Good Living In
Free
West Frankfort Volume 2 No.3 Fall 2008
($3.95 value)
Showcasing the People, Places and Pride of West Frankfort, Illinois
Teen Town Revisited The Black March Halloween Genes Joe and Mamie Yusko An Emotional Farewell Miss Bernhard 20 Questions for McCain and Obama Fall • 2008
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Good Living In
West Frankfort
Vol. 2 No.3 ....
Letters
Table of Contents 4
We get letters
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12 There have been several teen towns in West Frankfort over the years. Local barber Rick Henson takes Good Living in West Frankfort back to revisit perhaps the most successful one of all.
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Readers respond enthusiastically to another issue of “Good Living in West Frankfort”.
8 At the close of WWII, thousands of captured American prisoners of war were ordered by their German guards to evacuate their camp. Robert Ice was one of those who was in the Black March.
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People from all over Southern Illinois packed Paschedag Auditorium on August 22, to show their support for the local National Guard unit as they deployed to Afghanistan. Halloween is a traditional Fall holiday that is enjoyed by millions of Americans for generations. But not all people have inherited the “Halloween Gene”.
21 Joe and Mamie Yusko were able to carve out a living for themselves and their five children through hard work and determination. And along the way they also created a lot of memories for many others. 26 Twenty questions we’d like to ask Senators McCain and Obama.
Genelle Rissi
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28 Carolyn Bernhard grew up in West Frankfort and attended SIU where she graduated with a degree in Art Education. Nearly 50 years later, she has an improbable reunion with one of her students.
Gail Rissi
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Good Living in West Frankfort is a magazine about the people, places and pride of West Frankfort. Our goal is to showcase interesting, unique and previously unpublished stories about the citizens, events and places in our community in a positive manner. Good Living in West Frankfort provides businesses the choice to advertise in a high-quality full-color venue at affordable prices. This magazine is free to our readers because of those advertisers. No portion of this publication, including photos and advertisements, may be reproduced in any manner without the expressed consent of Good Life Publications.©2008 Printed quarterly: Spring, Summer, Fall and Holiday Season. Cover Photo by Michael A. Thomas: Kenny Gray and his wife Toedy wave to the crowd during this year’s Old King Coal Parade. Gray was honored during the festival with a “Lifetime of Service Award” by the West Frankfort Chamber of Commerce.
Good Living In
West Frankfort
A production of Good Life Publications 309 East Oak Street West Frankfort, IL 62896 (618) 937-2019 Published Quarterly: (Spring • Summer • Fall • WInter) Copy By: Gail Rissi Thomas / e-mail: pollyagain@aol.com Photos By: Michael A. Thomas / e-mail: mthomas100@mchsi.com Design Layout : Michael A. Thomas
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Letters We Get Letters
70 Years of West Frankfort Memories
I wish you all the best regarding “GOOD LIVING IN WEST FRANKFORT”, it was a real treasure to receive.
Dear Mrs. Thomas: Kindest Regards, What a wonderful surprise my wife Alice and I received from life long W.F. friends Larry and Myrna Warren, when we opened our mail and found your publication of GOOD LIVING IN WEST FRANKFORT, I read it cover to cover. My family left W.F. in 1942 at the start of World War II and moved to Chicago. I was about 12 years old at that time. We lived on East Elm Street in W.F. near the old 149 Grill that was owned by former W.F. Mayer Orville Nolen. What a treat it was for all the kids to receive one of Orville’s skinny hamburgers and his wife Ethel’s wonderful home made pies and to hang out at Mike’s Grill on Main Street and then ride up and down Main Street a dozen times. My dad Harry D. Weaver was a former W.F. policeman and later the Chief Deputy Sheriff of Franklin County when the notorious Berger and Sheldon gang wars were going on in the late 1920’s. After my parents passed on I gave a great deal of the memorabilia of that era to the Logan School Museum where I attended school thru 6th grade. One of my old school chums was former Congressman Kenneth Gray. I have many memories of W.F. going back over 70 years of former families and experiences there. I still think of W.F. as home even though we have traveled the world and lived in Chicago for 68 years. My mother Olen and sister Letthus were all FCHS alumnia about 1938. The family history goes back to the early 1800’s in Southern Illinois, so you can see why I still think of W.F. as home.
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Glenn H. Weaver Chicago, Il 60659 Correction to Wild Women of West Frankfort Story I loved the article on your mom’s canasta club, but I did want you to know one thing. If you mean Gladys is the last living member here in town, ok, but my Aunt Wilma (Monaghan) is still very much alive. Thought you might be interested in that. Nancy Summers (West Frankfort) George Castleton Remembers West Frankfort (Ed. Note:There are times when we’ve received letters about the magazine or about specific stories that we have written, and because we’ve established a kind of dialogue with those individuals we don’t really think of them as “Letters to the Editor”. I realized the other day that our readers are missing out on the opportunity to enjoy one writer whose regular letters are so rich with memories and images that we really owe it to all of you to share his writings. George Castleton, now a resident of Moweaqua, Illinois, has added details to nearly every article we have written. We always enjoy knowing that he has enjoyed our magazine and that something he has read has stirred a memory or story of his own.
Castleton attended FCHS and left West Frankfort three days after graduation in 1943 to fight in World War II. He is a prolific and talented writer who has written a novel about his senior year in West Frankfort, his military service in training and then as a soldier fighting the war in Italy. It is our hope that we might eventually publish that novel in some form. These are excerpts taken from context from his letters, although some may refer to previous issues of Good Living in West Frankfort other than the most recent.) April 29, 2008 …Thanks for sending me the new magazine, Spring. I enjoyed it all. Letters: I recall Dr. Richard Lee and his father-in-law, W.C..Burris, pastor of my Christian Church in the 1940’s. Easters I played in the FCHS band at the football field for Easter Sunrise Service. Then to the Christian Church for bacon and eggs with my first love who today turns 82. Saw her last 50 years ago. The Billy Sunday article was interesting. Get this! My mother attended his sermon at the big vacant lot near Central School and I still have four pages of Billy’s exhortation to those attending that day, (papers now 81 years old,) that my mother gave to me. I recall well the telephone operators above Steve’s Candy Kitchen on Main Street. Went up to operator’s workplace by steel fire escape in alley. In the 1930’s Gardner Hill, north of hospital was roped off to allow many to sled there. It was a long walk from bottom to top. I did not know about Martin Luoto, World’s Heaviest Man. I did know well Glendine Purcell, married Butch Hamilton. Glendine could put fingers in her mouth and whistle loud and shrilly. I never could. I tried. The old WF Bank on Main Street. George Lockard, President, loaned me $75 on a 90 day note. I used it to get married in 1951. Married by Oscar Wild at the Christian Church. Wedding short and sweet. She died at age 57 of a brain tumor I sure enjoyed your magazine. Good Job!
August 13, 2008 Gail, I’m sending you the same letter I sent to my 8 army buddies. 4 of 8 wounded in Italy. All of us 82 or older. Been in touch for 63 years. “63 years ago tonight I’m in Chicago with Jim Lockwood and Tom “Red” Leach. We three never left the loop in downtown Chicago. We caught separate trains for home from Deerborn Station. I was so very happy to have survived combat and get home. I never slept at all for the next 8 hours. The next 30 days were pure heaven! Seven of us (family) in one house. It even had indoor bathroom and a coal furnace in the basement! Spent V-J night at the high school with my first love. We had been out of touch for the last several months. V-J Day, August 15 started a steady stream of memories. Danced to Les Brown at Lyman Hotel, Herrin, IL Dined at Tom’s Eatery near Carbondale Swam at Lake Benton, IL Trip to Pounds Hollow near old Shawneetown Saw movie, “Now Voyager” with Betty Davis. (Music from this movie haunted me for years.) Went to church every Sunday. Oh glorious times! My heart in heaven! Needless to say our camaraderie is a great high point of my long years.” August 14, 2008 It was enjoyable to read in your magazine that your mother and her lady friend were in Pete’s Pool Hall, where no women were allowed in West Frankfort. Soon after WWII, on a coal miners’ payday, as I passed the pool hall, I saw a lady imploring her husband to come to the door near the sidewalk. I assumed she needed some of his paycheck to pay bills before it was all gone. I walked on
and do not know if he ever came to the door to her.
Drugs . It was at the corner of Main and Anna Streets. He had a good business, drugs, soda fountain and sandwiches. I would love to walk back and forth down Main Street one more time. Never will. I am too weak to leave the house. I have no complaints.
August 28, 2008 I enjoyed your call yesterday. In reference to your questions: My sister and I rode a train with only two or three cars from the WF Depot to St. Louis in 1944. I was home on Warmest Regards, furlough and returning to Cpl. Swift, George Allen Castleton Texas. I was told that in the late 1920’s a train took fans from WF to Johnston City to Please Support The Advertisers see a high school That Make This Publication Possible basketball game. In 1917 I took a train from Elkville to see my dad’s family. Few hard roads in those days. Coal miners rode a train from WF to Orient to work there at Orient #1. Soon after WWII for a short while a bus ran from the Heights to the west end of WF, on Main Street only. Soon after WWII, (1946) your dad took my photo in full dress uniform, because my mother wanted it. Of course I still have it. Two Christmases I worked at J.V. Walker and Sons Clothing Store as an extra clerk. In 1942, when I was a senior, I worked as a clerk at Martin’s
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Please support our advertisers : Abbey Real Estate ................ pg. 25 All American Hearing .......... pg. 11 American Legion .................. pg. 24 Atomic Home ........................ pg. 13 Banterra Bank ...................... pg. 30 BFJ Interiors .............. Inside Front Brandon & Stacy Sawalich ..Back Browning Clark Repair ....... pg. 5 Calico Country ..................... pg. 6 Coleman-Rhoads ........ Inside Front Decorating Den ..................... pg. 14 Dr. Dale Brock ...................... pg. 15 Dr. Fred Whitlatch ............... pg. 24 Dr. Stephen Ponton .............. pg. 29 E. R Brown .................Inside Front First Christian Church ....... pg. 31 Gandy’s Body Shop ............. pg. 24 Heartland Radiology ........... pg. 18 Heights Market .................... pg. 19 Herron Chiropractic ............ pg. 25 Howell Insurance ................. pg. 15 Jacoby Chiropractic ............ pg. 15 Johnson Realt Estate ........... pg. 18 Kreative Design Showcase .. pg. 27 Live Green ........................... pg. 24 McCord’s Market ............... pg. 12 McCollum Real Estate ........ pg. 31 McDonald’s .......................... pg. 6 McGinty Auto Sales ............ pg. 25 Mike Riva, Attorney ............ pg. 27 Nolen Chiropractic .............. pg. 5 Parker-Reedy Funeral ........ pg. 27 Professional Pharmacy ....... pg. 22 Ramey Insurance Agency ... pg. 24 Rick’s Barbershop .............. pg. 15 Sandy’s Flowers & Gifts .... pg. 27 Severin’s .............................. pg. 19 Southern Illinois Bank ....... pg. 20 SI Event Center .................. pg. 20 Sotlar-Herrin Lumber ........ pg. 22 Taste of Home Entertaining pg. 13 Union Funeral Home .......... pg. 25 Varis Stone Funeral ............ pg. 12 Volanski Heating & Air ..... pg. 31 Weeks Chevrolet ................. pg. 31 Wells Big & Tall .................. pg. 20 WF Chamber of Commerce pg. 31 WF House Furnishings ..Inside Fr. Wrights Electronics ............ pg. 5
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4.49
Letter from the
Publisher
“October. This is one of the particularly dangerous months to speculate on stocks in. The others are July, January, April, September, November, May, June December, August and February.” Maybe good advice, maybe not, but it’s certainly timely. OK, I didn’t say it. I wish I had. Actually Mark Twain said it first. I can’t find out when it was, but for certain it was before 1910 because that was when he died. It’s funny, because it pretty much sums up what’s been going on in our lives for the last month or two, and in our minds its probably edged out all the good stuff like changing leaves, football games, festivals and reunions. Oh yes, Halloween, if you happen to be a fan. For me it ranks right up there with flu shots and bobbing for apples. For starters, isn’t it nice to see Congressman Ken Gray’s smiling face on the cover this issue? Mike caught him and his wife in the Old King Coal parade waving at the crowd. If anyone should grace the cover of Good Living in West Frankfort, it’s the community’s native son. I did have to share my thoughts about the worst holiday of the year in “Halloween Genes.” I hope you don’t mind. Again, I apologize for being so self-absorbed, but writers have to write about what they know and what I know best is family, my kids and me. I have to think that some of these experiences are universal enough that I will hear from someone who says, “I know just what you mean.” Michael took over some of the writing responsibilities this issue. His story about Carolyn Bernhard, a West Frankfort native, is interesting, not only because it credits her career as an effective and dedicated art teacher, but it is also rich with the coincidence of their connection years ago when he was in junior high in Kankakee. He never dreamed that he and she would meet up again in West Frankfort. In fact, West Frankfort wasn’t even on his map at the time. Since so many of our readers are of the baby boomer crowd, I know they’ll remember Teen Town. Our account of what went on there in the late fifties and early sixties is only a smattering of all the stories that could have been included. Of course time and space prohibited gathering memories from many more individuals, but we welcome your letters with stories that you would like to share. Don’t miss the story about Mamie’s Sweet-Shop. It was an important place for many West Frankfort kids and I’m sure it will conjure up a storehouse of personal memories and stories for many of you. Again, send them to us and we’ll share them in the next issue. When we heard about Robert Ice and his participation in the “Black March” during WWII, I knew immediately that was another story that was in my husband’s domain. He has always been an avid student of war history, and I know that his knowledge and questions would take him and Mr. Ice deep into the details of the experience. It is a beautiful story, humbling to read all that one WWII soldier endured so that we may enjoy life in this country the way we do. I don’t know how many of you attended the deployment ceremony in West Frankfort in late August. It too was humbling and as a way of showing our gratitude to those young men and women, we have included a small photographic essay of that night. While we’re talking about veterans, please note the collection of excerpts from George Castleton’s letters, one of our faithful readers and another WWII veteran. We have never met in person, but we have become acquainted through Good Living in West Frankfort and his correspondence has been a joy. So as we move out of golden October and into rustic November, there are new things to occupy our minds. Lets hope sincerely that the economy and the presidential election aren’t overwhelming. There are too many good things about November: turkey and dressing, a gathering of families and friends and the first real planning for the Christmas holiday. But November is special for another singular commemoration. Every day in our community and throughout Southern Illinois, heroes walk among us. When you get the opportunity, hug a veteran. Shake his or her hand and thank them for all they’ve done. Pray for our troops. So much of what we have to be thankful for is because of their sacrifice. God bless them all. And God bless America.
Gail Rissi Thomas, Publisher
Fall • 2008
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The Black March
Photo Provided
On Feb. 5, 1945, over 6,000 allied prisoners of war left Stalag Luft IV, a German P.O.W. camp located in northern Poland, to begin a forced march that would last nearly three months and cover 600 miles. Enduring cruel conditions, rampant disease and little food, the men struggled to stay alive. Called the “Black March”, Ma it is perhaps the most neglected story in the history of WWII. This is the account of one of those men, airman Robert Ice, who managed to survive unbearable conditions and return to his hometown of West Frankfort. Camp photo and some story information courtesy of B-24 Net,The Official Website of the 392nd Bomb Group and the internets largest research resource of Europes POW Luft history.
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go. I really don’t think that pistol could have fired if he had tried, but none of us wanted to find out. He marched us into Robert Ice may owe his life to a town and pretty soon a crowd of about young German girl, but he will never 40 or 50 gathered around us. They were know for sure. What the 83 year-old all hollering and hooting. We couldn’t West Frankfort resident does know is tell what they were saying, but we that he survived one of the most gruelknew they were angry. Then this little ing, yet practically unknown, forced girl comes out who could speak a little marches in WWII history. English. She would ask us something Ice was not a part of the Bataan Death and then she would talk to them. I don’t March, the infamous forced march of know what she told them, but after about nearly 75,000 American and Filipino 3 or 4 hours some German soldiers got troops following the fall of Coregidor in us and took us away. I think that little the Philippines in 1942. His journey begirl saved our lives. No telling what they gan in Germany, in the middle of winter, would have done to us if she hadn’t been 1945, lasted nearly 90 days and covered there.” at least 500 miles. After spending 3 days in solitary Ice enlisted in the Air Force in January confinement in Frankfurt, Ice was taken of 1944. After training he was sent to to Stalag Luft IV, a prisoner of war camp England with the 401st Bomb at Tychow, Poland. The Group. He was the tail-gunner prison camp was not as bad on a B-17, a heavy bomber that as some. Prisoners were not usually contained a crew of 10. forced to work and there “I wanted to be the bellywere some recreation at the gunner but me and another camp, but Ice says it was guy drew straws and he won,” mainly plenty of boredom. Ice said. “Luckily I got the tail “The barracks had about which is the best and safest 12 rooms. Each room had spot in the plane. You have a a pot-bellied stove for heat door right next to you that you but the rooms were small can bail out of anytime you are and there were 20 of us ordered to.” in each room,” Ice said. It was on his 13th mission “There were not enough that Ice and his B-17 were shot beds and I slept on the floor. down. “When people ask me The guards didn’t bother us. how many missions I flew I There was no torture or anytell them 12 and a half,” Ice Robert Ice was stationed with the 8th Air Force 401st Bombardment Group thing like that. They didn’t (Heavy) stationed in Deenethorpe, England. Ice (standing far right) was the joked. “We got shot down even go into the rooms that tail-gunner in a B-17 bomber crew piloted by F.E. Rundell (kneeling, far left). over Merseburg (Germany) on I can remember.” The bomber was shot down by enemy flak during a boming run over MeresNovember 11, 1944. Before we But hunger was always burg, Germany on November 11, 1944. All nine crew members survived. got to our target we got hit by (photo provided) on the men’s minds. Red flak--the sky was filled with it. Cross POW packages were We started to bail out but the been bombing the German cities pretty withheld on a regular basis and the Gercaptain told us to stay put, he thought we good and they hated us. But we couldn’t man guards would often take the best had a chance to get back so none of us find any soldiers.” items before giving the remainder to the bailed. The door was open right by my “We knocked on the door of this prisoners. The men were happy to get side so I could have jumped, but I didn’t. farmhouse—very politely—and an old anything extra as they were fed a sparse The next thing I knew the pilot told us all man and his daughter were inside. We diet of about 700 calories a day. “I made to hang on and we landed in a field.” couldn’t speak any German and they a pact early on with three other guys. Miraculously, all nine crewmembers couldn’t speak any English, but they Whatever one got we all got. So if one us survived. After running to the woods could understand that we wanted somegot a potato we divided it into four parts. next to the field, the nine Americans asthing to eat.” I don’t care if it was a stick of gum. We sessed their chances at making it back to After giving the trio some bread and divided it.” Amazingly, Ice said he never friendly lines. butter, the old farmer produced a pistol saw one fight or argument over food. “We decided our best chance was to and motioned for the men to leave. On February 6,1945, with the Russplit up into three groups of three,” Ice “There was a village a short distance sians closing in on Germany in the said. “We would go in different direcaway and that’s where he wanted us to East, the order was given for the prisontions and try to make our way back (to
By Michael A. Thomas
France). Me, the co-pilot and the waist gunner formed one group. We stayed loose for three days with no food and it was getting to be winter.” Ice said the men were not dressed for harsh conditions. “Our flight suits were light weight. In fact they had wires in them like electric blankets that we plugged in when we flew.” His boots were not made for rough terrain either. “After three days we were hungry and cold. My boots were already falling apart. We had maybe walked about 20 miles when we found a farmhouse.” The men realized that their best chance for survival would be to turn themselves in to civilians. “They told us in training if we ever got shot down not to do that,” Ice said. “Turn yourselves in to soldiers, not civilians, because we had
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ers to evacuate the camp. The prisoners were given a coat and two blankets. They were also allowed access to the Red Cross parcels and many captives began their journey with heavy loads. “A lot of them got greedy,” Ice said. “Some of those guys were taking two or three boxes and those things were heavy.” But after a few miles most of them lightened their burdens in order to keep pace. At the time they did not know that the march would last three months Historians estimate 6,000 captured airmen began the march. Most, but not all of them, were Americans.The German guards divided them into groups of 250 to 300, few of which traveled the same route or at the same pace. On the day the camp was evacuated the temperature was in the teens and there was over a foot of snow on the ground. “The boys up in front took a beating knocking through all the snow,” Ice said. “I was lucky, my group was in the back.” Historians say it was one of the worse winters of the century. Frostbite was common and Ice said he has had foot problems ever since.“I have very little feeling in my feet to this day.” After the Red Cross parcels ran out, hunger became a problem. “We usually got a potato a day which we didn’t have to share,” Ice recalled. “But you were always hungry.” Some accounts relate prisoners eating the bark from trees to stem hunger though Ice said he never did. “But one time when we were stopped I noticed a field that had mounds of something covered with snow,” Ice said. “We figured it might be potatoes so we went over to it. Of course it was frozen so I found a 2 by 4 and started beating on it.” Hr succeeded in making a hole and stuck in his arm to retrieve his prize. “I started smelling something and then I realized it wasn’t potatoes. It was manure. They had collected it to fertilize the fields in the spring,” he laughed. ‘They didn’t leave much (food) in the fields. They were probably almost as bad off as we were.” Ice estimated his group traveled southwest about 700 miles through Poland and Germany. Historians and others estimate it was likely closer to 600. “We walked in the snow and the rain,” Ice said. “Four of us got together and decided that four would have a lot better chance than one.
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One of us—Gates was his name—got so weak that we took turns carrying him along. He would put one arm on one of our shoulders and the other on another of us and we kind of drug him. Finally, after two or three days, we got so weak that we couldn’t do it any longer. We stopped to rest and we left him along the side of the road. His last words to us were ‘that’s OK, I need a rest anyway’. ”We went all the way around Berlin and when it all ended I was pretty close to the place where we got shot down,” Ice recalls. “If we were lucky at night we would sleep in a barn but usually it was just a field or in the forest.” Disease and dysentery were rampant. As were lice. “When the weather warmed up they really came to life,” Ice said. “When we would stop for a rest it got comical—all of our pants would come down and we would start picking lice. But there were way too many, you couldn’t pick them all.” For more than three months the prisoners wore the same clothes. Escape was not an option for Ice, even though he said it would have relatively easy to do. “The guards were a rag-tag outfit of old men –not good enough for regular soldiers—so they made them guards. We discussed our chances of escaping but there wasn’t much hope. Where would we have gone? Besides, we knew the war was going to end soon. So did the Germans. When we asked them where we were going, the guards would laugh and say, ‘ask Eisenhower, he’ll be here soon’.” Liberation came on April 26. After 80 days of pushing towards a destination that probably changed daily, the tired prisoners found themselves in a barn somewhere in the heart of Germany. “The Germans just left us in a barn, we didn’t even notice them leaving,” Ice said. “I will never forget that day, seeing those American soldiers walking toward us, a whole raft of them. We started cheering.” Ice thinks it was the 101st Airborne that they saw that morning. The United States had set up Camp Lucky Strike at Janville, France, for the sole purpose of housing liberated prisoners and it was there that Robert soon found himself. After being deloused and given clean clothing he unceremoniously burned the clothes that he had
been wearing for many months. The GI’s were fed a soft diet with no seasoning to recondition their digestive system to normal rations. To Ice it didn’t matter. After being on starvation rations for months, the food ‘tasted great’. The hospital at Camp Lucky Strike was near an old German airfield that was now being used by the Allies and one day, while exploring the camp, Ice and a buddy found their way to the landing strip. “We saw a plane from my old group— we could tell from the tail markings— and I talked to the pilot and asked if we could go back to England with him.” The pilot turned his back and the pair stowed away in the tail section. When back at his home base Ice was feted as a celebrity of sorts. His comrades took up a collection of over $400—about $4,000 in today’s dollars— and his colonel gave him a 30-day leave. Robert used both to head toward Bristol, a few hours away, where his brother Paul had been stationed. “I was pretty sure he was still there, but if not I was gonna ship out to the U.S. anyway,” said Ice. “I found him. He was guarding German prisoners of war,” Ice said, shaking his head at the irony. After spending several joyous days with his brother, Robert came home from England aboard the Queen Mary and landed in Boston. Eventually he made it back home to West Frankfort where his mother told him she would make anything he wanted for his first meal. “I asked for all my favorite things and she kind of made it into a sandwich,” said Ice. “Two eggs, with bacon and cheese, between two pancakes.” After the war, Ice married and settled in West Frankfort. “I was a coal miner and was also elected Franklin County Sheriff in 1966,” Ice said. Ice jokes that he would still be sheriff today but they had a one-term limit back then. He still resides in West Frankfort with his wife Eleanor.
Steven Sawalich Hearing Aid Specialist
Trent Hudgens Hearing Aid Specialist
Fall • 2008
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Remembering Teen Town: 1957 - 1966 There have been several ‘Teen Towns’ in West Frankfort over the years. This is the story of perhaps the most successful one of them all.
T
he first thing I noticed as we climbed the steep stairs to the second floor above what used to be Van Wood Electric was the smell. It wasn’t a bad smell. It wasn’t even an odor of must or decay. It was just the smell of an old building, a little stale maybe. But the most surprising thing about it was that as long as the upper floor of the building had been closed up and unused, the smell was the very same that it had been over 40 years ago when it was teeming with life and the comings and goings of young people several times each week.. I think I would have known where I was if I had been led up the steps blindfolded. The smell was the personality of the building. It was the smell of Teen Town. I might as well have been blindfolded. Don McCord Owner
As I rounded the corner at the top of the stairs, I made a quick decision that it was simply too dark to go another step. There was no power and the windows were boarded up. It was pitch black. I hung back near the stairs and let my husband and Rick Henson take their chances stumbling with a flashlight through the huge room that once was the booming dance hall and the incubator of lasting friendships, young love affairs and broken hearts. Henson owns most of the block that includes the building which houses his barber shop and housed the Youth Center from the late 1950’s until about 1966. He was kind enough to use a part of his Sunday afternoon to let us visit the second floor of his property to try to capture photos of anything that was left of the
•Butcher Block Quality Meat •Home Delivery Service
McCord’s Market 501 South Logan West Frankfort, IL Phone: 618-937-4146 Fax: 618-932-3972
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Fall • 2008
By Gail Rissi Thomas
(Special thanks to Rick Henson, Larry DeMattei and Genelle Bedokis for their help on this article.)
ambiance for the old gathering place. There wasn’t much there. With Henson holding a light, Michael photographed the drawings that decorated the walls of the large dance room. The booths that had lined the west wall and the brightly colored jukebox were long gone. It took a conversation with Dorothy Burkitt to bring some hazy memories of the Teen Town’s heyday into focus. From the late 1950’s until 1964, Dorothy and her husband, Fred, now deceased, were chaperones at Teen Town along with her sister and brother-in-law, Carolyn and Maynard Arnett. “It was just great,” Burkitt says. “It was a fun time. We were young, so we were friends with the kids, but I think we really tried to be role models too.”
This was not the first teen town that Burkitt remembers in West Frankfort. There were earlier versions of the teen town above Van Woods. “The first teen town that I know of was above the A & P Store, where Movie Gallery is now. It burnt down and the next one was on the third floor of the Elks Building. “That one was really, really nice,” Burkitt recalls. “It had a huge dance floor and really nice restrooms. I went a few times, but hardly anyone was there. It just never caught on.” But for whatever reason, the teen town on West Main “caught on” from the very first week. Maybe because the project was managed by the kids themselves and they thought of the center as belonging to them. Teen Town opened in 1957, and it must have been a true example of necessity being the mother of invention. “Before teen town, we used to go out to the asphalt basketball courts of Garretts Prairie School east of town,” says Brent Coleman, one of the original organizers. “We would pull our cars around in a circle, turn on the lights and tune the radios to Randy’s Record Shop, the show that we all listened to. The middle of the circle was our dance floor.” . “When we got the building, we didn’t call it teen town,” Coleman says. “We agreed among ourselves that every town around had a teen town. Ours would be called West Frankfort Youth Center, and we stuck to it.” Coleman remembers the paper drives and scrap metal drives that were held to raise money for the renovation of the second story of the building which needed many improvements. “We had a youth board and an adult board. The kids got in there and cleaned the floors and everything. It took a lot of work. Carol Hengst drew the pictures on the walls. At first we just had some old sofas and chairs and stuff that was donated.
Then I remember that Mike Marchildon and I went over to a hotel in Herrin that had had a fire. He and his sister Angela and their parents were very instrumental in getting things started. We got the frames from the booths that were left there, and we eventually raised enough money to buy enough vinyl to have them reupholstered. The red leather booths lined the west wall of the dance floor.” The students had a hand in hiring their own chaperones too. Burkitt remembers being interviewed by both the adult board and the youth board before she and her husband took the responsibility of being in charge. Chaperones were paid $20 per week per couple for Tuesday, Friday and Saturday nights that the center was open. Rules that were established then were much the same as I remember in the mid 1960’s. In addition to the dance hall, there were a couple of pool tables in a separate room in the back. It wasn’t a written rule, but girls didn’t usually go back there to play pool or for much of any reason as far as I knew. Between the pool room and the main room was, yes, believe it or not, a smoking area. My, times have changed. Our “ownership” in the youth center made us responsible for taking care of it. A dollar a year made you a member and each time you attended it cost you a dime. In addition, members had to take turns about one night every few months cleaning up, which amounted to staying until after the center closed. Girls would collect soda bottles, and clean tables. Guys would do “guy chores” such as sweeping the dance floor and taking out trash. “Oh yes,” Burkitt remembers, “On the night you had to clean, you got in free.” “I think there were a few other written rules, she adds. “No cursing, no drinking, of course, oh, no gambling. I
Local barber Rick Henson, who owns the building on the 100 block of West Main Street that houses the old Teen Town, goes up the red staircase that was the single entrance into the facility.
remember one boy getting suspended from teen town for gambling. Rules like ‘No bullying,’ were not even considered. It just wasn’t a factor in those days. Kids seemed to be pretty nice to one another and nice to us too. I loved the kids and I loved the music. Many of the kids would come out and sit on the red couch in the office with me and visit for a while. We always had big crowds” It was the red couch in the office where Burkitt entertained Teen Town’s most famous visitor one Saturday night. “I will never forget it,” she says. “Billy Cole Reed’s band was playing that night. The name George Harrison sure didn’t mean anything to me at the time. All I could think of was, ‘What a silly looking haircut!” “I told him it would cost a quarter to get in, since he wasn’t a member. He never paid it; he just stood in the doorway and listened to the band for a few minutes. He said they were good. Then he sat down on the couch and talked to
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Besides dancing, ping-pong was a popular activity at Teen-Town. me for a little bit. He was very polite. He said, ‘I have a band,’ and I thought, ‘Yes, don’t you all.” He told me that his band, The Beatles, was going to New York and they were going to be on the Ed Sullivan Show. I remember thinking, ‘Yeah, right.’ I said, ‘Why on earth would you name your band after a bug?’ and he said, ‘Oh, it’s not about a bug; it’s about our haircuts.’ About a month later, I was at home and the Ed Sullivan Show was on TV. I heard Ed Sullivan say, “And now the rock group from England that’s taking the country by storm, the Beatles.’ I stopped dead in my tracks. I thought ‘Oh My Gosh.” There were other couples who chaperoned and the Burkitts gave up their post before their daughter was born. I was at Teen Town one Saturday night in 1966, and at risk of sounding melodramatic, I’ll call it, “The night the music died.” That’s literally what happened. We were dancing and doing what we always did on Saturday nights, enjoying one another’s company, gossiping, waiting for that certain someone to look our way. Steadys were breaking up and Break ups were getting back together. We were all on a collision course to adulthood. Suddenly the music stopped. The sound of a phonograph needle being dragged off a vinyl record and the silence that ensued caught our attention. We all looked toward the jukebox where two
men in uniform stood. Someone later told me that it was the Fire Chief and a local police officer. To our shock and dismay, they were announcing that we would all have to leave. It was too crowded; it was too dangerous. Teen Town was closed. I distinctly remember a boy, an upperclassman, going over to the jukebox, plugging it back in and playing “Town without Pity.” Everyone cheered. I think the city officers saw the whimsy in that gesture, but responsibility outweighed sympathy. They unplugged the jukebox and ushered the large crowd through the office, which was the only entrance and exit used, and down the steep, narrow staircase. I’m sure that passage had much to do with the closing. Eventually another youth center was opened one block west on the north side of Main Street. It worked for a while. I don’t remember it really catching on, but maybe it was I who never caught on. My friends and I were older: dating, dragging Main and not as dependent as we had been on a safe haven which had been so important as a place to go, something to do. . I would be remiss to talk about teen town and not mention the old railroad building across from the gym on east main that was spearheaded and kept alive for so long by the tireless efforts of Art teacher Tim Murphy and changing groups of parents. I know that held the same allure for a younger generation, many of the children of Brent Coleman’s classmates and my own friends. But since I’m writing this article, I’m going to be self indulgent enough to say that the youth center above Van Wood Electric was a very special place. As I hung back near the staircase in Rick Henson’s building that Sunday and tried to peer into the pitch blackness, I couldn’t really see anything, but I could smell it. It must have been the magic.
Carol Hengst, a 1958 FCHS graduate, was the talented artist who decorated Teen Town -known then as the Youth Center-with several pictures of ‘Redbirds’ engaged in typical high school activities such as football and cheerleading. The pictures, though a bit chipped, are still on the walls.
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An Emotional Farewell Company A, 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry of the Illinois National Guard leaves for duty in Afghanistan Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. ~Thomas Paine
People from all over Southern Illinois packed Paschedag Auditorium on August 22 to show their support for the troops deploying to Afghanistan
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(1) Guardsmen Allan Talley, West Frankfort, Sam Knight, West Frankfort, and Jordan Eldridge, Thompsonville, relax before the ceremony. (2) Jerry Seidel, Belle Rive, searches the crowd for his son, Corey,. “We never expected this when he enlilsted,” said the elder Seidel. (3) An unidentified guardsman studies a display entitled “Wall of Heroes”which has pictures in memoriam of soldiers who died during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. (4) With troops expected to be gone for 6 weeks of training and then at least a one year tour of duty in Afghanistan to train the Afghan army and police, goodbye kisses were exchanged. (5) A large crowd filled the street between the high school and the gym before and after the ceremony to take pictures and say farewells.
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of trick or treating was big business. Like the cartoon kids from Family Circus, (although greater in number and minus Dolly) Halloween found the four oldest boys, very close in age, dressed in creative homemade costumes, traipsing down the street and around their neighborhood in Kankakee. Add to the tradition the fact that Mr. Sandborne the next door neighbor was famous for passing out caramel apples every Halloween, which brought the world to his doorstep. But the Thomas boys belonged there and he probably saved the plumpest and gooiest treats for them. It was safe; it was fun;’ it was the magic that memories were made of. I on the other hand grew up in a family where Halloween was something to dutifully observe, which is what we did. Our traditions involved dressing up in something, usually a “big lady” costume meaning my mother’s old clothes. If it was a good year, my father marched me, or me and my sister in the earlier years, out to the studio to take our picture. Then he drove us around in the car to the houses of some of our best friends.
Halloween Genes
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ell it’s October, so I guess we need to talk about Halloween. I say that with a real lack of enthusiasm, because it isn’t one of my favorite holidays. I realize there are readers out there who have the flimsy white ghosts floating from the trees in their front yard and the vinyl pumpkins blown up before they even turn the calendar page to October. But I’m just not one of them. My husband came from a big family. Being the oldest of eight children, Halloween and the accompanying activity
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It seemed the weather was always balmy and humid, and if I did wear a mask I thought I would suffocate before the whole ordeal was over. The last friends we always visited were John and Nellie and Wilma and Tony Finazzo who lived side by side on Poplar Street. They always were waiting with bags of candy or some very special treat planned just for me. I always wondered why we didn’t just go there first and forget the rest of the trip. Now I’m not sure if attitudes toward Halloween are genetic or environmental, but in either case this is what was going on in different parts of the world. While my mother-in- law was mixing cold cream with food color and applying it to the faces of four small boys so that they could become miniature Frankensteins, my mother was rummaging in the closet for some old clothes while I whined, “But I wore that last year.” I do remember one Halloween (only one) when she was lying on the bed with a migraine headache while I carried on that I had no costume. Her advice was “Wear your red stretch pants, your red coat, take the barbeque fork and be a devil.” That’s what I did. Thank goodness I had red house shoes that year. Anyway the fact that I never had much of a zest for the October holiday was not a problem, because I was fortunate enough that my oldest son, John, got my recessive Halloween gene. I don’t recall ever bothering to take him trick or treating when he was very small, unless I threw a sheet over his head and carried him to Grandmas. My mother did have a renewed interest in trick or treating when it came to her grandchildren. When John was in kindergarten, my husband put his Halloween heritage to good use and decided to build him a
Genelle Rissi
Gail Rissi
Our traditions involved dressing up in something, usually a “big lady” costume meaning my mother’s old clothes. If it was a good year, my father marched me, or me and my sister in the earlier years, out to the studio to take our picture.
costume. He spent hours upon hours in the basement building the robot that would rival anything you might have seen in Star Wars. He started with a very big box, that I think may have housed our first computer, and built various body components with household items. Most of the costume, except for the legs was silver, and the finishing touch was battery operated Christmas lights that flashed realism everywhere he turned. It was a masterpiece. The plan was that he would wear it to trick or treat and then to school the next day for the annual parade of costumes and Halloween class party. Well we put John in the car and piled the body and head of the robot into the back seat next to him. We arrived at the first stop in minutes, and he reluctantly
got out and stood while my husband lifted the finishing parts of the costume on him. We lead him to the door. It took only seconds after ringing the doorbell to hear footsteps on the other side and it took only seconds for John to turn and head back to the car as fast as little legs can hurry when they are stuck in pleated vinyl dryer vents. He managed to pull the box over his head with surprising agility. He climbed in the back seat, yanked the Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket off his head and said, “I’m done. Let’s go home.” One can only imagine the pleading and bargaining that went on. Warnings, “No candy,” guilt, “Grandma will be so disappointed, “threats,” Daddy will never make you another Halloween costume again.” Obviously that wasn’t very effective. The next day John chose rather than parade around the school with classmates, (in the best .Halloween costume ever, I might add), he would sit in a room doing busy work with Jehovah Witness kids and anyone else who didn’t observe the holiday. And he did this every year until the school mercifully changed the activity to a fall party with games and treats but no costumes. Six years went by before our youngest son was in kindergarten and Michael came up out of the basement dusting off the silver robot. “I’m sure glad we have this robot,” he said. “It’s perfect for Jay this week.” I agreed silently, wondering how he would take it if Jay also proved to be anything but a robot. But when the time came, Jay was compliant about letting the box be lifted over his little body and even seemed to like the idea of a chicken bucket on his head. The lights still worked perfectly. As the kids lined up around his classroom that afternoon, we stood back near the door watching with pride. Michael’s
mind was probably reeling with plans for next Halloween. Would it be a Panda bear? A fireman? No too simple. His dad had won best costume one year at the Elks dressed as a toilet. Probably not usable here. Jay’s costume was clearly the best, at least to his proud parents. His lights twinkled. He was so cute. I don’t know if Jay was feeling cute. He may have been feeling hot. At least he must have been feeling sick. At that moment, he threw up. From a teacher’s point of view, that’s not a good thing to have happen in the middle of Halloween festivities. From a parent’s vantage point, it’s a very bad thing for the chicken bucket which is a major part of a prize winning costume. At any rate, we led Jay out to the car and home for the rest of the Halloween weekend. We’ve never made much of a big deal about Halloween since then. Jay is content to welcome the hordes of trick or treaters who make a path to our door each year. In their makeshift costumes, we don’t recognize them. They take off their masks (if they’re wearing one), and we still don’t recognize them. Who are these kids? Wait. That’s another story for another day. I haven’t told Michael yet, but Jay and I were in the grocery store yesterday and I heard the insistent, “Mom!” “Mom…. Mom? Mom. Mom! Mom!” When I finally turned to look at him, he was standing there wearing a bright orange pumpkin mask. Although the mask muffled his speech, I could still make it out. “Trick or Treat.” We’re going to have to find a bigger box.
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Joe and Mamie
Surviving Prohibition, the Depression and the WTCU, Joe and Mamie Yusko were able to carve out a living for themselves and their five children through hard work and determination. And along the way they also created a lot of memories for many others. Joe and Mamie pose for a picture shortly before they closed Mamies Sweet-Shop. (Insert: Joe’s Fruit Stand circa 1933. (Photos provided)
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or many current and former West Frankfort residents it seems that the most important thing that Joe and Mamie Yusko sold in their business on East Main Street was memories. For most people who grew up here, stories of Mamie’s SweetShop are not only accounts of Polish sausage sandwiches, cheeseburgers and half pints of ice cream piled onto a crisp cone, but more often they’re about lunch hours spent with friends and hanging out with buddies after the excitement of grade school basketball games. But Ma-
mie’s Sweet Shop actually had previous lives that many of its biggest fans may not remember. Cecilia Yusko of Benton and Geraldine Lear, now of Springfield, were two of Joe and Mamie’s five children who had their turns working in the restaurant while growing up. They were happy to share some of their best memories about those days with Good Living in West Frankfort. Joe and Mamie actually started business at 905 East Main with a fruit stand, a natural progression from retail experience Joe acquired from working with his
dad, Matt Yusko, owner of two neighborhood grocery stores, one at 805 West Summers Street and one at 510 West Main. “Those were the days when Dad delivered fruits and vegetables in a horse drawn cart,” Cecilia said. “Then Mom and Dad opened their own fruit market. They sold apples for 50 cents a bushel and eggs for a penny a piece,” The produce market was a successful venture for the Yuskos, but even more successful was when Joe’s Fruit Market became Joe’s Tavern. After prohibition ended, Dad opened Joe’s Tavern,” Cecelia said. “But the local WCTU
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When Prohibition ended in 1933 Joe turned his fruit stand into a tavern which operated until the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union convinced the city to limit alcohol sales to a ten-block area along Main Street.
(Women’s Christian Temperance Union) put an end to that. They convinced the city that there were too many taverns in West Frankfort, and there was an ordinance passed that liquor could only be
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sold from Monroe Street (the New Era Dairy) to Rt. 37.” The Yuskos had to make immediate changes in their business. That meant the closing of Joe’s Tavern and replacing it with the sale of sandwiches, ice cream and novelties. When they realized that new business could no longer support them, Joe found a job in construction to make ends meet, while Mamie continued to run the confectionary. Mamie’s SweetShop was born. “Joe was the oldest of us kids,” Cecilia said. “ Then my sister Yvonne, then me. Twelve years later was Geraldine and Jim. We all worked in the store at some time or another,” “We had to learn how to write down orders and then were able to memorize items without putting it to paper and pencil,” Geraldine wrote. “Of course, we also had to know how to take the money, run a cash register and give back the correct change. Food had to be pre-
Ceclia Yusko then (1951, standing in front of Mamie’s Sweet Shop) and now.
pared and we had to serve it always with a smile on your face. Tables had to be cleaned, dishes washed, trash taken out, floors shined, soda cases filled, inventory stocked and in the winter months, coal had to be carried in for the stove and the ashes taken out.” The Yusko kids were not the only ones who worked in the store. In addition to regular employees, many men who grew up in West Frankfort remember helping out at Mamie’s during their lunch hour–– taking orders, cleaning tables even washing dishes––and getting the food out. In return they earned a free lunch. Mamies was a kid’s paradise, with a huge assortment of novelties and penny candy, malts, milkshakes and sodas. But kids weren’t the only ones who frequented Mamie’s. “Construction workers, CIPS, General Telephone workers, all those guys came to the store for lunch, Cecilia recalled. “They loved the chili. The grill was the thing. The hamburgers and cheeseburgers were so good. The items most often requested probably were the sausage and egg sandwich for breakfast
and Polish sausage at any time of day,” recalled Geraldine. “Refills of coffee were free and customers could visit with friends and conduct business for a very small amount of money. You might notice that I changed the word customers to friends. Almost all the people that came into the store could be counted on as friends to this very day.” “Before and after every St. John’s basketball game, Coach Tom McKie would bring the team in to treat them. Mom and Dad stayed open just for them on nights they had a game. One time when Tom was sick, Mom even coached the team so they wouldn’t miss the game. I don’t know how much coaching she actually did, but I know she got all of them there and got them home again.” “ My Mother spear-headed a fund drive to surprise Coach McKie with a new suit by sewing pin cushions, filling them with saw dust from the paper mill and selling the pin cushions in the store,” wrote Geraldine. “He was one happy fellow to get that new suit.” The loyalty between Mamie and her customers apparently went both ways.
Joe Yusko’s books show accounts that went unpaid for long periods of time. “Then he would just draw a line and write ‘Paid by God.’ Cecilia said. In 1975, shortly before the store closed, Mamie received an envelope in the mail with money enclosed. The typewritten letter read, “This is for the cigs I took as a youngster. I’m sorry. This is with interest, and I will never do it again.” The memories that adults have of hanging out at Mamies are memories that are savored and rolled out time and time again to reflect on and relive. Mike Woody, a marketing director in Branson, Mo., lived in West Frankfort for only a few years in the 1950’s but has cherished memories of this community. His recollections of time he spent at Mamie’s were the inspiration for this article. He wrote: Every kid needs a hangout. A place you know will be fun, safe and maybe even allow you to be a little daring… like taking a quick peek at the girls in the booth next to yours. That is exactly how I remember Mamie’s. This place for locals and especially the kids from
St. John’s school may have been closed for years but is permanently etched in my minds eye. I can see the quaint and practical counter and booths and always the cheerful and welcoming Mamie. She seemed to know everyone and acted like each kid was her own and thus needed special attention. Although I am sure the menu was limited to grill items…ice cream and abundant amounts of ice cream were the signature items. I can see her either scooping or slicing “mounds” of delicious treats in large bowls…essential for the serving size since Mamie was never guilty of worrying about portion control. Our gang from school or an athletic team (basketball or baseball) would sit and eat bowl after bowl with joy regardless of the game score we had just left. It didn’t matter at all at Mamie’s. Life for the moment was just good. Funny, now that I have traveled across the country on various business trips and treated at some of the ‘finest restaurants” around…I cannot honestly recall any dessert which brings me such emotional pleasure as a bowl of ice cream from Mamie’s. Sweet.
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Even Santa has a West Frankfort Christmas memory. Do you?
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I
know that we made a commitment in one of our very first publications that nothing in Good Living in West Frankfort would ever be political. But I guess we never thought we would be publishing a magazine so close to a Presidential election––and such a historic one at that. You have to admit that this election seems more important and more unusual than usual. We’ve had questions about the threat of an economic depression, the War in Iraq, race, age, teen pregnancy, whether Barak O’Bama has the right to smoke cigarettes, or whether Sarah Palin has the right to shoot mooses. Meese? (I’m pretty sure it’s not mice.) At any rate, luckily we’ve had a whole series of presidential and vice presidential debates to sort all these things out for us. Michael and I were interested in the debates. We cleared the calendar. We waited enthusiastically. We made sure that our son had videos to entertain him on that night and we settled down in front of the TV with our soft drinks and popcorn. What happened next, I’m not really sure. I think we fell asleep. As many of our friends agreed, there just was not enough substance there to make us feel that we were learning anything about our candidates. We learned they were boring. The moderators were boring. Even the on screen audience was boring. After the third debate, Michael got up very early the next morning and troubled by the fact that inquiring minds wanted to know more, he wrote his list of questions that he believed would cut to the hearts and minds of the candidates and let us know things that are really important in choosing our next president.
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TWENTY QUESTIONS 1. What quality about your opponent do you admire the most? 2. What one bad habit do you have that you would like most to overcome? 3. What is your pet peeve? 4. What is your greatest fear? 5.. Do you open Christmas presents on Christmas Ever or Christmas Day? 6. How much do you think a package of toilet paper costs at your supermarket? 7. What is your favorite charity and why? How much did you give to it last year? 8. Leno or Letterman? 9. Do you have any hobbies other than campaigning for President? 10. We’re ordering pizza after the debate. You get three toppings? What do you want on it? 11 What about you annoys your wife? 12 Frosted flakes, Cheerios or Shredded wheat? 13. Do you own a dog? What’s its name? 14 Do you think the Cubs are really cursed? 15. Can you play any musical instruments like Bill Clinton? 16. Do you like your middle name? 17. When doing the Hokey Pokey, what body part do you put in first? 18. When you play Monopoly, what piece do you want to be? 19. Who do you think looks most like Sarah Palin? Tina Fey or Sarah Palin? 20. Would you do the Chicken Dance at the end of the debate if you knew it would guarantee you at least one swing state?
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Meeting “Miss Bernhard”
Carolyn (Bernhard) Nottleson with some of her pen and ink drawings
After nearly 40 years, teacher and pupil have an improbable reunion
I
first met Miss Bernhard again nearly two years ago. It was a Sunday morning after church that she came up to me and said hello. It was one of those greetings that imply a connection, the kind generally reserved for long-lost relatives who show up at weddings or funerals. My brain failed to make any associations despite the fact that she was with West Frankfort residents Jim and Judy Bernhard. I had known Jim since the 1970’s when he loaned me one of his St. John’s softball jerseys so I could play in the church league. It was probably one of the few mistakes Jim ever made in his life. I was a lousy softball player. A year later Jim, as a member of the school board, helped hire me as high school band director. I hope I was a better band
Fall • 2008
director than softball player. So who was this attractive, petite, silver-haired lady smiling at me? Seeing the puzzled look in my eyes, she saved me further embarrassment by asking, “don’t you remember Miss Bernhard, your old junior high art teacher?” she asked. “I remember you. You and your twin brother were two of the best art students I ever had.” Obviously Miss Bernhard was an astute judge of talent. I gushed out something like “Oh, of course I remember you. I just didn’t expect to see you here.” In full disclosure I must now admit that I really didn’t remember her. But I sure did remember her art class. It was one of the best educational experiences of my life. “I still have one of the pictures you
did. It’s a nice desert scene,” she said. As I imagined my masterpiece, framed and hanging above the mantle of Miss Bernhard’s fireplace, she quickly burst my egotistical bubble. “I kept a sample of all my student’s work.” She told me that she was now Carolyn Nottleson and was living in Texas. She was in West Frankfort for a few days for a visit. We said our goodbyes and I never really expected to see her again. Later that day, as I was sharing the meeting over the phone with my twin brother, I wondered how Miss Bernhard could have possibly known me. I have had my share of encounters with former students. The transformation from early teenager to adult can be dramatic. I was quite certain that I did not have a moustache in the seventh grade. I also doubted that they made desks in size XXXL. Besides, the last time I had set foot in Miss Bernhard’s class, John F. Kennedy was president and television was in black and white. That was nearly 40 years ago. My name couldn’t have given her much of a clue either. Google Michael Thomas and you will get enough hits to populate half of Montana. It was later that I discovered Carolyn learned from my aunt––her old college roommate—that I was living in West Frankfort. But Carolyn—it is so hard to call former teachers by their first name— did return to West Frankfort. This time it was for a much sadder occasion. Jim had passed away suddenly in August, and she was here for the funeral and to spend an extended time with Judy. I met with Carolyn a few times while she was here and was able to relive some of the memories of teacher and student. Carolyn was born in West Frankfort graduated from SIU with a degree in art education and soon found herself in Kankakee where she taught from 19561963. “I call that the golden years of teaching,” Bernhard says. “Art was an important part of the curriculum. Every student had to take at least nine weeks of art so I tried my best to expose them to all sorts of medium.” And expose she did. Not only did students draw and paint with the usual tools but Bernhard would start us on new projects using less familiar media. We carved large bars of Ivory soap into igloos and polar bears, sculpted figurines
Marc Thomas, Carlock, Illinois, holds a piece he calls “Sneezing Man” which he sculpted in 1960 while a 7th grade student of Carolyn Bernhard. “I don’t think I appreciated Carolyn Bernhard until later in life,” he said in a phone inerview. “It was not your typical junior high school art class. We learned by doing. She stretched our minds.”
in clay, created Christmas cards by engraving our designs into linoleum blocks and printing them in woodblock fashion. We even created copper enamel jewelry that entailed designing, cutting, painting and then firing the copper in a kiln at a temperature of 1500 degrees. “I had one student design his like a fishing lure and he told me later that he actually used it and caught a fish on it,” Bernhard said with a laugh. It was typical of the way Bernhard taught. The process was more important than the finished product. “I never told my students what they had to make,” Bernhard said. “I never told them how it should look when it was finished. That was their decision. What I did do was try to expose them to the creative process.”
It was that exposure that touched the lives of many students. “I was in Phoenix a few years ago,” Bernhard related, “and some friends of mine suggested we go out to a night club to listen to Margo Reed, one of their favorite jazz singers. I told them that I had a student by that name years ago and I wondered if it was the same Margo. When I saw her I was pretty sure it was her, but I wasn’t completely convinced. During intermission we got to talk and I started asking her questions about her past. She looked at me and started laughing and said ‘somebody knows way too much about me’. When I told her who I was she said ‘Oh, I remember you. You were that crazy art teacher I had. I made a blue whale with a broken fin. When my mom saw it she said it looked like a whale with a foot, but I told her no, it wasn’t a foot, it was a broken fin. And I want you to know I still have that blue whale at home.” Bernhard married and moved to Boston. Her husband asked her to quit teaching so she could be a stay at home mom. She complied with his wishes but never gave up her love of art. “My favorite medium is pen and ink,” she said. “I kept drawing all those years.”Bernhard amassed a portfolio of drawings, some that she sold for advertising purposes. She would occasionally come back to southern Illinois to pursue her hobby. “Your aunt Barbara had a cabin in Shawnee National Forest and she would let me stay there,” Bernhard said. “I would scout around and find these beautiful old barns and sketch them.” Her pictures show an attention to detail and her love of the subject is evident. “I started sketching them in 1979 and I have come back several times since to do more.” Bernhard feels like she is captur-
Bernhard lives in Austin but emjoys travelling the country in her van which she has decorated with flowers inspired by her home garden.
ing a bit of history with her art. “Those old barns won’t be around forever,” she declared. She eventually divorced and moved to Austin but she spends much of her time traveling the country in a motor home that she has decorated on the exterior with pictures of flowers inspired by her home garden. “I couldn’t take my garden with me so this is the next best thing,” she said. I don’t know what kind of influence Carolyn Bernhard had on other students. Perhaps one of them is now an artist making his or her living in advertising or design or even teaching art. It wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t think I was alone among my classmates in enjoying the freedom to create. And to this day I can’t pass an art museum or exhibit without lingering too long for my wife’s patience level. The urge to create stirs within my soul. Now if Miss Bernhard could only find that desert scene of mine that I painted when I was 12 years old I would be most grateful. I think it would look nice in a frame hanging above the mantel of my fireplace.
Fall • 2008
Since 1979, Bernhard has been sketching old barns of Southern Illinois in pen and ink. Her favorite place to sketch are locations near the Shawnee National Forest where she found this barn (left) and an old fruit packing barn.
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