Phil Hershey (Hershey)

Hi Barb,

Thanks for the picture of the State Farm fast pitch softball team "The Chiefs". Spent many summer nights at their games at State Farm Park ball field. I remember the pitcher was really good. I think his name was Hoke Wilson. Thanks for rekindling some great memories from my childhood.

Dan Shickle

Dad and I watched home games at State Farm Park as much as we could.  Usually walked to the park and back, sometimes got a drink or popcorn.  I chased foul balls several times.  One of the most cherished times I had with my dad.

Barbara Kincaid (Menken)

Happy Birthday Mary Rose Windle Hill!!!!

Mary Rose Windle (Hill)

Thank you Barb for the birthday wishes!!!

Thanks also for the postings and pictures that have brought back such good memories.  Really appreciate the time and work you have spent for our class of 1962!!

Mary Rose

Janice Scott (Vitton)

Allan Mapel

Phil,  Your right, Hoke Wilson was one of the pitchers, the other was Don MacPhail.  He was very competitve and comtributed to alot the Chiefs wins. Jim Barnheart had a few articles in the Pantagraph on Don.

Dan Shickle

Phill and Allen,

Those were the two pitchers I remember most.  I believe Tony Behrens was at first or RF, Don Miles at 2nd or CF, Otts Salsman SS Moberly and Hutchcraft at catcher.   I remember them playing The King and his Court which was something else.

Barbara Kincaid (Menken)

This is a picture looking West of Main Street onto Jefferson.  I'm not sure what was going on in the street but I remember the stores.

Who remembers the  Bootery  on the South side of the  square?  Didn't they have the machine you could stick your feet in and it showed an x-ray of your foot?

Patti Perry (Daubs)

They had such a machine. Even after they realized it wasn't very safe to "xray" kids' feet often, the machine was kept in the second floor storage area. My husband, Michael, as well as my brother, David both worked their way through college for successive years. It was "the store" to get kids' shoes, as well as Dickerson shoes for older feet.

Thanks, again, for finding all of these great old photos of our hometown!

Patti Daubs

Ward "Corky" Snearly

Barb,  thanks for the photos, very memorable!  I worked at Rodger's Shoe Company on Main Street across form Moberly & Klenner's and we too had an X-Ray machine so that customers could see how their feet fit into new shoes.  It got moved to the basement shortly after I began working there.  We also had a shoe repairman, named Freddy Gertz, who had his shop on the third floor above the store.  I recall that quite often Mickey Daubs (Patti Perry's future husband) would bring a new pair of Nettleton wingtips around for Freddy to replace the leather heels with rubber heels, as some customers preferred.  I think those wingtips retailed for about $36, which was a pretty good outlay but they were classic wingtips and great quality.  Freddy was a great story teller and quite a character so any visit took longer than expected.  Best,  Corky

Tom Chambers

As a guest to your "gage" I could not resist making a comment regarding the Bootery.

It was owned by the family of my best friend, Fred Prillaman. I am sure most of you

remember Fred ( who by the way is a member of the BHS Hall of Fame).

Tom (chili) Chambers 

Barbara Kincaid (Menken)

I found a picture of the Y. M.C.A. Camp at Lake Bloomington from 1958 from another website.   Do you see anyone you know?

Barbara Kincaid (Menken)

Happy Birthday Arlene Davis Vance!!!!

Barbara Kincaid (Menken)

Here's a picture of Lakeside Country Club.  Was anyone from our class on their swimming team?  They built a swimming pool on the Southwest side of the Club House.  My brother was on the Holiday Club swimming team and they used to have swimming meets back in the day when you could swim in the lake.

The next picture is of the Holiday Pool which was right across the street from Lakeside.  '

Susie Dowell (Emery)

I was on the State Farm swim team and remember swimming at meets, going to dances, and then in recent years, meeting a friend there for dinner when I was in town. I always enjoyed being at Lakeside Country Club.

Bill Butler

OK Barb, …. You’ve forced me to reveal my awesome latent athletic abilities. I’ve just been waiting for that photo.  Yes, I was on the Lakeside Country Club swim team.  I had to put an addition onto my house to exhibit all those 1^st place trophies.  (…hey, incidentally, does one go to purgatory for lying or just stealing?).  BTW, my sisters were also on the team.  And in my spare time I caddied at Lakeside when I wasn’t trying to stay afloat.  So, I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, those were the good ol’ times when LCC team was winning everything – well, ah, whenever we could find a team that was immune to eutrophic water and willing to get shots for giardia.  Our coach was Mr. Newton from Bent Jr. High.  Great guy!  Our competitors feared us (…probably not for our talent) and sometimes didn’t even show up for the meets!  Not sure who they were other than maybe Dagwood’s Doggie Daycare, Jerry’s Geriatric Retirement Center, and State Farm Swim Team.  Now that I remember, State Farm did have one swimmer who was really good – we told her there were sharks, ‘gators, and swamp monsters in the lake…. and if they didn’t git ya the algae would grab your legs and pull ya under…..  ya know, just to throw her off her game, sorta speak.  It didn’t work.  I think her name was Susie Imma Doll, or something like that.

My specialties were backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.  Mr. Newton would say, “Hey Butler, you’re suppose to be doin’ the freestyle – not the severely-chronically-encumbered-style.  And furthermore, that’s not the backstroke you’re doing – it looks more like the massage-and-seizure-stroke, or maybe the punch-and-slap-stroke, OK?”  I’d say, “Gotchya coach.  My bad.  Hey, can I do the pog daddle – it might be a new Olympic event someday?”

Hope everyone has a great and safe Fourth of July Holiday!  Bill

Susie Dowell (Emery)

Bill, you are hilarious; I don't remember your comedy in high school, but maybe you were funny, but just shy!! Sure doesn't sound like any shyness now. And since you mentioned the algae, etc. that was in the water, ( and evidently lots of fish ) I do have to say that, once when I was racing  backstroke there, I actually got a fish bite on a black mole on my back. Maybe that's TMI, but I always remember Lakeside swim meets for that reason!!

Barbara Kincaid (Menken)

I heard this evening we lost another classmate.  Delores Buttry passed away today and as soon as I have any information I'll post it.  Please keep her family in your thoughts.

Barbara Kincaid (Menken)

Happy Birthday Carol  Jaske Drake!!!! 

Barbara Kincaid (Menken)

Everyone have a wonderful 4th!

Barbara Kincaid (Menken)

I found this picture of Franklin School and want to know what was above the entrance doors where the windows are, was it a landing, classroom, what?

Remember the Army Surplus store which was located on North Main?

Ward "Corky" Snearly

Thanks Barb, great photo of Franklin Grade School.  It seems to me the area you mention was where Ms. Busby, the principal, had her office but I'm not certain.  Ms. Busby lived just across the street from where I grew up and I would often see her, like me, walking too and from school.  She was stern, as were most in those days, but very nice and I think she knew every pupil by name.

I also spent a good deal of time in the Army Surplus Store admiring all that neat stuff.  Most of the clothing had the names of the previous owners written on them and we thought they had been killed in some war and that's why it was for sale.  I think I acquired: a clip belt, a canteen, case, ammo pouch, helmet and other coveted artifacts including C-Rations which we consumed -not too good and certainly not very fresh.   But each acquisition was a big event and required much consideration on how to best allocate scarce resources.  
Best,  Corky

Bill Butler

Barb and Corky,        The Franklin School physical structure you see above the main entry is simply a veranda-type “recessed overlook or balcony” (sorry for the oxymoron) that was half-way up the huge (very wide) oak stairway between the first and second floors.  Ms. Busby’s office was on the second floor on the north side (left side of photo not in view) overlooking the large playground.  Due to symmetry, it was similar to what you see on the south side.  The one-story addition on the south side was the community room, but it also “housed” the overflow of kindergarten (?) students.  There were so many of us post-WW2 kids that the school district had to add/buy a house just east of that addition for the first-grade kids.  Ms. Appleyard was my teacher.  Great name for a teacher, and easy to remember, no?

        Corky, you’re right, the Army Surplus Store was intriguing.  It was an initial insight into the military realm for kids our age.  Before the early/mid-50s when television sets were just beginning to appear, most of us obtained our concepts about the military and war from parades, comic books (becoming popular in the 1950s, e.g., G.I. Joe, 10-₵), and surplus stores.  We were also able to buy “neat stuff” for our Boy Scout camping at these stores.  If you were old enough, you could even buy a military rifle for $10-20…. which now sells for $1,000+.

        You noted that your June 6^th (Operation Overlord, Normandy invasion – Sword, Omaha, Utah, Juno, & Gold beachheads) birthday gave you an interest in WW2.  My step dad was a photographer there.  He had to photo-document Axis infrastructure targets in Europe that would be bombed by the Allies before D-Day, and later some of the horrors of the concentration camps.  I have some of those photos and Nazi paraphernalia, artifacts, and K98 Mausers -- all of which will probably end up in a museum.  My interest in WW2 history has also grown, and I now have dozens of newly-released documentary DVDs and the following oversized hardback books that you might like to investigate, particularly for the absolutely amazing and compelling photos (….thousands of images, many published for the first time in these fairly recent refs).

Kagan, N. and Hyslop, S.G., 2012, Eyewitness To World War II:  Unforgettable Stories And Photographs From History’s Greatest Conflict, National Geographic, LLC, Washington, D.C., 352 p.

Overy, R., Editor, Tom Brokaw, foreword, 2013, The New York Times Complete World War II 1939-1945, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., NY, 611 p. (coverage from battlefields to the Home Front with access to 98,367 articles).

Stolley, R.B., 2001, LIFE: World War 2:  History’s Greatest Conflict In Pictures, Bulfinch Press Book and Little, Brown & Co, Boston, for TIME, Inc., 351 p.

Sturgeon, A. and Farfour, G., et. al., Editors, 2009 & 2015, Smithsonian World War II: The Definitive Visual History, From Blitzkrieg To The Atom Bomb, DK Penguin Random House, LLC, NY, 372 p.

Ward, G.C. and Burns, Ken, 2007, The War- An intimate History 1941-1945, Alfred Knopf, NY, 451 p.

        WW II was the most destructive and deadliest war in human history.  About 60-85 million combatants and civilians died worldwide.  It’s hard to fathom, and it changed everything.  For all those Americans who believed in freedom, trained, fought, sacrificed, coped, gave all or survived, and/or supported those who did, we profusely thank you/them.  Regardless of their role, everyone was a genuine hero with uncommon and remarkable valor and courage.  As war babies and the Class of 1962, we are part of this legacy; it makes us who we are today.

Susie Dowell (Emery)

What a tremendous tribute, Bill, to the heroes of World War II.  Thank you very much. Those books would be fascinating to read. I wonder how many of our fathers were in the war. My dad had heart issues and was unable to go in, passing on in 1950.

Thanks again, Bill  

Ward "Corky" Snearly

Bill,  Many thanks for the great information and the references which I will pursue.  I had forgotten about the Army Surplus selling guns.  Do you recall if those were the Springfield 30-06 bolt action rifles?  I did buy a surplus rifle at Sears for $28 in about 1960.  It was a sporterized version of a Mauser action gun from Argentina in 7.62 MM.  Best,  Corky