, a Park Forest resident. I attended a few of them; they were my first exposure to traditional jazz. At the time I did not know that Mr. Hodes had been a leading jazz pianist since the 1930s and that the musicians whom he brought to the Plaza were well-known jazz artists. Hodes also taught piano at the Park Forest music school. You can find over 200 Art Hodes videos on YouTube. I haven't checked them all, but so far I haven't found any of them that were recorded in Park Forest. Hodes had a jazz program on public television in Chicago in the 70s.  He died in 1993.

The Village Inn, which went out of business in the 60s, used to advertise a singing piano player named Cappy LaFell. The unusual name always stuck with me. A long time afterwards I found out that Mr. LaFell had been a big band singer and a world-class virtuoso harmonica player. I found one of his harmonica performances on YouTube.


06/23/15 02:46 PM #154    

 

Shelby Smith (Larsen)

I'm late to getting back to this thread , It's triggered these thoughts/memories1) I don't remember anything about Jesse Owens. Perhaps we girls were off in Home Ec, or something.  

2) Anna, I do remember you and your exchange student tho I am not sure I could have come up with his name, then or now. I remember being very aware that the only minority (sorry, Larry, I never thought of Asians as a minority) we had was an exchange student, not an African American. Or are my assumptions incorrect and he was American?  I suspect that because I lived grade 2-part of 4 grade in Oklahoma, which was still segregated, and because we went to church in Chicago Heights, so I had Bloom friends, I was somewhat more aware of racial issues. I know I attended a youth conference on racial relations somewhere in the more northern suburbs. I was not passionate about the issue, as I probably should have been, but at least I knew it existed. Ironically, Mother, who would have okayed my youth group stuff, must not have realized what  that conference would have been about, since she was hardly liberal on the subject--a trait that only grew worse when they relocated to Georgia after Dad retired. Anyway, Anna, I did not realize that there might be more resistance to your parents--and your--courage at that time, and sorry to be so self absorbed in my own drama that I did nothing .

3) Dave Clayton, an little aside about your father.  As I mentioned, Mother, the staunch Presbyteruan, took us to church in Chicago Heights. Sometime while my sister Deb was in college, the minister there was forced to resign because his daughter had gotten pregnant (note that I am refraining from any PK jokes) anyway, whatever Mother thought of that, she certainly did not care for his replacement. So when Deb was to be married, Mother scheduled it in August, at a time the minister was on vacation, so that your father could perform the ceremony. mother was a great admirer of his singing ability, and so she asked him to sing as well as officiate. Hearing him do The Lord's Prayer in between vows was a beautiful moment--although a bit startling to some of the church old guard in attendance.  Anyway, he made it a special day.

 


06/23/15 02:58 PM #155    

 

Shelby Smith (Larsen)

Oh, one last time thing---I've browsed through the class photos, and, as the kids say , OMG I cannot believe mine in 8th grade (8-7) i don't remember it at all. I must have destroyed every copy when it was taken.  That has got to be the worst haircut ever--perhaps Mother did those bangs. (She was very "thrifty" )  Eighth grade was when I began having severe self-worth/ issues. I have always attributed it to being the year my health issues came to a head ( don't know if anyone remembers that I needed open heart surgery, a pretty risky deal in those days)  However, after seeing that photo, my self image issues were entirely justified, and I can't believe any of you were willing to be seen with me:) 

 


06/23/15 05:09 PM #156    

Deborah Garretson

Art, I took jazz piano from Art Hodes. I was not talented except for one thing...I got him to play for me during my lessons. 


06/23/15 07:20 PM #157    

 

Barbara Mears

Shelby, you're so funny.  I bet everyone who sees their 7th/8th grade pictures feels the same way.  We all went through awkward stages, and we all grew up to be much better looking!


06/24/15 01:27 PM #158    

 

Anna Hoagland

It is so interesting reading your memories from growing up in PF. Makes me think of my life in other schools and other places. I didn't realize some of you were such rascals!

David Clayton, thanks for your kind message. I have had a wonderful life. My dad's civil rights  and passivist journey probably started when he had a fellowship to study in Germany in the early 30's. He saw Hitler come to power and how certain populations were targeted. He also knew that many of the arms were being provided by England. He was very involved with supporting the Zionists in the early movement. Had a plaque and document thanking him. They became too militaristic and he went on to other rights' movements. He was instrumental in starting a new NAACP chapter in Schenectady, NY. They would meet at our home. My favorite story of his about that was there were two white men in the group. Dad was asked to be president and he said a black person should lead. The members asked the other white man and he said yes. Turns out the other white man was an FBI informant!  When AFS students came through, and they had only been exposed to the bright side of the US, he would take them for a drive through the Chicago slums. My mom was an avid passivist, League of Women Voters,  active civil rights woman.

Art, I can't believe the clarity of your memories. Fantastic. Some of mine are vivid,  like the hootenannies (when was the last time you heard that word?), wonderful teachers, and the hard times my folks experienced there as well as the great friends they made.

Shelby, Sospeter was from Kenya. When we moved to Madison, WI, he spent some time with my family again. He came to America and got frostbite and a tapeworm!  Don't we wish we could remember more about our folks and knew what their thoughts were?

Larry Toy, I love the thought of someone mistaking you for an Eskimo!


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