Subj:	Olney Memories # 7
Date:	9/1/01 11:18:22 AM Central Daylight Time
From:	Pianoann97
To:	Pianoann97
CC:

                                             Olney Memories # 7

Hello to everyone and welcome to  Memories # 7.  Hope everyone enjoys reading some more memories that have come in.  I still frequently hear from people that have not seen "memories" before and have asked to be included on the mailing list. Keep passing these around and sharing with others.  If you know others who would like to be included on the mailings, please let me know.  Here are some more Memories to enjoy!

Ann Weesner King
pianoann97@aol.com
Class of 1960

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John Tice
john_tice@hotmail.com (john Tice)


So sorry to hear about Mr. Sliva. I remember him as a dedicated
and strict band teacher with many special awards and accomplishments. The Olney Tigers Band will never be quite the same.

Thanks for sending to me all of the Olney Memories 1-6. It has been so
refreshing to recall so many memories about my birth place that I had all
but forgotten and seem so long ago. Its interesting to read the differences
in peoples memories and experiences. I'll add a few for your collection.

I remember the old Olney Sanitarium and marveling over all of the pictures
of the Weber's  displayed in the busy waiting rooms. I thought, "are all
doctors named Weber?" I remember a policeman called "Oakey Grubb" who walked
a beat past my home on West Cherry St. He adored kids, me included, and he
always showed me his gun. I really don't think it was ever loaded. I
remember a blind man who sold papers and his constant song......."
Paper,....Olney Daily,....Paper," as he clicked the curb with his cane in
his daily travels throughout the city. I am so sorry that I no longer recall
his name. I remember Mrs. Dodd, my first grade teacher and her holding my
hand during smallpox vaccination at the Central School. She was the
prettiest lady I had ever seen. I remember Fred Martin at the fairgrounds
selling refreshments in the steamy grandstand, dripping perspiration into
his soda bucket and shouting, "ICEcoldpop"!!!...as all one word. I remember
Ann Weesner and my late cousin Anita Bowman sitting in band practice at the
old Jr. High making the godawfulest noises in the clarinet section. They
told me I couldn't play one because I had "buck teeth." Of course everyone
remembers all the hype and attention about Olney and its white squirrels.
Are they still there? I can't forget the huge ice skating parties at Vernor
Lake where I lived and to leave for the "Dog And Suds" later to be among all
the muscle cars with loud mufflers and to see Bush Wiliiams fuel injected
Corvette. I can't believe it but I am still ordering and eating slaw-burgers
by request and I get the strangest reactions??

Thanks again Ann......

John Tice
Class of 1961

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akubbs@home.com    
Sandi Peer Kubbs



A lot of people have mentioned Goosenibble.  I grew up there--if I ever grew up at all.  My grandmother, single parent of six after her husband disappeared, took sick when my Mother was 16, the oldest at home.  Mother bought the house (at 16! ! ) then, and housed and supported her Mother's family there on Lafayette Street in Goosenibble.  When she and daddy married,  they lived there til 1976--just short of 50 years.  It has been said that the dirt poor and the filthy rich are the most corrupt people while the middle class hard-working folks are the finest.  Goosenibble was primarily working poor.  There were alcoholics, the marginally retarded, and worthless jerks of every sort, but there were fine people--the Ryan's, the Runion's, the Zimmerly's, the Thomas's, the Campbell's, the Murphy's, the Stewart's.  And I can't remember everyone--don't scream that I left your folks out.  I was a little kid!  

Jack's was the store on the corner of Camp and West South Avenue; Jack and his wife were ex-carnies and quite eccentric, a little too much so for our already off center neighborhood.  You could buy sorry vegetables, sorrier meat, incomplete boxes of crayons, and if you didn't pay your bill each month, your name went in shame; in giant letters on the blackboard outside.  Jack's was considered fit only for exchanging pop bottles to get swim pool $$'s or for soda purchases.  When we had real money (10 cents) we'd walk past the vinegar plant (always convinced that the storage barrels were going to explode any moment) over to Gher's, a real store, clean, to buy ice cream bars--on Whittle near the B&O tracks.  Steam locomotives were still in use when I was young.  My cousin lived across the street from Kralis in the cleanest house I have ever been in before or since--just 1/2 block from the train tracks.  She and I would sneak, of course it was forbidden, up to the general vicinity of the tracks, convinced that---1. tramps were hiding in the brush by the tracks waiting to kidnap us and 2. the train would derail and obliterate us forever--to watch trains go by.  And we worry today about our kids wasting time on video games!!---Those trains spewed a smoke trail you could see lingering in the air down to 130.   And noisy--you couldn't yell loud enough in someone's ear for them to know that their Mother was coming with a switch until the train had passed Dan the real danger was upon you.  

We walked to Central school past Kralis, where quicker-footed ones than I would catch and sell chickens that escaped their fate as the crates were opened at the plant. My mother would buy them for 35 cents, a king's ransom to the seller in those days, a trip to the Arcadia PLUS a coke.  Kralis also would GIVE AWAY chicken rings, which were little plastic rings, colored, which were used in some capacity there, to those of us bold enough to go to the office and ask for one. Then we were in the kings harem, obviously, with plastic rings on each finger.

Hide and seek, kick the can, idee-overs, jacks, marbles, tag--all played in Fulkerson's or Powers' yards.  Homemade ice cream or a watermelon in the front yard while the house cooled off on those endlessly hot summer nights.

Goosenibble--named for the old lady on South Camp whose geese made the trip home from school memorable for a generation or two--on the wrong side of both sets of tracks--lotsa education in the seamier sides of life--good place to be away from.  

 

My most embarrassing moment:  
Naomi Powers and I often walked home from 7th grade at the old Jr Hi on Main St together, discussing the horrors of Mr. Robinson, Mrs. Cunningham, and of course, everyone's least favorite, Mrs. Finch.  
On this particular day Naomi had a hair appointment at the beauty shop near the Kora and Kory Donut shop on Main St., where her Mom worked.  I had never been to a beauty shop before, always got my hair cut at home by my Mom.  When the beautician found this out she offered me a free haircut!!
This was a very civilized beauty shop, with each customer going into a little drape-walled stall for the hair washing (and it wasn't even Saturday!!) and cut. Making conversation as she trimmed away, the beautician  asked me how I liked Jr. Hi.  
That was a subject I could wax eloquent about--I liked Mr. Hatch and most of my teachers, but one of them..Mrs Finch..She was fat and ugly and wore too much make-up and was mean and grouchy and I was afraid of her.  
The conversation moved on, but before my hair was done, the lady in the next booth, on the other side of the drape, was finished with her hairdo and walked out past my booth, giving me a serious hard look:  Mrs. Finch.
(The next day she had me stay in after school.  Oh, the agonies of that day waiting for my doom!!  She said she was hurt by what I said but that the thing that hurt most was that I was afraid of her..I had no answer, my tongue lost its ability to move..there was nothing to say..)
footnote:  Mrs. Finch was from a very well-off family from Eldorado or Carmi--married John Finch---he was a little disinclined to prosperity and they lived in an apartment on Main St.  Remember the song he wrote, which WVLN played so much that I always assumed it was a national hit,  "Lonely".  
Mrs.  Finch's husbands song:  "Lonely"  "Lonely was just another word to me
until the day you went away.  Heartache--"  well I got that far.

Sandi Peer Kubbs
akubbs@home.com

 

Class of 1965
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cschafer@PSBNEWTON.COM (Carol Schafer)    

Just a few good memories:

Summer evenings at the ball park
Meeting that special someone at the movie in junior high (7th row from the  
front, bring your own popcorn!)
Halloween Fright Fests at the movies
Playing in the pep band at the junior high ball games
Mike's East Side and Mike's West Side
Janet Eagleson and friends in the back of Mike's with their can-cans
swishing
Poor man fries - potato chips with a squirt of catsup
Sub Deb dances
All the special people I was so lucky to know in good ol' Olney
Gus and Mary Sliva - Gus is at peace now, but his music will always be
heard in all of us who had the chance to work with him.
Mr. Lathrop, a very fair and kind gentleman, who taught by example
Murray's Hardware - so dark with creaky floor boards
A&P in the center of Main Street stores - they had a fan that blew as you
walked in
Who was it that had the candy store???  Mr. Shafer?
Bob Shafer, a junior high teacher, who ran the swimming pool
Mr. McFarland and his summer rec program
Patient swimming instructors who taught 30-40 beginners at a time
Some of the football cheers - Hit 'em again, hit 'em again, harder, harder
Ricker, ricker ree, hit 'em in the knee
Ricker, ricker rass, hit 'em in the other knee

 

 

Carole Vaughn Schafer
Class of 1965

=============================================================Dr. Boyd Wagner
Bwagner@huntsvillefumc.org

Has anyone mentioned Pauley's Grocery Store?  I loved that grocery, you could take them a list of groceries and they would bring it to you.  Woolworth's, I worked upstairs as a stock boy and ate all the candy I could eat plus all the cokes I could drink.  Someone mentioned the drag racing, I did not want to think of that;  got in trouble with late night and early morning racing.  The trouble probably saved my life.   I do remember a department store, maybe Penney's that had a
cashier upstairs and they would send the bill and change down a
wire, I have never seen another one like that.   

Boyd Wagner
============================================================
Alan Seely
aseely01@earthlink.net

Ann,

Thanks for keeping this going.  It's been a lot of fun!  I enjoyed Dave Scherer''s comments, and of course I agree with his assessment of the class of '65!

I have a lot of great memories of Gus and Mary, and love of music that they instilled in so many of us.  I also remember Gus grabbing some of the young men by the back of the neck and educating them about courtesy and manners--for example, when they cut in front of Mary going through a doorway, etc.  Probably can't get away with that now!

Hello to everyone from ERHS, particularly the Class of '65!

Alan Seely

Class of '65
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Bette Schmalhausen

Bette1204@aol.com

Thanks for sending the memories.  I read them with interest but realized that
most of them were from people younger than our class.  My memories, of
course, center around Schmalhausen's Rexall Drug Store on Main Street.  On
one side was the A&P grocery store and on the other Piper's Hardware, Harry
Piper later added a record section and had little cubicles in which you could
sit and listen to the record before you bought it.  I do remember Maas
Market, they had sort of a mini deli in addition to the grocery section.  My
mother also shopped at Schneiter's, which I believe was over on Walnut.   
There was also Kent's Barber shop about three doors from the Drug store and
going the other way was Wagner's Barber shop.  Someone mentioned the LaRuth Shop and it was owned by the Harris's and they had a men's store too.  The mother and daughter ran the dress shop and the father and son the men's
store.  They eventually sold both and moved to St. Louis. l worked at the
LaRuth Shop my senior year in high school when it was owned by Ruby Hyde.   

I also was confused by someone's comment about Rock Hudson, or maybe I read
it wrong, but he never had any children.  His cousins were Jerry and Jim
Scherer.  One summer Jerry came to California and spent some time with him
and then he came back to Olney with Jerry for a visit.  Several people got to
meet him and he was at our house once (my mother jokingly said she would
never clean the mud from his shoes off the steps).   All of this happened
before he was very well known but we were impressed at the time.

There were a couple of recreation halls over a period of time.  One out on
east Main and one downtown.  We would go there and dance to music from a
jukebox, play ping pong.  I know there isn't much to do in Olney for kids now
but there wasn't then either.   

I do remember the building where J. C. Penney's was.  I took some dance
lessons up on the top floor and it was a very long climb.  As I look back I'm
not sure it was worth it.   

The Town Talk on Whittle was originally owned by one of the Gassman's, I
think they called him Tubby, and they had homemade ice cream and yes the
candied apples in the fall and winter months.  We used to go there after
Sunday school sometimes for ice cream.  Can you believe I used to be Sunday
school teacher.  Actually we just kept the very small children occupied while
everyone else as in Sunday school.

I remember both the hotels.  I think the one on Whittle as called the New
Olney Hotel at one point.  Anyway they had a bar downstairs where we gathered
when back to Olney for a visit.   

I'm sure there are a lot more things I will think of later but that's about
all for now.  If you want to send this on to anyone feel free.

Bette

 

Class of 1951

=============================================================
Vance Welker
vance@glorytoglory.com



I recently received a copy of your Olney Memories newsletter, and
found it very interesting.  It sure stirred up some memories.  

I sort of grew up in Olney.  Actually, the family moved there in the early
60's, and we lived there for about six years before moving to Alabama
in 1969.  Six years for a youngster is a very long time, so I have
always claimed Olney as my home town.  I have a lot of fond
memories of Olney.

I understand from an earlier newsletter that Gus Sliva just passed
away.  Gus was top-notch, no doubt about it.  He holds a special
place in the hearts of those that knew him and especially those that
played in the band.  He forged the ERHS band into something special.
As far as I am concerned, the band was second to none, and when it
came to marching band competitions, we were a force to be reckoned
with.  One thing's certain, you didn't chew gum in that band if you
knew what was good for you, and you'd better keep those lines
straight!  Gus will never be forgotten.  Goodby, old friend.


Thanks,
Vance  Welker

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v