Memories from 1957--Grandma's fall

 Repacking my genealogy files today, I found a 1957 letter from Leslie, my mother's brother, describing an incident I'd heard about from Mom--my grandmother's fall after I'd left for college.  The envelop has a 3 cent stamp, no zip code, and no street address for Mrs. Elbert Trent. 

Franklin Grove, Ill   Sept. 14, 1957

Dear Cousin:

Your letter was much appreciated informing us of the passing of Martha Klein, which we received on Tuesday before the funeral.  Mother & Father were planning to drive out to the funeral Wednesday morning. In the excitement of making plans, Mother fell down the porch steps on to the cement sidewalk.  She suffered a broken nose, which necessitated a cast, and various other sprains & bruises.  Of course, she spent a few days in the hospital and could not attend the funeral. She has recovered almost entirely now except for a general overall weakness which the doctor describes as "after effects."

Martha Klein's partner Addie was in sick bed when Mother last visited them some months back.  She wishes to send her sympathy to relatives & friends who cared for illness & final arrangements for Martha & Addie.

Martha seemed to be quite well at that time of their last visit, so it was of considerable shock to hear of her death.

She had hoped to see Marian (Marianne Michael?) while she was in this country but it did not seem to work out.  We are glad to hear of your son Norman, and his being set up in practice so near by in Mason City.  We are sorry to hear of your son Dee, having a painful accident.

As for me, I can remember rather faintly of stopping at your place about 1919 or 1920.  I have spent the last 31 years with the Bell Telephone Co--in, and also near Chicago at present.

Sincerely

Leslie . . . 

Written for Mary & Charles . . . 

----------------------------------------

As for me, Norma Bruce, the Trent name didn't come to mind as a relative, but it is addressed to "Dear Cousin." All my other genealogy resources are not unpacked, so I can't check the relationships. I know that Marianne Michael's mother who was widowed later married a Trent, and my mother called Helen Trent a cousin so possibly that will connect somewhere. Marianne, Norman and Dee were siblings.  Marianne was a missionary in Nigeria which would account for being "in this country."  It was from Helen Trent my mother learned a lot of "lost" family stories.

Women on a bus in 1957

"On a recent trip to visit family, I found myself frequently travelling alone on public transportation. As a female, out of my usual surroundings, I always looked for the safest place to sit. Where might I be safe on this subway, in this train, on this bus? Is there anywhere safe anymore?

Over and again, I found myself seeking out the nearest mother with a child in a stroller in order to seat myself near them. Did that mother have a special forcefield around her? Why did I gravitate to the mother with the child as the safest haven? Because I realized that this mother had made a conscious decision to stand on the front lines." https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2022/07/16/we-are-the-front-lines/?

That's a quote from an article about how Christians are on the front lines in the culture wars. However, for me, I recall an exact incident like this in June 1957 that happened to me. My parents had taken me to the bus stop in Dixon, Illinois, to begin a very long trip by myself at 17 to Fresno, California for a summer term in Brethren Volunteer Service. I've written about it at this blog with photos. https://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/search/label/Fresno I certainly didn't have experience at 17 of traveling alone, but I looked for the first adult woman with children (she had 3) I spotted on the bus and sat with her. She couldn't have been more than 20 herself and had an Appalachian accent. I ended up being her babysitter half way across the country, sitting with the little girl and telling her stories while I combed her wispy hair, stories my mother had told me to keep me quiet about critters who snarl the hair of little girls. I think I also used my own money to buy her snacks because her mother didn't get off the bus when we took meal breaks. I felt safer, and the mother was certainly trusting, as I took the little daughter into the rest room, helped her with the toilet and cleaned her up while mommy tended to the boys (the children all had the strong odor of unwashed clothing and bodies).

Maybe it's instinct for women to seek each other for safety. With the culture wars of today, who can you trust?

Pandemic data, end of 2021

After claiming during the campaign, that the virus spread was Trump's failure, and saying he wouldn't trust the vaccine (Harris said it too), the Biden numbers for 2021 (at the same time of year and with the vaccine, and all the therapeutics and research) were higher than 2020. 

“The Spanish Flu” in 1918 infected roughly 500 million people—one-third of the world’s population—and caused 50 million deaths worldwide when the population was much smaller. The Asian flu (H2N2) of 1957-58 which I survived (with no lockdown) killed up to 4 million when the population was 2.9 billion instead of the 7.7 billion of today.

In the last 24 hours Ohio has reported 19,774 cases, 484 hospitalizations, and zero deaths.

Filibuster memes going around

The longest filibuster was the Democrats fighting the Civil Rights Act in 1964, 60 days. "Fact checkers," always on the side of the Democrats, are quick to point out these were "Southern Democrats," and it wasn't really as long as the memes say, but they never point out that Republicans are the ones who got it passed, and Republicans had passed the 1957 Civil Rights Bill. Democrats filibustered that one, too, and tried to water it down.

https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1951-2000/The-Civil-Rights-Act-of-1957/?

Graduation Day

The Crew Cuts were a Canadian boys group popular when I was a teen.  Today I was trying to get the cd player in my clock radio to work, and pulled their disc from a Lakeside appearance a few years back. It worked after some button experimenting. Graduation Day wasn't their hit (it was Four Freshmen), but it came on. It was a 50s do-wap collection. Made me sort of sad for all the graduates who didn't get their big day.

With Mom in the dining room at 4 S. Hannah.  She was 45 and I was 17.

He thinks the federal government is a college student’s friend—an e-mail exchange

Really?  Your source?  Did you know the government and its own predatory loans, grants, scholarships, etc. is the main reason the bubble of student loans is bigger than the housing bubble of 2007?  When I entered Manchester College (private) in 1957, a college education was about $1,000 a year with tuition, fees, housing, food and transportation. My sophomore year at the University of Illinois (public) was about the same. 

If you use a calculator for 1957-58 dollars and convert to 2018 dollars, 60 years later, you’ll see what throwing money at colleges does to the costs.  College costs have soared far higher and at a faster rate than medical costs, even though medicine has gone through far greater changes and technological and pharmaceutical improvements. Our lives have been extended by the medical improvements.  A college education has been cheapened; a BA or BS is today not worth a lot except to go on to graduate school and leave with $70,000 in debt.  Colleges have made few changes except to shift most of the faculty to the left of center, add programs in “area studies,” remove Shakespeare and American history, and deny conservatives their right to a bias-free education. The more money government provides to students, the more the universities and colleges raise their tuition and fees. Funny how the “market” works, isn’t it?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, prices in 2018 are 772.10% higher than prices in 1958. The dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 3.68% per year during this period.  In other words, $1,000 in 1958 is equivalent in purchasing power to $8,721.04 in 2018, a difference of $7,721.04 over 60 years.

Do you know any college/university where a student can attend for $8,721 a year? All costs, not just tuition and fees. Administrative costs have soared as more and more non-faculty are added, especially in the huge departments of equality, diversity, disability that may have 50 or so employees (at OSU) as well as those assigned to the individual departments, courses are watered down or expanded so it now takes 5-6 years to finish rather than 4, young men and women are encouraged to remain adolescents longer and remain in parents’ care until late 20s, very odd courses are required for students, staff and faculty like “hate speech” or “appropriate non-sexist dating behavior” which chew up many hours that could be  useful for studying and which make the old “in loco parentis” of my era look like wild freedom.

No one can reverse this overbearing, interfering federal meddling in higher education except the Department of Education, and since even Republicans don’t like to give up power, I think not much will come of this except more money being thrown at the problem, and a bigger bureaucracy to make sure the tax payers get screwed again.

1957 Mt. Morris documentary now on YouTube

In 2009 I was blogging about class stuff and found out from Nancy F. that there had been a documentary filmed in Mt. Morris in 1957 and that she and her family were in it.  I was in California that summer so had no recollection of it.   So I went looking for it on the internet and found it in an archives of old films, called AV Geeks, contacted the owner, but never heard anything, so we dropped it.  I came across that blog the other day, reread it, and decided I'd try again, and so told Linda Miller of Mt. Morris about it and she put my request for information on the Mt. Morris Facebook page site, “Do you remember this in Mt. Morris.”   I also through Facebook am friends with Nancy's brother, so I told Don Snodgrass about the database of old films.  He did what I did in 2009, but got an answer and the owner provided a link to YouTube. Although I'm not sure how it works, it's possible that unless they have a demand, they don't transfer the film to YouTube. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GTRdPsZxrc#t=68

Here's how it lays out: There is a town named Spring Valley (most of the scenes are Mt. Morris.) Opening scenes of a quiet town showing Brayton, Wesley, the high school, Trinity Lutheran, either Sunset or Hannah ranch homes, and two scenes of industry, which do not seem to be from MM.  Then Ralph Zickuhr, possibly Harvey Miller, then Richard Butler, Mike Babler (wearing their FFA jackets) and other teens building something on the campus. You'll see Lila Baker, Marilyn and Eddie Miller, and Les Lundgren. The doctor and his father are actors, and scene at the medical clinic looks like Oregon to me. In the community meetings the setting is the Mt. Morris high school, which was only a few years old then.  I recognize Marilyn Muller, Mrs. Marge Long in white dress, Phil Orr, Mr. Snodgrass, Nancy's father, Sybil Dohlen (what a gorgeous smile), and a very young Don Snodgrass in a flat top. I don't know the minister (an actor?), and one farmer in a straw hat in the interview phase sort of looks like Forrest Kinsey, and Kinsey is the name on the questionnaire.

Lew Behrens is hired in the film as the recreation director and shows up around 16:36 and he's in a number of scenes, and I suspect probably his children. I think I spotted Ron Duffy of our class in the scene of the young people who volunteer labor to build the center, which I think is the current senior center in the construction site.  Bill Lundholm is in the car wash scene (to represent raising money by teens). The scene at the end of the large family piling into a Buick station wagon, looks like it was in front of the Behrens home.

I recognized no one in the square dance, singing group or drama group and wondered if those scenes are from another effort, or actors. But if you do, please chime in.  Perhaps others might recognize someone. All the sport scenes of tennis, golf, and baseball show both sexes--such a progressive town. The machine shop instructor didn't look familiar.  The lake scene is from Byron, since Mt. Morris didn't have one. At 21:02 in the film you see people sitting in what looks like a park, I spotted Dave Dillehay.  Interesting that Mt. Morris does have parks named both for Zickuhr and Dillehay.

Needless to say, our classmate Nancy is thrilled to finally see this film, and especially the scenes with her family. Plus others in the community are having a lot of fun identifying the townspeople. You'll all have a good time looking at it.  I looked today and it already had 318  views even though it was only posted yesterday on YouTube.

This is cross posted at MMHS1957.blogspot.com

Friday family photo—Tech Reunion June 8

Leaving for college 1957 style

1951 four door PackardThis morning I heard a story on TV about parents leaving their children off at college, and how long it would be before they checked in (the parents, not the kids). That caused me to ask myself, "Did Mom and Dad wave good-bye as Carol and I in the packed-up-Packard pulled away from the house on Hannah?"

At least I think we drove the 1951 Packard, with Carol dropping me off at Manchester College in North Manchester, Indiana, and then driving on to Goshen College to park it until we needed it to drive home at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I suppose it's possible Dad drove us, left the car with Carol, and then took the bus back to Mt. Morris. I remember driving it back to Manchester after Christmas break loaded with about 4 or 5 other MC students and all their luggage and presents and having a flat tire.

Of course, we weren't the first to leave the nest, is my excuse for their casual behavior (compared to today's parents). It must get easier with the second and third. My oldest sister was married, Carol, the next oldest, left for Brethren Volunteer Service in Maryland in the late summer of 1955 for a year before starting a nursing program, and in June 1957 I hopped the Greyhound Bus and went all the way to Fresno, California by myself for a summer volunteer term.

Considering that I keep my cars 8-10 years, a 6 year old car looks pretty darn good in hind-sight, but my Dad loved snappy cars and didn't keep them long. I don't know where he found this one--it was gun metal gray green and we were a little embarrassed to be driving a "tank."

Wonder what it is worth today if it's still on all fours?

The class of 57 had its dream

And that probably didn't include growing old, but we did. Our former high school, new when we graduated, is located between the town cemetery and the retirement home--so we should have had a clue. Some of us have already passed the 70 mark, some will soon, but most of the class of 1957 were born in or around 1939. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression that had been dragging on for 10 years. That was the year Hitler marched into Poland, and we were toddlers when Japan dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor. It was hard times and some of our parents might not have been thrilled by our showing up! If you look through the yearbooks of my home town at the class of 1953, it was about half the size of ours. People were cautious about the future in the 1930s. Here's a column from the Cleveland Plain Dealer that former classmate Mike and wife Judy sent me. Regina Brett’s "50 life lessons," written when she turned 50 in 2006. Can you think of 20 more to make it 70?

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.
16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.
17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.
18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years, will this matter?"
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.
35. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
36. Growing old beats the alternative - dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.
38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
41. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
42. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
45. The best is yet to come.
46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
48. If you don't ask, you don't get.
49. Yield.
50. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.


51. Here's one from the 1880s: "The husband must not see and the wife must be blind." The Gospel Messenger, December 18, 1888.
52. Less stuff means less stress
53. Naps and chocolate (dark).
54. Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances.
55. "It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all." Laura Ingalls Wilder
56. When it comes to politics, keep an open mind. It will pay off in the end. Murray
57. Having more than one political party can be good but it can also be very ugly. Murray
58. "Life by the yard is hard; by the inch is a cinch." Or something like that I saw on my sister-in-law's refrigerator.
59. "I know folks all have a tizzy about it, but I like a little bourbon of an evening. It helps me sleep. I don't much care what they say about it." Lillian Carter

The story of small town recreation in 1957

According to a July 1957 issue of the Mt. Morris Index (a weekly newspaper that launched the printing career of the Kable Brothers), a movie company came to Mt. Morris, Illinois on July 3, 1957, to do a recreation advertisement movie. The filming crew returned on July 15 because they needed several more people to film another segment. A classmate of mine, Nancy, remembers being in the film along with her parents and brother and when we had coffee during my Easter visit to Mt. Morris, she mentioned it.

Coffee with Lynne and Nancy at the Mounder Cafe
She found the article in the Index which reported that it was a 20 minute color motion picture and the title of the documentary was "Town & Country Recreation.” The Director was Oz Zielke, Cameraman Frank Plieffer of Dallas Jones Productions of Chicago, and Gene Balsley, Unit Manager. The film was sponsored by the nonprofit Athletic Institute of Chicago and was designed to show towns and villages how they can offer their citizens the most recreational opportunity at the least cost per person. The fictional city in the story is "Spring Valley," however, most of the actors and the majority of the locations were to be taken from the Mt. Morris vicinity, since the sponsors of the film felt that Mt Morris was representative of what can be accomplished by a good recreation program, including both town & farm families.

I poked around on the internet and found a description of such a film in a database of old marketing and documentary films, from the 1930s through the 1980s. Films about bullying from the 1950s; and visiting an airport in the 1940s, etc. According to a description of Audiovisual Geeks on Internet Archive, it is: "The A/V Geeks Film Archive is an ephemeral film collection curated by Skip Elsheimer. What started as a hobby more than ten years is now a lifetime commitment. His collection has grown to over 20,000 films gathered from school auctions, thrift stores, closets and dumpsters. He presents themed film shows in his home base of Raleigh, North Carolina and he's taken his shows on the road across the United States. Films from Skip's archive have been released on DVDs. For more information about A/V Geeks upcoming shows, the DVDs, stock footage inquiries and donating to the collection, visit http://www.avgeeks.com. Skip is happy to be able share these selected films from his collection online - giving them a life beyond their intended purpose as little cultural time capsules of our immediate past. Enjoy!"

So we're waiting to hear from "Skip." My friend Nancy is hoping this is the film, and if it gets transferred to video and put on the internet, or to DVD, we’ll all get to watch “the way we were.”

I have never cataloged or described a film (I was a cataloger of Slavic material back in the 1960s), but I think the numbers tell how far into the film the description is. I don’t know what some of the abbreviations mean. They could be descriptors or tags for what the camera is doing or of the film quality--I just don’t know. I’ve looked in the Library of Congress Thesarus for graphic material, but don’t know if the person who did this description used it or something more simple like a homemade template for the video database. I think CU might be “close up,” WS could be “white space,“ FG possibly Foreground. But these are wild guesses. Maybe I’ll check with some other retired librarians.

There is no lake in Mt. Morris, so I'm wondering if that scene might have been taken at Lake Louise near Byron--because school buses may have taken children there. I remember it well--I almost drowned there!

“Shows how ‘RECREATION ROT’ was eliminated in the small rural town when a young doctor took the advice of a county extensionist and built a live-wire activity program around a paid recreational leader. Color 1957 Documentary-promotional film about town planning, cast as a drama. A young doctor decides that his town is so boring that a general depression is settling over the populace, so he resolves to involve the community in a plan to develop recreation facilities. Some good images of idealized small town Americana; the color is pretty good. 00:00:26:00 Color 1957 cu Sign: WELCOME TO Spring Valley THE TOWN THAT ENJOYS PROGRESS. 00:00:29:00 Color 1957 vs Montage of small town life: Suburban street, boys riding bicycles; PAN over Main Street; various houses and buildings; WS farm with cornfield in FG; farmer on tractor; two men greet one another on sidewalk; elderly man raking lawn, woman brings him water. 00:02:30:00 Color 1957 ms Man enters office, hangs hat and coat on coat rack, looks out window through Venetian blinds. 00:07:30:00 Color 1957 vs Community meeting: various men and women around conference table; CU faces - they read as ordinary citizens. Also at 0:13:30. 00:11:26:00 Color 1957 ms Two women hanging laundry on clothesline. 00:16:18:00 Color 1957 cu, ws Sign says CAR WASH $1.00; PAN to group of teenagers, mostly girls, washing cars. 00:16:34:00 Color 1957 ms Woman at mailbox, opens it, retrieves newspaper. 00:18:30:00 Color 1957 ws PAN from lake to school bus; group of children in bathing suits exit school bus, run toward CAM; children run across beach; bus driver blows whistle, they all stop. 00:19:00:00 Color 1957 vs Montage of community recreation activities, brief shots: middle-aged people square-dancing, good; adult-education class, man draws diagram on blackboard; teenage boys in shop class, jig saw; softball game, girl hits baseball; tennis instruction; skiing and sledding; camping, children emerge from tent; elderly men playing dominos; boy with stamp collection; badminton; golf instruction; family packing car trunk (a Buick station wagon, two-tone aqua & cream) for camping trip; Buick station wagon drives down country road."

Not even a toe tapped or a finger twitched

Watch the young ladies in formal wear behind Buddy Holly (who died 50 years ago with the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens) in this 1957 video. How did they do that--standing perfectly still. Was this dance at a school for the deaf?

Tipping has changed!

This morning I took a Christmas card and a $20 bill into Panera's, addressed to "The morning staff," and included a little note of thanks. It seems like a big chunk when you give it at once, but not amortized. I'm there about 4 days a week, 42 weeks of the year, so that's what, about a 12 cent tip per visit on a $1.69 cup of coffee with several refills, a seat by the fireplace, regulars and friends to chat with and 3 papers to read? Two of the staff members came over to my table later to personally thank me. That was nice--and it gave me a chance to share about "the olden days."

When I worked at Zickuhr's Drug Store in high school and a few weeks between college sessions between Manchester and University of Illinois, a cup of coffee was $.10 and the advice and kidding was free and never ending, as was the Monday Morning Quarter Backing all week long about the local sports teams. But it wasn't unusual to get a quarter tip. Dave Dillehay, the town clerk, was particularly generous. If I got on the honor roll, which was posted in the town paper each 6 weeks, I got a $5 gift certificate. And when I got married, he gave me a silverplate tea service, which now resides at my daughter's home. Yes, those were the days of tipping!

Both Dave Dillehay and Ralph Zickuhr have parks named for them, from a grateful community--they were good leaders and well liked.

Monday Memories--Thank you, Indy Barb

Last week we received a DVD with photos of my husband's class reunion prepared by Indy Barb the reunion committee. My, oh my! What a lot of work they put in on that! At least I think it was her [she says in the comments it wasn't]. By the time the disc got to my hands, it was out of the envelope. Just adding all the names to the photos must have been a huge task. Reunions are only as successful as the committees, and we both graduated with people who are willing to work hard at it. Not only did it have the reunion photos (3 days--a dinner, an alumni gathering on the campus, and a picnic), but she'd also scanned a large part of the important class photos from the yearbook. We have the '57 yearbook, but many people have lost theirs over the years, so I know they will be thrilled.

BMOC. A class officer. I think I might have been too, however, his high school was larger than my town.



My husband on the far right--credit says they were having a mock political campaign. Looks like it was Ike and Adlai.

My husband always knew he'd be an architect, and Tech was certainly the place to go! Here he is (on the left) with one of his models. I remember this one well. It used to travel around with us from apartment to apartment when we were first married incorporated into a table.

Monday Memories--Is there life after high school

I saw this meme over at Big Mama. She's been out of high school 18 years, so her memories are a little fresher than mine--I've just had my 50th high school reunion. Well, not the 50th reunion, but you know what I mean.

1. Who was your best friend? My best friend Tina moved to Florida after our junior year. We both lived on Hannah Ave. and would walk to school together, stopping for Kay and Priscilla on the way (probably a 2 mile walk, and longer for her). We also double dated a lot. Lynne's best friend got married that year and left school, so Lynne and I started hanging out together, and we still correspond and see each other when I go home to visit family.

With Lynne and Sylvia in 1999


2. Did you play any sports? Not so you could recognize them. Those were pre-Title 9 days, and in Illinois, there were no competitive sports for women. We did have GAA which allowed us to wear uniforms not seen since my mother's college days. Katie, our PE teacher, was a guest at our reunion in July. What that poor woman had to put up with.

3. What kind of car did you drive? Anything my Dad owned, and he changed cars rather than change oil. I love those 50s cars. I had a boyfriend from Polo that had a 1953 royal blue Plymouth with dual pipes--unbelieveably sweet and loud--the car, not him.

4. It’s Friday night. Where were you? With my friends of course, usually at a slumber party after a school athletic event. Or it seems that way in my memory. I was part of a "birthday group" (clique) of 12 girls, and so we'd have at least 12 parties a year, pretty mild by today's teen standards. No boys. Lots of food. Presents. Occasional picnics. Movies.

5. Were you a party animal? See #4.
Christmas Party 1954
6. Were you considered a flirt? Oh yes.

7. Were you in the band, orchestra or choir? Yes. I played first chair trombone, and sang in girl's chorus, and whatever that smaller group was called.

8. Were you a nerd? That word hadn't been invented yet, but I was an A student. A brain who didn't study all that hard, and I really paid for that when I got to college and didn't have good study habits. I took all the college prep-courses except Algebra II. I had the classic math anxiety syndrome that afflicts many girls (or I was just dumb in math), although that term wasn't invented yet either.

9. Were you ever suspended or expelled? Heavens no! I just got the "we're so disappointed that a young woman of your talent and potential would behave like this" lecture from the principal.

10. Can you sing the fight song? I think we sing it or hum it at our reunions. One year--1987?--the reunion committee brought along band instruments and everyone in the band had to try to play the school fight song. What a hoot. I couldn't even find F on the trombone, let alone play anything.

11. Who was your favorite teacher? For a small school, we had some great teachers and an excellent administration. Warren Burstrom was memorable--managed to get me through physics and chemistry. He was a graduate of Luther College in Iowa. He later went on to teach at a junior college. His wife had been my 8th grade teacher, and she was excellent too, although I think my class was her first and we probably made her regret choosing that career.

12. What was your school mascot? Our school name was so odd, we didn't need a mascot.

13. Did you go to the Prom? All four years. Three proms with the same date.

14. If you could go back, would you? No, at this age, they'd think I wandered in from the retirement home which is next door. Our high school has merged with our biggest rival, much to the grief of the alumni.

15. What do you remember most about graduation? I had to give a speech. I still nearly pass out in front of an audience. I've got it here somewhere on my blog.

16. Where were you on Senior Skip Day? We didn't do such things, at least not as a class, but I think we did the next worst thing for the 1950s--wore jeans to school one day in the last month of our high school career.

17. Did you have a job your senior year? Yes. I worked at Zickuhr's Drug store and the town library, and also filled in during the summer if I was home, which wasn't often. I was thrifty (tight), and had saved enough for my first year of college.

18. Where did you go most often for lunch? To the school cafeteria.

19. Have you gained weight since then? Yes, about 10 lbs. Several times. But it has rearranged itself. Some of my measurements are the same--my right thigh is now what my waist was in high school.
20. What did you do after graduation? I went to Manchester College in North Manchester, IN after a summer in Brethren Volunteer Service in Fresno, CA. Then I transferred to the University of Illinois to study Russian.




21. What year did you graduate? 1957. There's a song about that by the Statler Brothers, "The class of '57 had its dream," or something like that.

And the class of '57 had its dreams,
Oh, we all thought we'd change the world with our great works and deeds.
Or maybe we just thought the world would change to fit our needs,
The class of '57 had its dreams.

22. Who was your Senior Prom Date? My boyfriend. He had to come home from colllege, but he made the sacrifice. Neither one of us knew how to dance, but we did go to them often.
This is the 1956 prom
23. Are you going/did you go to your 10 year reunion? I didn't make it to the 10 year, but did get to most of them. In 1967 we had just moved to Ohio from Illinois, and it is about a 10 hour drive to get there.

If you liked this memory meme, tag, you're it.

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New photos

on the reunion blog (Mt. Morris High School, class of 1957). By clicking on the July archive, you can see most of them. The scrapbook history of the class reunions over the years kept by a classmember is going to be put in the town library for awhile, according to the newspaper. She did a wonderful job.

New stories at the reunion blog

The ladies' breakfast

Center School in Trot Town

Town hang-outs

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Our class reunions

We're going to two high school class reunions this summer, one in June, one in July. Enrollment at Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis was larger than the town where I lived, Mt. Morris, Illinois. Tech is a fabulous place--and I love it. It is very different now than in the 50s, but you still feel and see the beauty, warmth and history when you step onto the campus. My husband was in a social club called the SLOBS, so many of his closest friends were not actually in his class, but the group has its own reunions.

So I've been looking for just the right outfit to wear. I'm waving the white flag. I've lost the battle on dressing up--no one does that anymore--not for church, or theater, or cruises or special events. Oh, maybe a wedding might the be last hold-out where you would see a skirt or dress. So I bought a cream colored pants suit, 3/4 length sleeves, and am choosing the color of blouse--I'm looking at red (not my good color, but one of the school colors), deep blue, taupe, or coral. I'm very pale, so coral or taupe are my colors. The taupe blouse really doesn't fit that well and will probably be too hot, so I think I've eliminated that. Here's the suit--ignore the paintings on the floor--my husband is getting ready for a show and has no place to put them. The walls are full.