It's been a long weekend with the tragic news of losing our friend and classmate, Marla Fawell Fitzgerald. It's been a weekend of reflection and recalling memories of childhood. While doing my daily household chores and homework, I found myself thinking about Lincoln School, Mike's Meat Market, Henderson's, Dairy Queen and Lilacia Park. These are or were landmarks and popular businesses in my hometown of Lombard, IL.
Lombard is known as the "Lilac Village" and for a good reason! In the downtown area there is a 10 acre park that we know as Lilacia Park. It's a gorgeous park or large garden filled with my favorite flowers, lilacs. To this day I still visit this lovely park no matter where I live. And then next to the park is the Helen M. Plum Library. How many hours did we all spend there researching for high school papers or when we were little kids looking for our favorite Dr. Seuss books. I still remember going to a viewing of a Dracula movie at the library when I was about 8 years old, and it traumatized me!
Lincoln School. My favorite school, and I went to several schools in Lombard as we moved around a few times when I was young. It stood tall and had a presence about it. At least in the eyes of a little kid. I remember the large boulder in front of the school with all the names of veterans who died in WWI that were from Lombard. The school itself was architecturally interesting. It was built in 1914, so it looked nothing like any of the other schools in town. It stood three stories tall with wide staircases. There was a stage in the gym and an incernerator separate from the building with a tall smoke stack. I remember when they painted the walls in the school using the colorful palette of the 70s. Some walls were bright orange or green or purple. And as a young child it didn't seem right to paint this old structure such modern colors.
Lincoln School is where I met Marla and we became friends. We played in the large playground. I remember the swings, the two sets of crossing bars, the monkey bars and slides. We played "Mother May I", "Green Light, Red Light", statuemaker, girls chase the boys (my favorite!) and other games. I remember one year when the cicadas arrived and we would all hang out by the back wall and play with them. Today I can't stand the sound of them!
I can pretty much remember the names of all my teachers, particularly at Lincoln School. My first grade teacher was Mrs. Huzinger, then Mrs. Haugen for 2nd grade and finally Miss Furman (who later married and became Mrs. Hunter). I loved all them! I think Miss Furman was my favorite. When I was in 3rd grade I was seriously injured and was hospitalized for 2-3 weeks. Miss Furman came to visit me and gave me a handmade stuffed frog. I cherished that gift for many years. And I still remember receiving an envelope filled with handmade Get Well cards from all my classmates. I could probably name about half of my classmates from those grades; Laura Tyndall, Lisa Ladd, Mike Szudarski, Betina Woolensack, Neal Alexander, Craig Oddo, Debbie Raetzke, Madge Anders, Pam Nelson and of course, Marla.
This is only a handful of memories that I have of Lombard, and Marla. Please share your memories!
Hi Laura
ReplyDeleteGreat writing! Your words helped bring back a flood of memories!
Memories of Marla...Our way of saying hi to each other. We would walk up close face to face.
Lift our upper lip and show our big front teeth and say "Hi how are you doing" Year after year at Lincoln school. We could be away from each other as time past and this was the first thing we did. That was our connection.
Craig