Archive: Vic's Photos (#9)

Doris, Steve, and Dave at our house on the river

Dear George,

Every week I put one of my dad Vic L.’s photos of our family, friends, and hometown in this blog’s righthand column.  Because the individual photos get deleted at week’s end, I’ve brought them back here in a series of archives.  My brother Peter made most of these images available by creating a series of postcards from Vic’s photos, and a few have also come from family albums.  Earlier archives on this blog can be visited by clicking on “Archives” in the “Labels” section of the right-hand column.  There will be more to come in the future.

Love,

Dave

My maternal grandfather, Guy Cramer, was an insurance executive in Omaha and a veteran of the Spanish-American war.  He moved to Menominee in 1938 several years after my grandmother died and lived down the street from us at 9143 Ogden Avenue.  He built the house on the Menominee River as a summer cottage, and shortly after World War II it became our family home for the next two decades.  Guy died in 1942. 

My grandfather, V.A. Sr., emigrated to the U.S. from Sweden in his youth, worked for a short time as a logger in the U.P. woods, then went to pharmacy school and eventually became a successful druggist and businessman in the twin cities.  V.A. was a quiet, patient, loving man, a father of four, and a good grandpa.  By the time I worked at his Marinette drugstore he was retired, though he would occasionally fill in as the substitute pharmacist. 

This is my mom and myself shortly after my birth in summer 1937.  I know just about nothing about my infancy.  I should have asked my parents more.  My mother looks very happy in pictures like this one, though I always imagine that my parents were more nervous with their firstborn child than with my three siblings who were to follow. 

This is my early childhood best friend Sally F. and I engaged in a challenging project for two-year-olds in our living room.  Sally’s dressed up, though our activity looks messy, and it looks like she knows more than I about what we’re doing.  When my family moved from Ogden Avenue to Sheridan Road after my kindergarten year, Sally and I lost touch for the rest of our grade school years, but then we became close friends again in high school. Sometimes I see her at high school reunions, and it’s always a happy get-together. 

Here’s my sweet grandfather, V.A. Sr., and myself, probably when I was about four.  V.A. lived with us for a while at river house, building a cabin on the lot next door, and he was a regular visitor to our home after he moved to Pine Beach to live with his daughter Martha and son-in-law Ralph Buscher.  V.A. was a gentle, kind man, devoted to his family, loving to his grandchildren. 

This is Steve and I at our family Xmas tree (circa 1944), probably at our Sheridan Road house in Menominee during World War II.  My dad went through Naval officer training at the Great Lakes Naval Base near Chicago, then was stationed in the Pacific.  I would guess that he was home for the holidays to capture this shot of his two kids.  

This is my dad and my younger brother Steven, probably at our house on the Menominee River.  We spent a lot of our childhood playing outside in the yard, the river, and the woods, whether summer or winter.  

Menominee has serious Michigan winters, and sledding was one of our many outdoor activities.  The best sledding hill in town was at the Tourist Information Lodge next to the Interstate Bridge.  Living out on the river, though, we’d build our own sled ramp off the river bank and belly-flop onto it to slide dozens of yards out onto the ice.  Then we’d tow one another on our sleds across the river to Pig Island or downstream to Brewery Park. 

I’m going to guess this photo was taken in the late 1940’s which would place the participants in their 40’s, a peak time for socializing and fun for this group.  From the left, Doris L., Jean O’Hara, and Florence Caley.  In talking with childhood friends over the years, nobody has ever managed to create the camaraderie of this Menominee group of our parents and their friends. 

My grandfather, V.A. Sr., founded Rexall drugstores in downtown Menominee and Marinette, and my uncle Kent came to own and manage the Menominee store when V.A. retired.  Because it was just a half block away from our grade school, Steve and I ate lunch there daily and got to read all the new comic books.  

My sister Vicki was born in 1947, a year after our family moved out to our house on the Menominee River.  Here she is on the living room window seat with our Irish Setter family dog, Mike. 

These are my uncles Kent and Karl, identical twins, and Kent’s oldest son, Thor.  Kent was a pharmacist, and Karl was a sales rep for Kimberly Clark in Neenah-Menasha.  Despite their near-identical looks, Karl and Kent were very different in temperament: Karl, more jovial and outgoing; Kent, more serious and sometimes stern.  Kent was married with kids, and Karl was a bachelor (until he married when I was in college).  Our extended family would gather each Xmas at our house on the river (where this photo was taken), and it was a festive occasion. 

My aunt Martha was my father’s younger sister.  She was married to Ralph Buscher who helped run my grandfather’s Marinette drugstore. Martha and Ralph had two kids, Ann and John, who we still visit when we travel to the twin cities.  Martha was a librarian at the Stephenson Public Library in Marinette as well as the family genealogist.

My Uncle Ralph helped run our family’s Marinette Rexall drugstore where we all worked in our youth.  He had a big heart and a good sense of humor, sang in a barber shop quartet, and, was a good father and family man.  Ralph always brought a lot of good spirit and fun to our family gatherings, and it was shocking when he passed away in his 40’s.   

I can’t make out the woman at the left, but the others are Jean O’Hara, Florence Caley, and my mom Doris L, apparently on an outing on Green Bay on either an O’Hara or a Caley boat. 

I got braces in about the fifth grade.  My orthodontist, Dr. Gilling, was located in Green Bay, 45 miles away, but he made trips to Menominee every few months and set up for the day at Dr. Mead’s office, our family dentist.  Two things that Dr. Gilling always said to me was that my mouth was like an artesian well and that I was very brave.  Having braces was unpleasant, especially when the dentist tightened them and when he attached strong rubber bands to pull them in various directions.  In this photo I look a little self-conscious, trying not to smile and hiding my teeth and their apparatus.  

From the left: Steve (b. 1941), Vicki (1947), Peter (1945), and me (1937), taken in our front yard at river house.  Because of our age distribution, Steve and I formed one cohort pair in our family, and Peter and Vicki were another.  We all got along reasonably well, though I bullied Steve too much, and Peter and Vicki regularly fought it out for dominance.  Nonetheless, we were close and loving friends and siblings, perhaps moreso in adulthood than as children.   

Here are my sister Vicki (about age 5) and my brother Peter (about age 7) at the front door of Menominee’s Washington Grade School about 1952.  Steve would have been in sixth grade then, and I was in high school.  All the kids in our family went to Washington Grade School, and we came away with a firm footing in the 3 R’s and a lot of memorable playground experiences.  When I go back to high school reunions, it’s my Washington grade school classmates with whom I tend to have the firmest bonds.   

When I was in ninth grade my father and another adult leader founded a troop of Air Scouts in Menominee.  It was a brand new advanced branch of the Boy Scouts, designed to be cutting edge and to provide an option to the Explorers and the Sea Scouts.  Our big event of the year was a trip to the O’Hare military air base in Chicago, where we camped out in our tents off the end of a runway.  Air scouts pictured from the left are Alan Pickl, Frank St. Peter, leader Vic L. (sitting), Jim Hazel, and perhaps Earl Malcolm at the right.  Because I’m the only participant not in the photo, I suspect I took the picture.  We had a fun time on our trip, and we enjoyed the Maxwell St. Flea Market in Chicago most of all.  A prostitute there made an offer to my father to do the whole troop for fifty dollars, but it was a violation of the Air Scout code of ethics and too expensive.   

Here’s my brother Steve, maybe 16 or 17, wrapping an Xmas present in our living room at our house on the Menominee River (circa 1957).  That’s our Hammond Chord Organ in the background which our parents purchased to enhance our musical skills and interest.  I still have the chord organ sitting in the room on which I’m currently typing on the computer, but it’s holding so much flea market stuff that it’s not accessible at the moment for playing.  

Here are my parents, Doris and Vic, and my brother Steve and sister-in-law Margie at their wedding on June 20, 1964, in Elmhurst, Illinois, Margie’s hometown.  We were all thrilled about the event.  

G-mail Comments

-Jennifer M (11-6): These old photos are great!

-Terry O-S (11-8-14): Hi David -  I thought perhaps I could help with the fourth woman in the boat photo but I can't recognize her either.  I think that is the Pookah,  the O'Hara boat, because of the outboard that seems to be moored to the stern.  One difference between your family and ours was that in yours only Vicki was born after the war while in ours both Kiera and Sean were post-war children. Perhaps for that reason, I think of our family as two cohorts even more than yours. I am eight years older than Kiera and ten older than Sean and I think of Michael and me and Kiera and Sean as almost two different families.  However, Michael and Kiera were very close as children and have remained so in their adult years. The other interesting thing about the O'Hara/Jacobsen clan is that only Michael and I were born before the war.  Beginning in 1946, a whole slew of cousins arrived: Tim O'Hara, Jeanne Jacobsen, Kiera, Nancy Jacobsen and John O'Hara all in the same year, then Sean, Brien O'Hara (I'm not sure which of them is older but neither one by much) and finally Nell Jacobsen. I was so much older that I was not much a part of the "cousins crew" but they all have very fond memories of their growing up years together. Once again, Michael bridged the gap much better than I and was often the "play organizer" for the younger kids. Kiera andJohn O'Hara are tentatively thinking that theymight get to Menominee next summer for their 50th high school class reunion.  I echo your sentiment that our parents and their friends had a circle of friends unlike anything I have encountered since.  Trust you and Katja are well.  Best

At the Forest's Edge

Dear George,

Burnet Woods is one of Cincinnati’s natural gems.  The 90-acre park is bounded on the south by Martin Luther King Drive and the university; on the east by the Bishop St. student residential district; on the north by Jefferson Avenue’s shops, restaurants, and offices; and on the west by Clifton Avenue, Good Sam Hospital, Hebrew Union College, and various stores and restaurants.  The woods itself is thickly forested, and, once in the middle, a visitor could well be on Isle Royale or the Keewanau Peninsula.  It’s just an amazing thing to have a forest right in the midst of our big city neighborhood.  The park’s boundaries offer that curious mix of a busy urban world on one side and the wilds of a primitive woods on the other.  Here are some late October photos looking into the forest from its edge, mostly along Clifton and Jefferson Avenues.

Love,

Dave

Yellow Springs: Who Says You Can't Go Home Again?

Katja, Mike, and Duffy on Dayton St. in downtown Yellow Springs

Dear George,

Katja and I and our sheepdogs Mike and Duffy recently visited Yellow Springs and spent a few hours in the downtown business district.  We graduated from Antioch College in 1960, and when it came time to leave we were broken-hearted.  We loved Yellow Springs and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.  A small town of about 3600, Yellow Springs is unique in the region – full of writers, artists, and intellectuals, many of whom are Antioch alumni.  According to the Yellow Springs’s website, Budget Travel named the community one of “America’s Coolest Small Towns,” and I’d have to agree.  The downtown area contains over 75 shops, galleries, restaurants, and pubs, and, even on our weekday afternoon visit, there were lots of visitors wandering about.  We discovered when we moved to Ann Arbor after graduation, much to our amazement, that there are other great places to live.  However, a piece of our hearts will always remain in Yellow Springs.  Here are some of the sights from our visit.

Love,

Dave

Xenia Avenue

Xenia Avenue (Highway 68) is Yellow Springs’ main thoroughfare and the location of its only  traffic light.  The town’s two-block business district is a quarter-mile north of the Antioch campus.  Springfield, Ohio, is 9 miles to the north on Highway 68; Xenia, 9 miles to the south.    

Ye Olde Trail Tavern

This is the first bar where I ever purchased a bottle of beer.  I hadn’t drunk alcohol at all during my high school years, so discovering beer was a thrilling (and questionable) part of my first year in college.  Ye Olde Trail Tavern served good pizza too.  Most beer today is 6% alcohol, but young Ohioans back then could purchase diluted 3.2% beer when they turned 18.  You just had to drink more.  Legendary folk singer Pete Seeger gave a concert on campus during our freshman year, and a select group of students joined him afterward on the second floor of Ye Olde Trail Tavern for a private performance and sing-along.  I didn’t hear about it until later, but Katja, already a member of the campus inner circle, was there.  

The Little Art Theater

I probably owe my married life to the Little Art Theater because that was most of Katja’s and my Friday night dates occurred.  We saw everything that Ingmar Bergman produced, as well as the latest films by Fellini, Truffaut, Bertolucci, Cocteau, and many others.  Nowadays we still do Friday nights out at the movies, and we were pleased to see that the Little Art Theater is thriving. 

Town Drugs

The drugstore was one of the business establishments in downtown Yellow Springs that we patronized regularly.  I remember it most vividly with respect to the day of our wedding.  It was a hot August day, and I found myself sweating uncontrollably.  I walked down to the drugstore, told the pharmacist that I couldn’t stop sweating because I was getting married in the afternoon, and asked if he sold pills which would help.  I was disappointed when he explained that weren’t any such pills.  A few days later, I went to the drugstore to make my first condom purchase as a new husband.  I broke out again with uncontrollable sweating.

Presbyterian Church

The Presbyterian Church offered a special reception for new Antioch students at the beginning of our freshman year, and one of my hallmates, George M., cajoled me as a fellow Presbyterian to attend.  We went and sampled light refreshments before the service, but that was the end of our formal religious life as college students.

Laundry

Now an art gallery, this building was the town laundry back in our day.  For unknown reasons, I remember bringing laundry there all the time with Katja, though she claims that she was never there.  Maybe Katja doesn’t remember having laundry done because it was unmemorable and/or anti-feminist.  Or maybe my overactive imagination is simply fabricating memories.  

Art Gallery

Yellow Springs now has a lot more shops and galleries than it did in our day.  Among other stops, Katja checked out the Village Artisans Gallery while the sheepdogs and I took in the passing scene out on the street.  

Yellow Springs Pottery

Katja always shops at the Yellow Springs Pottery and brings home a souvenir of our visit.  

The Smoking Octopus and Aleto’s Café

Yellow Springs is a dog-friendly town, and the pups joined us for dinner on the patio at Aleto’s Café (on the right side of the structure).  This used to be the Wings Café, Yellow Springs’ most popular dining establishment, but they moved up the street.

Tom’s IGA

Because we usually ate at the college cafeteria, we didn’t patronize the IGA store a lot.  I went there mainly to buy cartons of Marlboros or Kents ($1.99 per carton).

Dayton St. business district

Today this block is the home of shops and cafes catering to tourists and visitors.  In the 1950’s, though, it was the site of the town’s black business district.  In one of the first organized civil rights protests in the nation, Antioch students boycotted the segregated, all-white barber shop on Xenia Avenue in Yellow Springs.  Many of the male students, including myself, patronized the black barbershop in one of the storefronts on this strip.  

Cone Corner Dairy Bar

Believe it or not, a soft-serve establishment was in operation at this site fifty-five years ago.  It wasn’t called the Cone Corner then -- perhaps something like the Creamy Whip or the Dairy King.  In any case, we were regular patrons.  My parents had bought me a 1950 Buick which I brought to campus.  Having grown up in Philadelphia, Katja had never learned to drive, so I set about teaching her how.  That was a harrowing experience which usually wound up with us yelling at one another.  Finally I simply gave up and turned the keys over to her.  Katja would drive five blocks by herself down High Street from my apartment to the Creamy Whip, purchase a softserve cone, and then make a U-turn and drive back.  Self-teaching turned out to be the best method of learning to drive, and it was tasty as well.  On our recent trip I told the teenage clerk that we’d bought softserve cones there 55 years ago, and she was impressed. 

Ha Ha Pizza

Now a pizza joint, this was the 68 Drive-In in the 1950s.  I and my friends kept late-night hours, and going to the 68 Drive-In around midnight was a frequent ritual.  One time my friend John N. and I brought glasses of bourbon into the restaurant.  The manager called the police who confiscated our drinks and nearly confiscated us as well.

Com’s Tavern

Our favorite hangout in Yellow Springs was Com’s Tavern, located at the intersection of W. Davis and High Streets.  Com and his wife Goldie had an upper bar room (maroon in the photo) which catered mainly to local black customers, while the lower room (at the right, now stucco) served the mostly white Antioch students.  Goldie was a fount of wisdom and a surrogate mother for Katja and I and many of the other regulars who came in to order her pizza.

Our apartment

For a couple of years I rented a tiny two-room apartment across the street from Com’s.  There was no heat except for the gas oven whose door I kept open during the winter, and you had to leave the apartment and walk around to the front of the building to visit a bathroom.  I paid $10 a month in rent which the landlady regarded as a more than fair price.  Katja and I lived in Yellow Springs for only one week after our wedding and before departing to Ann Arbor, but this was our first home as a married couple.  

Duffy and Mike in downtown Yellow Springs

Our hippy sheepdogs concluded that Yellow Springs is definitely their kind of town. 

Our years in Yellow Springs shaped all the rest of our lives – our values, aspirations, political views, conceptions of ourselves, career choices, hobbies, and life styles.  I’m grateful to my parents for sending me there and to our many Antioch friends who provided countless life-changing experiences.

Love,

Dave