Teenage Photos 1952-53 8th Grade-Part 1

 

Teenage Photos 1952-53 8th Grade-Part 1

26 8th-Grade Students at Coon Rapids (IA) Community School with teacher Patricia Kennedy.

Back Row: (John) Andy Kretzinger, Roland McGee, Charles Remele, Dennis Ford, Bill Smith
Next Row: Jerry Scott, Gerald Palmer, Doug Drake, Gary Webber, Larry Turner, Ms. Kennedy
Next Row: Dick Whitfield, Jim Knudsen, Arlene Herron, Gary Hoover, Jon Crimson, Norman Arrowsmith, Wayne Grim
Front Row: Jane Smith, Juanita Pierce, Marcia Textor, Norma Wagner, Ramona Palmer, Nancy Bolger, Charlotte Shirbroun, Marilyn Peterson, Marilyn Andersen

This was the only photo I had, until recently, when I had taken Mom’s camera to school. That is me sitting at my desk. I think that is Nancy in dark (red) sweater standing by window behind me, talking to Doug, it appears. She was a mature class leader. I was still the newcomer… ;-)

In a later post here (next Tues and Thurs, part 2 and part 3, of 8th Grade), we’ll see more photos from that day that were in the scrapbook…

My class picture, in fall, just turned 13 on July 1. A teenager. Bill. No more Billie, Billy… ;-)

I got my slide camera the summer of 1953... much better!!
This is that following summer… with brothers… we’d all grown up quite a bit!! ;-)
Barry had arrived eighteen months earlier. Jim on left, with Tom (later to become T.K.)

I loved that bike!! ;-)

See you down the road…  ;-)

Childhood Photos 1950-52 6/7th Grade

 

Childhood Photos 1950-52 6/7th Grade

Another all-time favorite photo - Confirmation Class, Star Methodist Church

Rev. Pooley and Don Williams, Sunday School Class 6th Grade Teacher, in back

Charlotte Shirbroun, Nancy Bolger, Bill Smith, Dennis Ford, Kenneth Molle, Wayne Grim

Seventh Grade, Willow #3, 1951-1952

Top Row: Teacher, Jim Smith, Ruth Anderson, Tom Tolsdorf, Charlotte Shirbroun, Wilson Thomas
Mid-Row: Robert Hunter, ?? Anderson, Jane Lovell, Jim Tolsdorf
Bottom Row: Gary Hunter, Judy Tolsdorf, Dick Hunter, Bill Smith

Bill Smith on west side of farm home - likely sixth grade...


See you down the road… ;-)

Childhood Photos 1949-1950 5th Grade

 

Childhood Photos 1949-1950 5th Grade

Eileen, Mom, and her three boys: Tommie, Jimmie and Bill (sometimes still Billie!)
Notice the favorite setting for pictures…

 

The second favorite location for photos… Bill and his Mom. Similar dress style, I note.

The grove, off to the north east from the house, behind the chicken houses… a favorite play place.

The Kinnick cousins, Kathleen, Kelton and Karen, were at the farm on a Sunday afternoon. Very common occurrence - Jimmie and I seem to be sticking our tongues out. Not the nicest of photo. Later on I built a ‘cabin’ in the grove, to the right of this photo location. Don’t think any photos survive of it. There were also old farm implements stored here, that made for great climbing around on.
What fun!

Another county fair photo, I’m sure. No way to date this, so here it is!!! ;-)

Star Church young people gathered together for some occasion.

Back Row, left to right, Ann Rees, Dwight Brown, Doyle Gymer, Bill Smith, Dennis Ford, Phil Huffed
Middle Row, left to right, Tom Rees, Charlotte Shirbroun, Donna Grim, Nancy Bolger, ??
Front Row, left to right, ??, Jessie Rees, Marla Williams, Ramona McGee, Wayne Grim

Could make lots of comments, but I’ll leave that up to you, the reader…
Frustrating not to remember those two girls names… help?

Good example of young folks, guys and gals, growing and maturing at different paces…

I did notice how Nancy and I always seemed to stand nearby to one another… pure chance??


See you down the road…  :-)
 

Childhood Images 1948-1949 - 4th Grade

 

Childhood Images 1948-1949 - 4th Grade

This appears to be late in 1948. Notice that Tommy arrived in the spring - we were now 5!

This is aphoto I used on a web page many years ago about Willow #3; here is the caption from that time:

“Notice building and cars and background - Spring 1949
Back row (left to right): Donnabelle Shirbroun, Bernice Pevestorf, Joan Bowman, Beverly Woods, Pat
Thomas, Bill Smith
Middle row: Wilson Thomas, Jim Tolsdorf, Dick Hunter, Judy Tolsdorf, Bob Hunter, Charolette
Shirbroun, Shirley Woods
Front row: Jane Lovell (?)(blonde girl), Gary Hunter on right, in front of Shirley”

Our teacher for 4th, 5th and 6th Grades was Inez Shirbroun, wife of Speedy, the local Coon Rapids Radio repairman, and soon to be Television guru. Since our school sat on a hill, he put up an antenna on Thursday nights and picked up the WOI-TV, Ames, signal from about 60 miles to the east. We got to go watch the Lone Ranger, in black and white, of course, small screen - but it was our first exposure to television. It was a couple of years after that before we were able to have one in our home - and all three channels!!! ;-)

In the meantime, this is what I constructed and played with… inside, on carpet... Lincoln logs made the outline. I created the cars out of plaster of paris, in rubber molds, wheels inserted while wet. I still have a couple of them, somewhere, in a box.

Two different views, outside, that also shows more of the yard around the east side of the house. I was quite into architecture at the time. Constructed each building out of wood. The large 'cattle shed' on the right was modeled after the real one my Dad constructed across the road, south of the barn... looks just like it. Proportions are a 'bit' off from rest of buildings, but... made at different times, for different reasons. By the way, the house was a very modern design, for the times....  ;-)

P.S. Really amazing these photos survived!!! ;-)


See  you down the road… ;-)

Childhood Images 1947-1948 - 3rd Grade

 

Childhood Images 1947-1948 - 3rd Grade

Bill with Whitey - my only dog. He was there for a few years. One day he was no longer there. If my parents knew what became of him, they never told me. Later farm dogs, like Spice, were for the younger boys, not me. For me, there was only Whitey. A second view:

I guess this is where my writing career began. Don’t know when or where it showed up, but it is obviously a story I wrote:

“Bill And The Cows
One day Bill’s father said to Bill “Will you go look after the cows?” Bill said that he would. He went and got his bike and a book. He rode to the top of a hill. He started to read in about 10 minutes he looked to see where the cows were. He fond (sic) that they had gone on down the hill. He hurried and put them in the lot. THE END”

Jesse Shirbroun was the teacher at Willow #3 in my 2nd and 3rd Grade, I believe. This photo appears to be in the Fall of 1947 on an occasion where brother Jimmie was visiting. Here is the teacher and her car, alone:

 

See you down the road… ;-)

The year 1943 and me - in photos

 

The year 1943 and me - in photos

This was the last year before I started to school. It began with what has now become a familiar photo - the first one I have of Nancy and I together in the same photo - dated 14 Jan 1943:

Bob, Bill, Roger, Barbara, Carolyn, Nancy

This was at a gathering of Grandma Kinnick’s Sorensen relatives. I love it, but my Mom, Eileen, always hated it, because she had her hair in curlers to look good later in the day… while the visitors were all dressed already (Especially her cousins from California!). She is right behind me just left of center.

This was a typical gathering at the Leo Kinnick residence, mid-year I am guessing. I’m lower left, holding my Dad’s hand. Cousin Dennis Ford is to the right, looking at Leo.

Here is my birthday photo, assume I got the trike bike for my 4th birthday:

Here is my next favorite photo of the year, with Mom, Buzz (Freshman in High School), and me in the fall, on the road just south of the house, looking east:

Families are Forever! ;-)

See you down the road...

The year 1942 and me - in photos

 The year 1942 and me - in photos

Last week we looked at 1941. In Mar 1942, we moved to the farm that Mom and Dad bought and where I lived the rest of my youth.

In this first image, cousin Karen and I are checking out the qualify of the soil, in March, it appears:

In one of my more infamous photos, in May, I’m leading the chickens away from the chicken coop, it appears. In the High School Prophesy, they suggested I would be a chicken farmer… has haunted me all my life! ;-)

In July, Uncle Buzzy and cousin Dave Thomas and I check out the yard east of the house, in front of the “Wash House!” It was already there, and we mostly used it for storage during my years there:

In August, with Grandma Kinnick, cousins Karen and Kathleen, in her back yard in town:

This one is obviously dated 18 Oct 1942… I do not know the occasion:

I do not have a date on this one at family gathering:

Finally, the one on the woven stool…still have that stool, by the way… my artifact for my ancestors:

Families are Forever! ;-)

 

The year of 1941 and me - in photos

 

The year of 1941 and me - in photos

Earlier, last week, we looked at some photos from 1939-1940, my first 18 months on this earth.

Today, we will look at four photos from the year 1941. If I should find more, I’ll add them.

Skip to mid-year, I had my usual birthday on July 1, with angel food cake. Note we are now living on ‘the Anderson place’ over on the county line between Carroll and Greene counties. We were a mile and half south and a mile east of the Star Church corner. A mile east and half a mile south of the Smith Homeplace.

I seem to be in social isolation… not much has changed in 79 years, is seems. This was birthday number 2:

 

This one seems to be in the fall on a cool day. Is that a truck I got for my birthday? Who knows? Is that our 1934 Chevy back there??? ;-)

First formal photo - Bill holding a Ball!! How about that outfit???

This final one is at Thanksgiving - still warm, it appears, in Lohrville… coming to life, it seems…
Girls allowed in this one, as well… progress?

I think that is cousin Karen on the left, by the tire, and a neighbor girl on the right...we are in a town, not just family in the afternoon, following Thanksgiving dinner with family.

Families are Forever! ;-)

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase…“run into town”

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase…“run into town”
 

This thought ran through my mind, and then, I thought of the Bill Holland, aka billybuc, Writing Challenge to ‘write about your childhood.’ My problem was, I have (In my mind, anyway) almost no recollections of my childhood, except those prompted by photos… and there are not a whole lot of them, to tell the truth. Now, if childhood includes High School, then, there are quite a few more memories. I’ll let that mull a bit, as I consider the phrase, ‘run into town.’

My use of the term “run into town” was in the context of needing to pick up a prescription from Walgreens in South Town Center of Hollister, about 5 miles away, with no other reason to go out. By the way, ‘run’ implies drive the car, not literally run… for you purists out there! ;-)

I have better photos of me and the 49 Chevy, but this is what popped up when asked; kind of liked the end of the slide film effect!! ;-)

I have become increasingly aware of phases used throughout a long life that make little real sense standing alone to be analyzed but seem perfectly logical in context, in conversation. Larry used one last week that was new to me, but perfectly meaningful to him, since he had heard it his entire life. He put a rock behind the camper so it would not roll away, he ‘scotched it’ he said. I had never heard the term, but he had… We always called the accelerator pedal in the car a ‘foot feet’ - now, where did that come from???

From 1942 to 1957 I lived on my Mom and Dad’s farm that was four miles east and three miles north of Coon Rapids, Iowa (“town”). From 1942 to 1952, while the school I attended, Willow #3, was open, I had thought that going into town was mostly a Saturday night grocery shopping and social evening. However, in reviewing the diaries my Mom kept (from 1932 to 1999) I got a very different impression. My Mom was a town girl, a Coon Rapids girl. Her mother and father lived in Coon Rapids. The rental farms my Mom and Dad, Eileen and Pete, lived on were closer to town by about half. It turns out from reading the diaries, there was a constant back and forth among them throughout. “I’m going to ‘run into town’” happened with great frequency, not just when needing a part or some grocery item. Often I was carted along, outside of school times, into town and dropped off at grandma’s house… much more than I would have guessed.

This just confirms my lack of memory of those early years. Once schools consolidated and I went to town for eighth grade, I remember these things occurring regularly. Both Mom and Dad were active in school board business, in the rural district and in the consolidation. Dad was President of the Coon Rapids School Board the year I graduated, in May 1957, and handed me by diploma. I do have many memories of those last five years in town school. I’ll have to be selective at that point if I write something about the time.

With these caveats in mind, I think I can respond to the challenge from Bill Holland, aka billybuc, to write a HubPages article: Childhood - a Memoir - Response to a Challenge. I am certainly going to give it a try. I’ll come back and post the link here, if I do! ;-)

See you down the road… ;-)