Memories of Life in Downers Grove

56 Years of Downers Grove Memories

When we arrived in 1951, my brother and I took a walk to town and he said, "Look at that, Rose." It was the Don Theater, no longer in use, where the Moose Hall is now. His name is Don, so he took notice of it.

I used to like to go to the News Agency, where kids picked up their papers for delivery. It was where Caribou Coffee is now. They had a penny gumball machine and if you got a yellow gumball with a red stripe, you won a 5-cent candy bar, a real treat then. Those bars sell for at least 55 cents now.

Another person in this book wrote of her scout leader, Mrs. Stolmer. My friend Dorothy was in love with her son, David in fourth grade at Washington School. Speaking of Washington School, they had the greatest tilt-a-whirl ever. You sat on a wood seat with your feet dangling and held on to a bar. It went up and down and around at the same time. I wish I was on it now. I wonder if the Museum has a picture of it.

In 1953, I was in seventh grade at St. Mary's two-room school. Sister Nazaria approached me and two friends (one is the now-deceased Lester School teacher Lynn Pindel) who liked art, about painting windows on Main Street for Halloween. It was the first year the Rotary did it. We had a much bigger space then than the kids get now. We won second place and split a $2.50 prize. We thought we were rich with 84 cents each.

As a teenager, my friends and I liked to go into the Candy Castle for a cherry coke and play the juke box. I think Happy Dog Barkery is there now. It had a reputation for the hoods going there, guys in black leather jackets on motorcycles. So we'd check up and down Main Street to see if any of our neighbors were about and might tell on our parents if they saw us go in there. A few years ago I cared for the elderly lady whose brother had owned it.

In the 1960s I bought an $8 hat from the Selig Sisters, then in their 90s. They put the trim I wanted on it for no extra charge. I still have it and will wear it again.

These are just a few of my many memories.

Rose Herlien