1938

Mom and Dad were living in the upstairs apartment of Alma and Al Heckel's house on 1st Street, up on Oak Hill in North Saint Paul after they married. They had to move out temporarily in June of 1938 while the Heckels remodeled, so they moved in with Gram and Gramps Ellison and Unkie. Gram and Gramps lived on 2nd Street N.W. on Oak Hill. I was born on the 20th day of August that year at 11:25 p.m., at the old St. John's hospital. Mom wanted a boy--her Michael, but Daddy got his little girl...Me. I lived my first two months with Gram, Gramps and Unkie... Mom and Daddy too, of course. Mom and Daddy moved back to Heckel's newly remodeled upstairs apartment in October and there we lived until I was eleven months old. We then moved to the house at 328 8th Avenue on July 1, 1939, where I was to live until the day I got married.

Here is a little background on the house at 328 8th Avenue. Daddy's Dad, my Grandpa, John A. "Chief" Bender, Built the house in 1914. Grandma, Grandpa, Daddy, Aunt Gerry and Aunt Nolly lived there until 1928, the year Grandpa died. Gram and the three kids moved across the street to live with Grandma's parents in their big house (my Great Grandma and Grandpa Luger's home). Grandma rented out their house at 328 8th Avenue, first to a Dr. Mackenenny, then to Dr. Crombie (the doctor who delivered me), then to George Ford the druggist (who would later become my employer years and years down the road), then to a Mr. Johnston, who was a Heinz 57 salesman.

Nine years after Grandpa's death, Grandma remarried to Emil Dittbrenner April of 1937. She, Aunt Gerry and Aunt Nolly moved to Grandpa Dittbrenner's house on 4th Avenue in North st. Paul. Daddy stayed at his Grandma and Grandpa Luger's until he and Mom got married, which occurred one month later in May of 1937. Grandma was having some sort of trouble with the Johnstons who were renting out her house on 8th at the time, so she got rid of them and asked Daddy and Mom to rent the house. That's when we moved there, in July of 1939. Mom and Daddy paid $25 a month rent, which for that time was a lot of money! When Grandpa Dittbrenner died in 1943, Grandma was unable to handle the upkeep on both houses, so Daddy and Mom bought our house from Grandma. Daddy and Mom paid $4000 for the house, in monthly installments of $25.

328 8th Avenue--the house Daddy's Dad built for his family, the house Daddy was born in--in the side room--My house!! I have so many beautiful memories of my first twenty years in that house. I really loved the screened in from porch, I always played with my doll, Lula Belle, out there. Unfortunately, the porch was torn down in 1946 or 1947.

1939 - 1940

Grandma and Grandpa Ellison sold their North St. Paul home in the Spring of 1939. They had purchased property on Long Lake #2 in Cass County in northern Minnesota. It was approximately 190 miles from here, about 15 miles north of Pine River. Their mailing address was Backus, Minnesota. The property had nothing on it but a tumble down log house, and that's what they moved into that spring. Unkie moved in with us so he could continue working for Northern States Power to earn money to pout into the resort they were planning to build on the property. Grandpa had taken a six month leave of absence from Northern States Power for the original move up there, then he and Gram came back down that fall and lived with while Gramps worked another six months at Northern States. Gram and Gramps went back up North for good that Spring of 1940, while Unkie continued living with us until 1941. They built seven cabins over the next few years--six out of logs, the other a wood framed structure. They turned it into a beautiful, inviting resort. They started out getting a lot of Northern states Power vacationers, and then eventually vacationers from all over...a lot of Iowa farm vacationers. Pinecrest Resort was beautiful! I was very young, but I do remember it. Long Lake #2 was so clear, you could watch the fish bite the bait. Gramps and I would feed the sunnies off the end of the dock. When they were building the resort, Unkie, Mom, Daddy and I would drive up there like twice a month in the spring, summer and fall.

One particular late fall trip turned into quite a piece of history. The day was Friday, the 8th of November, 1940. Unk, Mom, Dad, Aunt Kathryn, Uncle Al, six month old Michael and I packed into Unk's 38 Chevy for the trip up to Pinecrest. It was a beautiful day and a nice beginning for the long Armistice day weekend. Saturday was also a wonderful day, but on Sunday it started turning cold. Monday morning, Daddy, Uncle Al, and Unkie left to go grouse hunting on the island of the lake and to retrieve the decoys which had all tipped over from ice build-up on their bills. Bad weather started moving in fast; the temperature dropped quickly and it started to snow heavier and heavier. They made their way back to the house and we decided to head for home. The snow kept getting heavier. Daddy and Uncle Al took turns driving, as the only way they could see to drive was with their head out the window. When one of them would get too cold, the other would take over. It was so cold and there was no visibility. At one point we were following a turkey truck until it went off the road and into a ditch. It took five hours to reach Rice, Minnesota, which was about halfway home. It normally took five hours to make it the whole way home. Rice was all the further we could get as the roads were blocked by huge snowdrifts.

With the car left on the highway, we made our way to a nearby house that had little tourist cabins. We asked the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Uhlrick, about taking shelter in one of the cabins. They said that the cabins were not heated, and insisted that we stay in their home with them. They gave Mom, Aunt Kathryn, baby Michael and myself the bed in their little spare room. Unk, Daddy and Uncle Al took the floor in the living room, along with nearly a dozen other stranded travelers (mainly hunters) who sought refuge there after we did. Mom and Dad said the next morning it was so cold, and that there were mounds of snow in the house that had blown in through the window cracks. There were twelve foot drifts outside. A train with a plow on it came through in the afternoon, so Mom, Aunt Kath, Michael and I took the train home. The roads still weren't open, so Dad, Unk, and Uncle Al stayed there another night and drove home the next day. 59 people lost their lives in Minnesota during that storm, primarily hunters who got caught in it, freezing to death right in the middle of lakes even. It moved in so quick that some never had a chance to get off the lakes or out of the woods. That was the Armistice Day blizzard of 1940--the worst storm in the history of the state.

1941

After Unk and his car moved up north in 1941, we had to take the train to get up to Gram and Gramps. We caught the train here in the afternoon, then had a five hour layover in Sauk Center before catching the "Galloping Goose", which is what we called the milk and mailrun train. We would get to Walker, Minnesota, at 7:00 a.m. where Unk would be waiting to pick us up. All the while they had the resort they would come down and spend a few weeks with us every Fall, always over Halloween. We had chili every Halloween...it was a tradition, one that I carried on after getting married and raising a family of my own. [It's a shame you kids never learned to like chili! Your Dad and I thought Halloween chili was a good tradition that should be carried on.] Back to Gram and Gramps. Gram always brought her own onions down with them for their Fall stay. It is because of her that I learned to eat onions at a young age. My mother certainly wouldn't have encouraged this habit; she and Dad didn't like them and there were never any in the house. When I was at Gram's, though, she would fill me up with onions...anything that could have had onions added to it, she added them. Oh how well I remember those delicious little table onions Gram and I would pull up from their big garden that we would enjoy with our meals.

Gram and Gramps sold Pinecrest in 1944 and bought a home not too far away on Ponto Lake in Pontoria. Their mailing address was still Backus, Minnesota. I can remember the house, the garage, the outhouse the pagoda and the worm-pit. Unkie made his hand-carved and hand-painted game birds in his workshop in the garage there, as well as his handcrafted lawn ornaments, all with moving parts. He was a sign painter by trade and a very talented artist. Gramps wrote the Pontoria society column for the Cass County and Pine River papers. They had a hand-crank party line wall phone--their ring pattern was one long and two shorts. I remember brown sugar sandwiches and the garage attic filled with stacks of National Geographics. They raised rabbits for a while, they were all pets to me. Every so often, though, one of my "pets" would disappear and that same night we'd always have "chicken" for supper. It took me a while to figure out that the chicken dinners were really my rabbit friends.

We also ate lots and lots of freshly caught fish, and I loved to fish. As I got older, I would take the boat out by myself and fish for hours. Gramps got tired of putting the worms on and taking the fish off so he finally told me that I would have to do it myself. I solved that situation by wearing heavy gloves. I laid the worm on the boat seat, then while scrunching up my nose and face, I'd work the hook into the worm. Sometimes I would forget to wash off the boat seats and would catch royal you-know-what from Gramps and Unkie. But that didn't get them as upset as the time I asked Unkie if I could use his hip-waders. "Sure, Judy," he said. Only I went in too deep and the water came in the tops of the waders and they filled up with Ponto Lake. Boy did he get mad!

I used to play lots of canasta and hearts, but Gram really loved playing solitaire. I spent parts of every summer with Gram, Gramps and Unkie. I remember in my younger years up there, with Mom sending me care packages filled with goodies. I remember best the sugar wafer cookies--I love them still to this day. Gram threatened to tie Michael and me up to the flagpole and sell us to the first Indians that came along. We both looked like little Indians, very dark skin, dark hair, mine in braids. One of Gram and Gramp's many Pinecrest customers from Iowa was Grandpa Jim. He wasn't really my grandpa, his name was Jim Hubbard, but to me his name was always Grandpa Jim. For Christmas, after Gram and Gramps moved to Ponto, Grandpa Jim carved a beautiful little wooden davenport and chair set for me, for my dollhouse. He varnished them and put little flower decals on them. I still have them and treasure them dearly. They are packed away with the rest of my other dollhouse furniture.

About the same time, Grandpa Jim also made Gram, Gramps, Unkie and myself each a silver ring fashioned out of coins. I can best describe them as being simple bands of silver. Mine was from a dime, Gram's was from a nickel, while Gramps' and Unkie's were out of quarters. We wore them all the time. Gram's and my ring today hang side-by-side in my memory box, over Gram's miracle whip chocolate cake recipe. Now they are tarnished black, yet hold very cherished memories. [Maybe one day one of you kids will choose to polish them up and wear them.] Gramps' and Unkie's rings went to their graves with them, I believe.

In 1957, Gram, Gramps and Unkie sold their Ponto home and moved 13 miles into Pine River, where they bought a nice little white framed house in town. Unkie died in the spring of 1960 while we were living in the projects in Aberdeen, MIssissippi. The fall of that year, Gram and Gramps sold their Pine River home and moved back to North St. Paul, living first in an apartment on 11th Avenue, then later moving to their apartment on 7th Street.

1942

I was the flower girl in Aunt Gerry and Uncle Bob's wedding in 1942. My long flower girl's dress and matching wide brimmed hat were so pretty. I remember the outfit as being a pinky-rose color.

1943

I started kindergarten in 1943, which was taught at the North St. Paul public school that housed all K - 12 grades. The thing that I remember most about Kindergarten was the sandbox filled with white sand right in the middle of the big classroom. There was a little house through which we could crawl in and out. It was similar to a big doll house; I really liked it. Once, our class went on a train ride, but for the life of me I don't remember where we went. My cousin, Greg Luger, was in the same kindergarten class with me and I do remember Mother and Aunt Helen saying that they would have never known we went on the same trip by the way we each described it at the time. We both had such different stories as to where we had been and what we had seen.

These were the War years. There was rationing of things like sugar, tires, gasoline and cigarettes. Uncle Al went into the Navy in 1943 and Aunt Kathryn and Michael went up North to live with Gram and Gramps until his discharge. Daddy's number came up with the Draft Board in 1943 or 1944. He was working for the Great Northern Railroad at the time. I remember so well the day he had to go down take his physical for the Draft. I just knew that my Daddy was going to be gone in the Army for a long time and I already missed him so much, so while he was down getting his physical, I sat at my little roll-top desk in the living room and wrote a letter to my Daddy. I didn't have to miss him for too long, however, he was declared 4-F because of his bad varicose veins.

Daddy worked for the railroad from 1941 to 1946. He worked at the Jackson Yards between Jackson and Mississippi Streets in Saint Paul. During so much of his later years with the railroad, I would have the same scary dream all the time. I would dream about apes chasing me, then I would wake up and hear Mom and Daddy downstairs, with Daddy getting ready to leave to catch the 5:30 a.m. streetcar for work. I was able to go back to sleep then, knowing that I was safe. It was really strange that when Dad quit working at the railroad, my ape dreams stopped as well.

I remember Daddy bringing home surprises home for me in his lunchbox. One time his lunchbox held a little kitten for me that he had found down at the railroad. I had a lot of fun with that cat, but it was rather short-lived as the cat started having fits. One day not log thereafter, we found the cat curled up stiff on the garden hose. Daddy won a live chicken on a raffle down at the railroad. I named him Whitey and wanted to keep him for a pet, so Daddy built a chicken coup for Whitey down in the basement. This must have been in the Fall of the year, cause Whitey lived with us over the Winter. When Spring came, Mom and Daddy decided it was time to have Whitey for dinner. I remember Whitey so well, but do not remember eating him. Mom and Dad said that Whitey was one tough chicken...too tough to eat. I guess Whitey got his revenge.

1944

First Grade was the beginning of my eight years spent at Saint Peter's Catholic School. Our nuns were the Sisters of St. Francis; they were such a dedicated group of teachers. I didn't really learn to appreciate them until I was much older. Back then, there were no school buses, at least not for the Catholic school. There wasn't a school lunch program either. In fact, if you lived in town, you couldn't even bring a lunch to school, you had to go home for lunch. Only the students that lived out in the country were permitted to bring their brown, paper bag lunches to school with them. In my later years at Saint Pete's they changed their policy and we were allowed to bring our lunch. That sure did save a lot of walking! We lived a good mile from school, which meant walking to school each morning, walking home for lunch, back to school after lunch, then finally back home after school. Each trip involved crossing the Soo Line railroad tracks. That was a lot of walking for such little kids, especially when you had to walk by yourself. I shudder to think of it now!

I well remember one time in the first grade when I had to make the lunch trip twice. I was on my way back to school after lunch when I met up with Suzette Fortier, who was on her way back too. It was a beautiful Spring day, and we dilly-dallied along the way, playing with some marbles in the water alongside the road. Needless to say, we were quite late in getting back to school. Sister Mariella was our first grade sister. She was just a little bit of a thing, young and oh so pretty. I didn't find out until many years later that we were her very first class of students...She was fresh out of the convent when she got us. Anyway, Sister mariella asked Suzette and me why we were late so we told her the truth about the marbles and the water and everything else, well she promptly told us to turn around and march on home! When I got home, Mom was in the kitchen ironing so I told her that I had been late and the Sister sent me home. She promptly sent me right back to school, along with a note saying something to the effect that I belonged in school, not at home. Suzette got to stay home the rest of the afternoon.

I remember getting the neatest little letters from Uncle Al and from Uncle Bob Husnik who were overseas fighting in the war. I already mentioned that Uncle Al was in the navy, but Uncle Bob went into the Army. The letters they wrote I believe were called V-letters. The serviceman would write his full-page letter, then it would be censored, of course, and then be run through a copy reducing machine of sorts. By the time it was received, the letter would be five by seven inches in size. I was so proud of those letters! I believe Mom used to keep them in a box in one of her dresser drawers. The last time I saw them was up in their bedroom during later school years. I sure wish that I still had those letters; I wonder what ever happened to them?

1945

Great Grandma Luger took me to the Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Baily circus. It was a big circus, under the big-top, not in a building like they are held these days. That was a real big adventure for me. We caught the street car, and off to the circus we went, just the two of us. It was held behind the now long-gone Lexington Ball Park out in the Midway. We sure had a lot of fun--Grandma especially, she loved the circus. Great Grandma Luger had the most beautiful rock garden and a big goldfish pond in the rock garden. We're not just talking run of the mill gold fish here...we're talking BIG goldfish. When the weather started turning cold, she would move all of her goldfish inside for the winter. To this day I have never seen an aquarium as large as Grandma's. I would guess it was about four feet across by two and a half feet deep, maybe three feet tall. How I loved feeding her fish! Great Grandma and Grandpa Luger had the most wonderous big house for a youngster to explore and play in. The only place in the house she wouldn't let me go was the basement. So of course, I always wanted to go down to the basement, but she would always give me the same answer--"No! It's just a dirty old basement and there is nothing down there for you." I remember all of the heavy looking, dark furniture, a lot of marble topped tables and oh how I loved her huge curved glass china closet, which held all the beautiful handpainted Haviland and Bavarian china plates and all of her other china and crystal treasures. I especially remember the dozen or more little green handled glass baskets that she would use at each place setting for candies and nuts. There was a big, round, heavy dining room table that Grandma used often, since she entertained frequently and was in many ladies clubs, church clubs, card clubs, etc.

Uncle Al got discharged from the Navy in 1945. They then bought their house on 7th Avenue at the top of Oak Hill. Mike and I were more like brother and sister than we were cousins.

1946

I was seven years old when I made my first communion in the second grade, Spring of 1946. Grandma Dittbrenner gave me a beautiful sterling silver rosary with my name and first communion date engraved on the back of the crucifix. That rosary was so special to me--I was the only person in my class to have a personalized rosary. Back then rosaries were used all the time. Today, I think you will only find the very oldest catholic generation still using them, those who loved the church as it used to be before all this modernization started taking over. There is much to be said for modernization, but I for one believe it ruined the Catholic church.

When Aunt Nolly was still single and living at home, she got a puppy. I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade at the time. She went on a vacation or something so we took care of little Blackie while she was gone, except Blackie never went back home as he became our dog from that point on. He was with us for four or five years, then had to be put to sleep because he had cancer real bad. He was such a good dog. For my 3rd grade Christmas, Aunt Nolly gave me a beautiful, 26 inch two-wheel bicycle. It was blue and creamy white, I think it was a Monarch, or something like that. Daddy and I walked it home in the snow.

Jim and Alice Neuman lived next door to us. Jim had the most beautiful, colorful yard--it was just like a park, which he manicured daily. He had a cemented goldfish pond with an arched foot bridge going over it. Like Great Grandma Luger, he had big goldfish stocked in it. When the weather turned cold in the fall, he would transfer the fish to the large aquarium in his bar on 7th Avenue, the main street going through North St. Paul's business district. The aquarium filled the whole front window of the bar, so passers-by could stop and look in at the fish. I remember him having unusually large frogs in there as well. Neuman's Bar is the oldest continuously operating bar in the state of Minnesota. Jim's father opened it in 1887 or 1888. Jim Neuman and I shared the same birthday. He was really a neat guy and would always throw coins--quarters, half dollars--into our yard for me to find.

1947 - 1949

I remember listening to WCCO and all of the serial programs on the big, floor model Philco radio in the dining room. My favorites were Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and his Dog, King; The Shadow; The Lone Ranger; and The Green Hornet. I won a beautiful big poster in a contest one time. It pictured Sergeant Preston in his bright red Canadian Mounted police uniform with King sitting at his side. I also had a Lone Ranger decoder and star gazing ring. I spent a lot of time in the dark coat closet looking into the end of the ring. It was a neat, glow in the dark affair. I remember that the Lux Radio Theater came on at 8:00 p.m. on Monday nights. Loretta Young hosted the show. I had to lay on the upstairs hall floor and listen to it through the open grate air register. My friends at school could listen to it, but I was supposed to be in bed by 8:00. Even so, we always talked about the show the next day! I remember the most sickening thing I ever heard on that radio was the news report out of Wisconsin regarding Ed Gien and all the ghoulish murders he committed. That was probably the worst thing I ever heard on the radio to this day.

When I got older--later grade school years and high school--my radio was perpetually tuned to KDWB. Back then it was our rock and roll station. I'd tune into it on Mom's kitchen radio, too, when I could get away with it. She did like some our music, and I must admit, I also liked a lot of Mom and Dad's kind of music.

I remember going ice skating on the pond across the alley and on Mud lake across the highway. Once, when I was 6 or 7, I fell through the ice. Ernie Minke, an older neighbor boy, rescued me. They filled the pond in and built a house there in 1955. In my high school years, I would sometimes take the streetcar down to the Saint Paul Auditorium to ice skate, in addition to the hours spent at the high school rink. I loved roller skating in the summer months. I would spend countless summer days on the steel roller skates, back and forth on the long Eighth Avenue sidewalk. I'd be on them for so long that my legs would still be vibrating hours after having taken them off.

I was eight years old and in the 3rd grade when Great Grandpa Luger died in 1947. Back then when someone died, they were usually laid out in the home instead of at the mortuary like they are today, and it was for a couple days not for a brief period as is the custom nowadays. I'll never ever forget sitting up on the stairs with cousins Don and Greg luger, just sitting there, looking over and down at Great Grandpa Luger laying in the casket. It was also the custom that the body never be left unattended, so Mom, Great Uncle Rollie, and Great Uncle Elmer stayed with Great Grandpa over the first night, then Daddy and Great Uncle Herb stayed up with Great Grandpa the next night.

I was in Brownies, Snoops, and later the Girl Scouts. I loved the day camps and the week-long camps while in the Girl Scouts. The most impressive thing I remember from day camps was frying eggs on a buddy burner, which was really a coffee can, and making little cakes in foil buried in the hot rocks of the camp fire, and especially all the neat craft things we made. I really enjoyed earning my Girl Scout badges and adhering them to my sash. I earned many badges, but those I was most proud of were my badges for sewing, needlecraft, photography, wood, handywoman, child-care, journalism, writer and all my nature badges. Thinking about it now, those favorite badges were really a good indication for the life ahead of me.

Snoops was really fun, it took place during the summer months. There were surprise trips and activities. You would know when there was a Snoop trip and for how long you'd be gone, but wouldn't find out until right before the destination of the trip. I would get so excited and nervous the night before a Snoop that I would spend a good share of the night in the bathroom. One Snoop trip in particular was a train ride down to Red Ring to have a picnic and to tour the Red Wing shoe factory and Red Wing Potteries. Another trip was to the KSTP studios in Saint Paul for a game show. The host of the show was Jimmy Valentine, a popular personality back then. I do not, however, remember the name of the game show. I and a couple others from our group were chosen as contestants. I remember winning a silver dollar and a game. Another trip was a tour of the artificial limb factory in Minneapolis.

I have so many happy memories of my grade school days at St. Pete's. I liked all of my sisters, they were each worthy of looking up to, each worthy of our respect--all save one, my sixth grade nun, Sister Doyle. I did not like her and she was not worthy of my respect. Our school year was spent in the same one room, where all of our subjects would be taught, in that same one room, by the same sister. When you began a new school year, you were then assigned a new room for that year, and on it went for eight years. I never repeated a grade, but I did get a repeat sister. Sister Loretto was my 2nd, 3rd and 5th grade sister. Sure was glad I like her so much.

We didn't know about lockers, our assigned desk was our locker as such and our outer clothing was kept in a large clothes closet in the back of the room. In later grades we did leave out room for music class. It was held down in the basement, in the same big room that we ate our lunch in once the home-for-lunch policy was changed.

Aunt Nolly had given me a sterling silver charm bracelet when I was young and added sterling charms to it for all different gift-giving occasions. I ended up with something like forty charms on it. One day in the 6th or 7th grade, I chanced wearing it to school. During music class of that day, Sister Annie, our music teacher, told me it was an unnecessary display of material goods. It was a disruption to her class and she told me that I should never wear it to school again. I never did. I think the bracelet broke over the years, but I hung on to most of the charms. I did get a new charm bracelet [when you kids were little] and put the old charms on it as well as some new ones that I picked up over the years. Every time I wear the bracelet to this day, I am reminded of Sister Annie.

I loved the yearly Christmas pageants which were always held on the stage in the church basement. My part was always that of an angel in my younger years, but from 6th through 8th grades I was in the choral group singing Christmas carols. I will never forget my 6th Christmas at St. Peter. We were all in the church basement practicing for the pageant when Father O'Reily announced to all of us that there wasn't a Santa Claus. I was devastated--how could he say such a terrible thing to all these little kids? How dare he say this to me?! He took a happy part of my childhood away from a whole school of youngsters that year and I will never forgive him for it! He lied--and a priest, of all people, shouldn't lie, because there is a Santa Claus!

I loved the beautiful May processions honoring the Blessed Virgin. We all carried flowers and placed them on the alter and at the beautiful statue of our Lady. Daddy built me my own little alter for my bedroom. It was made of wood (naturally), painted white, twelve inches wide by sixteen inches high. The two little tabernacle doors actually opened and inside was a little gold painted chalice. Every May I kept flowers on my alter at home--lily of the valley and mayflowers. I have no idea whatever happened to my alter, I sure do wish I had it today.

We had a beautiful little two level library at St. Peter's. To this day I love the feeling of a library. It was in the library and also in the convent that we would sit for hours helping the sisters dismantle parachutes to be used for making costumes for the yearly musicals and pageants. The nuns made such good use of everything and anything that was donated to them.

It was in the 6th grade that I met my very best and closest life-long friend, Margaret Malone. Her family moved from Saint Paul to East Larpenter Avenue, so she transferred to St. Peter's from St. John's Irish Catholic School. We were inseparable from then on. We classmates had such fun together--we seemed especially close, I suppose because for eight years we were always the same small group in the same small classrooms. You really got to know one another. Summers were fun, there were always picnics and bike trips and get-togethers. It seemed like we lived on our bikes--our favorite destination was Olson Lake and Lake Jane, out in what is now called Lake Elmo. Back then there were only a couple of houses around the lake, it was like the lake was ours. Mom and I loved sand turtles and many times I would bring yet another little turtle home with me from Olson Lake. I can't remember not having a turtle in the house during my school years, and they were always called Wally, Oscar or Sparkplug.

Another favorite haunt of ours was the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing dump which was on the way to Olson Lake. It was off the dirt road extension of South Avenue on the Washington County side. The area is now called Oakdale and the street is now 40th Street. The dump was in the woods that no longer exist, bounded by 40th Street and Hadley Avenue North, not far from where 694 is now. We knew the time of the day that the truck was scheduled to come, so we'd be there with our bikes hidden from sight in the trees, lying in the weeds. The 3M guard would dump his load and set fire to it. He'd wait around a few minutes, then take off. As soon as his truck was out of sight, we would scurry to the burning pile and pull out all the scotch tape, ribbon, and what have you that had not been touched by the flames. We could never understand how or why the mining would throw away such good stuff. Needless to say, we always had plenty of scotch tape seconds and rolls of ribbon at home. A necessity for the time was having a big wire basket for the front of your bike. We also rode our bikes to Phalen Lake a lot, and of course Silver Lake was like a second home to us. Many of us lived a great distance from each other, but we always managed either by bicycle or streetcar to get to each other's homes. We'd take the streetcar to our friends' homes in Willernie and Mahtomedi and bike or hike to all the other homes. I was the only "only" child in the group, all the others came from families with four to eleven children. I enjoyed being at all their homes because of all the noise, goings-on, etc. They all seemed to enjoy the quiet of my house!

How well I remember the Rialto Theater in North St. Paul and the ten cent movies. I spent a lot of time in that now-gone theater watching Abbot and Costello, Roy Rogers, Hop-along Cassidy. I even enjoyed the newsreel segments, Joe Doaks and his behind the eight-ball series and especially the great cartoon before each movie started. I believe the Rialto closed down in 1956.

All the stores I remember the most and liked the best from my childhood are all gone now. My mind goes back to a December evening shortly before Christmas. I got my little bit of money and walked down to the Village to do my Christmas shopping for Mom and Daddy. My destination was Galles Variety Store. It was such a beautiful night, the moon was out and the snow was softly falling and our little Village business district had Christmas carols playing over a P.A. system. It was such a peaceful, beautiful night and the Village was so pretty--it's how I like to remember the Village of my childhood.

I used to love dolls and paper dolls. My most favorite dolls were Lula Belle and Sandy Lee. Lula Belle had a hard composition head, arms and legs attached to a fabric covered stuffed body. Michael pulled the head off her in the back of Uncle Al's and Aunt Kath's light blue Hudson Hornet on the way up to Gram and Gramps. I was eleven years old when I got Sandy Lee from the Bannons Department store on East 7th Street in Saint Paul. She had a soft, rubber covered stuffed body and I fell in love with her at first sight. Mom, however, said I didn't need her because I had too many dolls already. How I cried and cried for that doll. Evidently Daddy couldn't take it anymore because the he came home with her the next day. Mary Ellen poked Sandy Lee's feet full of pin holes one summer up at Gram and Gramp's. I never forgave her for that.

I would sit for hours under the big elm tree in the back yard and cut my own paper dolls and clothing out of Monkey Wards catalogs. Also under that same tree I would sit and write stories. Wish I would have saved some of those stories, would dearly love to read them today. Grandpa Bender planted that elm tree. It was a huge, beautiful shade tree, but in the early 1970's it was lost to Dutch elm disease and cut down.

1950

We got our first car in the Spring of 1950--a 1938 Chevrolet. Daddy paid $300 for it. Uncle Al had talked Daddy into buying it; he said it was a good car. We had to get rid of it a few months later as it died a final death. We did go to Itaska Park in that car. While there, I fell in love with a little leather bound Indian Law book at a souvenir shop in Park Rapids. There wasn't much that I wanted and did not get--but this was one of those times. I wanted that little Indian book so much, it had Indian signs in it and much more. I still remember that book, wish I could have had it, but Mom said no.

We got our 1949 torpedo-back Chevy that same summer. It was a demonstrator model, so a new car, really. We went up to the Superior National Forest in that car. It was while driving through the forest in the car that Mom and Daddy told me that I was going to have a baby brother or sister. What a nice shock! Although what I had always wanted was a big brother, not a baby brother or sister, I was thrilled with the happy news nonetheless.

I sure enjoyed spending time at Aunt Kath's and Uncle Al's. I remember Uncle Al as being gone much of the time due to his job with as a railway mail clerk. Aunt Kath would have to go and get him at all hours of the night when he got off his run. She would let me bake cookies whenever I wanted, never caring how many dishes I used or how big a mess I made in the process. She had such an infectious giggle and laugh, she was just so much fun to be with, although I don't think things were very happy for her. I remember one time she and I were shelling peas for supper, except we ate most of the peas as we were shelling. When we finished, we laughed so hard because we didn't have enough for supper we had eaten so many. Speaking of supper, there was one thing Aunt Kath made, and made often, because it was cheap. She cooked up elbow macaroni and mixed it with tomato soup or tomato sauce, and that was it! Oh how I hated that stuff and to this day, I have never used elbow macaroni with tomatoes in any form.

Aunt Kath and Uncle Al had a T.V. before we got one. It was a little round-screened T.V. Aunt Kath loved wrestling, and she would get up real close to the screen and yell, scream and boo. Watching T.V. up there was really a big deal. Finally, in the fall of that year, we got our first T.V. set so Mom could watch the World Series. The New York Yankees were playing the Philadelphia Phillies. The Yankees won the series in four games. In 1952, Aunt Kath, Uncle Al, Michael and Patty moved to California the summer between my 8th and 9th grades. The day they moved was a particularly sad day in my life.