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Tag: Childhood Memories

Lincolnwood School Days : A Trip Down Memory Lane, Part 2

  In Memoriam   I compiled this list primarily from the Niles West Class of 1976 classmates in memoriam who passed away. Thank you to the superb sleuth work of Steve Nagelberg, Greg Sprague, and Don Schmidt. I only included Lincolnwood kids here as a follow-up to my prior tribute to Lincolnwood classmates gone too soon.   Top row, left to right: Joseph Gumola, died in 2003, age 45. I didn’t recall that Joe was a Lincolnwood kid until I looked at my Lincoln Hall yearbooks. I vaguely remember him from Niles West. Leslie Wexler, died in 2007, age 49 of breast cancer. Catherine Ann Torp, died in 2013, age 55. Todd Chapman, died in 2013, age 54 after a long battle with cancer. While I wrote how Todd was a bully in junior high and others also recalled this, thankfully people change, as evidenced by the lovely tribute comments in his obituary. Bottom row: left to right: Mark P. Eissman, died in 2020, age 62. In a GoFundMe, it said that Mark was a formidable journalist, editor and lawyer, and a wonderful person with a warm and generous spirit. He passed away after a battle with cancer. Bruce Weiner, died in 2022, age 63 of cancer. I remember Bruce razzing me in 8th grade about “going steady” with Jim Berggreen and asking why I wasn’t wearing his ID bracelet. Dan Spielman, died in 2022, age 65. Every time I visit my mom in Lincolnwood, I drive past Dan’s childhood home on Pratt. I remember that he went steady with a girl in 5th or 6th grade and gave her an ID bracelet – a proper one, not like the homemade job I got from Jim. Sandy Lichten, died in 2023, age 65, suddenly. I remember Sandy lived close to…

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Recollections of Days that Changed History – Where Were You When…?

Recently, I was thinking about what I was doing or where I was when I heard life-changing historical news. I’m certain many people remember what others told them about a specific day, or what they read in ensuing years – perhaps on the event anniversary. This sparked the idea of writing about events for which I could remember something distinctively unique and worth sharing when I heard or watched history playing out. I decided to broaden the stipulation slightly to encompass what I was doing within a 2-hour time frame of hearing the news. I have a visual memory, so my recollections of events and associated emotional reactions are retrieved from the recesses of my brain via images. Within these parameters, I could only come up with 11 events, listed here in chronological order. Other memories were a little too vague to include (e.g. when John Lennon was shot) or too commonplace. I believe certain factors influence how a person recalls events, including one’s own memory aptitude, age at the time of the event, and the event’s magnitude, which most certainly is impacted by personal factors. For instance, countless movie and rock stars have died during my lifetime, but I can only recall the unique circumstances of what I was doing for three, as you’ll read below.     I was 5-years-old when JFK was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963. I was sitting at the top of the slide in my kindergarten classroom at Todd Hall in Lincolnwood, Illinois when an announcement was made on the school intercom. A full-size slide in a school classroom is pretty remarkable – perhaps that helped engrave this tragic event in my visual memory. Of course as a 5-year-old, I hardly understood the magnitude of this tragedy.

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Woolworth Memories ~ From Main Street to State Street

Lunch Counter State Street 1940

The F. W. Woolworth Company, also called Woolworth’s or Woolworth, delighted children and their parents alike for more than a century. In Illinois, 25 Woolworth stores, mostly in Chicago and the suburbs, were shuttered forever in July 1997. In the UK, the stores lasted a decade longer, going out of business in December 2008. The very last thing I bought at Woolworth’s when the store was liquidating stock, was a pair of Barbie roller skates for my then 9-year-old daughter. The store closures symbolized the end of quite a run that began on February 22, 1878 when Frank Winfield Woolworth opened “Woolworth’s Great Five Cent Store” in Utica, New York. The first store failed after a short time, however, the second store that opened on July 18, 1879 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania was a big success. When he launched the Lancaster store, Frank enlisted his brother Charles Sumner Woolworth to join the business.

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