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Alan Frank

I ate at the WFBHS cafeteria most days. There were no choices, except that after the meal you could buy ice cream bars and sandwiches. The food was mediocre, but my favorite was on the Fridays when they would serve white macaroni and cheese. Almost nobody liked it but me, so I got to eat lots of it. It still shows on my waistline.

There was a cafeteria at Richards Elementary, too. The meal cost 35 cents and you paid at the beginning of the day. When I was in eighth grade, we had a house fire, so we spent some time living at my aunt's apartment in Milwaukee, which meant that I ate in the cafeteria everyday. One noon the secretary, Mrs. Roberts, asked me if everything was OK at home.She was worried because I ate at school so often. That a far cry from today when pretty much all the kids eat at school.

Gary Rosenberg

i remember the lunches in the cafeteria at WFB HS.  I ate there every day.  It was a little too far to walk home, and we didn't have a car until I was a senior.  Moreover, both of my parents worked, and I did not like sandwiches.  I thought the cafeteria lunches were quite good.  For some reason, I remember the breaded pork chops (perhaps because I never got them at home), yes the macaroni, and a special macaroni with hamburger added (called Johnnie Marzetti elsewhere--how that name came to be I have no idea).  Also scallped potatoes, meat loaf, tuna caserole, spam loaf, etc.  I liked most of it.  Well, maybe not the spam. 

They were well balanced meals. Salads and vegetables along with an entre.  Plus deserts and Wonder Bread and butter.  On some occasions the cooks, older ladies in kitchen whites, offered us seconds, first come first served, and frequently that caused a run on the leftovers.  I knew then that the meals were cheap, 35 Cents, because they were subsidized with government surplus food.

 When the Regan administration declared catsup a vegetable in K-12 meals years later, I suspected that that would mark the end of the subsidized, well balanced lunch for kids.  Unfortunately, that proved to be right, as several of you have commented.  In came the fast food and up went kids' weight.  Nowadays, I wonder if any kid gets anything or will eat anything other than burgers and pizza in school cafeterias.  I too remember the ice cream for sale after lunch.  Expecially the little Sealtest or Luick vanilla ice cream cups with the super semi sweet and kinda chewy chocolate mounds like frozen Hershey Syrrup burried in the center. I loved to excavate the vanilla ice cream first, and savor that chocolate treat last.  Sadly, those little cups are gone forever.  

And the iodine tablets.  I remember being told they were to protect us against goiter.  But as Suzanne commented, they may well have been given to protect us from radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing during the cold war.  I don't remember the "duck and cover" exercises that are recorded in  newsreels of the day.  I'm glad that nuclear testing is gone....forever?

Michael Gordy

My daughter went to primary school in a little village in the Dordogne in SW France, where a woman was hired to spend her day making a beautiful lunch, all from scratch from fresh produce grown in the school garden and meat and fish from the surrounding farms and trout streams. She cut up potatoes by hand to make frites (Freedom Fries to all of you...) and it was only when we moved to the area of France outside of Geneva, Switzerland that I realized that not all French public schools provided such healthy meals. Yet there is still no evidence of fast food in the local lycee (High School) cafeteria, nor is eating in local fast food establishments encouraged. The rate of obesity is accordingly much lower than in the US, but it's creeping up nonetheless. Ah, Progress! (I remember a column by Russell Baker back in the early 1970s where he wrote "Whenever anyone says 'it's progress', I know something horrible is about to happen.")

As for radiation, I share Gary's hope that we will not be treated to a nuclear war, even though the ruling neocons (as in neo-convicts such as Eliot Abrams) are seeking to deal with their erectile disfunction by pushing as hard as they can for war with Russia, aided and abetted by elements of the group of "Strategic Defense" experts in the military-industrial complex who see their careers ending wthout having had the chance to drop a bomb or three on a few million Untermenschen. All for the sake of preserving Our Way of Life, e.g. making the world 'safe' for McDonalds and arms sales, the only props to our so-called "free" economy.

Makes me nostalgic for the feeling of safety I had when crouched under my school desk in second grade...

(I also regret having left Miss Holgate, on whom I and pretty much all of the rest of the class had a HUGE crush).

Janet Kuhn (Fischer)

Unfortunately I was not able to attend the reunion.  I have looked at the pictures and talked to many people and it sounds fabulous.  I think everyone who knew me was aware that I loved highschool and I was so disappointed that I was not able to come and see my friends and get to talk to the people that I did not know well.  There was a lot of sadness in our family at that time which prevented me from coming. 

I do not remember anything about iodine pills.  Maybe we did not have them at Henry Clay or it was not important enough for me to remember.   I do remember standing up and facing the east on Veterans Day.  ProbabIy because it is my Birthday.   I was lucky enough to be able to go home for lunch everyday.  I rode my bike unless there was snow and then I walked.  It was about one mile.  My Mother was always there and made me my favorite sandwiches.   She went back to work when I was a freshman so I stayed at school and we danced during lunch hour.   

Mary Dorner (Howard)

I remember being allowed to pass out the iodine pills at St. Monica's.  Then we got to have extras when we did that.  What a treat.  They were so tasty.

Ken Rotter

My mother told me they were good for me and you know I think she was rightthose of you still around are living  proof as to how we were raised in the Bay Maybe some day they(the establishment) will hand out smart pills that will taste as good .

Dick Olson

Loved the chocolate iodine candies.. Lunch was normally a stop in the cafeteria for a hot fudge sundae, then off to  the "corner"..

David Stearns

Thanks for chiming in everybody!  I am glad some of you actually remember eating at the cafeterias.  I agree with Gary that it was the Reagan administration that cut back on school lunches which resulted in the fast food franchises moving in.  It would appear that the result of that action had some unintended results.  Not sure what the answer is since there are some kids that really benefit from school lunches as Al pointed out.  At least the meals were reasonably nutritious then. 

The 2014 FED UP movie painted a dim picture for obesity of children.  I did some fact checking and some of their statements were incorrect, but it is a problem nonetheless and hard to quantify.  I thought the movie was advocating more government control of our food so I was not in agreement with their solution, but it is a difficult problem with all the sugar in our food these days.  It seems that parents need to take a bigger role in learning about nutrition and passing that on to the children. 

We all grew up in the post-war era when eating habits were much the same as pre-war until the late '50's and '60's.  It started with frozen foods and TV dinners and then came the drive-ins, burgers, french fries, malts, ice cream stores and pizza parlors.  I remember Fitzgerald's Pharmacy (Marlborough and Silver Spring) still had an old style soda fountain where one could get root beer floats and sundaes.  I think we were all fairly active which counteracted the onslaught of sugary foods.  I know I walked home from WFB to Santa Monica and Montclair every day.

Allen (Sandy) Williams

So I have laid low and participated in this forum thing mainly as a voyeur- watching and reading but not tossing in my two cents. I remember clearly the chewable, chocolate iodine tablets which I think we took once a month. Can't remember if nurse Hoganson at Henry Clay dispensed them, but do remember they were putatively given to us to fend off goiter, but I kind of buy into the more sinister theory about Cold War fall out protection. As for the regular air raid drills, I remember the evolution from all of us filing into the coat hall area at the end of the rooms, to filing down to the basements, to avoid the consequences of an A or H bomb attack. But I also remember doing the calculus in my head each time about what was likely to happen at Henry Clay school if that happened. We used to be shown films about A and H bombs, with images of mushroom clouds forming and voice over discussions about what would happen at various distances from the epicenter .... And by my reckoning we would all be vaporized whether we were in the coat hall or in the basement. As for cafeterias, they were in the basements of our grade schools and in the newer wing lowest floor of the high school, overlooking the football practice field  35 cents got you whatever square meal was being offered that day. In high school I remember eating with Phil Seefeld and a group centered around "Richards kids" who had longer walks to get home.  Very few kids had cars to drive to school, and I think we all walked, usually eschewing hats or other actually warm gear in order to look "cool" on the journey. And all of this kept us thin, with the heaviest of our ilk not even approaching the obesity which is so common today. One of my four sons is teaching history/ coaching football at Bay today, and I am pleased to report that while the place has evolved it continues to thrive  I have been a volunteer coach with him for the past two years, and find the kids to be the same high quality adults in the making that we were do many years ago  

David Stearns

I was under the impression that the Iodine tablets were given to us because we lived inland and lacked readily available sources of oceanic seafood that naturally provides Iodine.  In Bogota, we soaked our lettuce in Iodine as a disinfectant.  We still caught amoebic dysentary eby ating in restaurants.

Robert Austin Bealmear

A fun discussion. David mentioned Fitzgerald's Pharmacy. For one summer I was the kid behind the soda fountain, dispensing those drinks and sundaes. I'd give just about anything these days to have a hot fudge sundae made with Benfeldt Ice Cream and Johnson chocolate. Every once in a while when the store wasn't busy I could grab some ice cream and hide behind the window display, eating and watching the people walking the street. For years I've tried to figure out if my cafeteria memory comes from Henry Clay (now Whitefish Bay Middle School I think) or the high school. In my little lunch group a daily game was discovering what everybody's mother packed them for lunch. It could get a little bizarre, what busy mothers could throw together to get you to school on time. I have no recollection at all of the iodine tablets. I do remember those cheap little sundae cups with the wooden spoons!

Wayne Schroeder

I too have read the many posts and up to now have now participated. The iodine pills are a good memory, the reason unclear.

I didn't make the reunion, but viewed the photos and it's a good thing names were included. I'm sure my memory is the reason for unsure photo recogintion (not that anyone has changed in looks over the decades!).

Best wishes to all of you in 2015!

Wayne Schroeder.

David Stearns

Michael Gordy's input was interesting and resonated with me.  I spent four years in Holland and my son attended the American School of the Hague and my daughter, who was younger, attended the local Dutch kindergarten.  We had an au pair at the time who prepared lunches for the kids. I don't recall if they were provided anything at school but I am guessing that it was available. 

The people in Holland were very fit and I think it can be attributed to several factors to include: riding their bikes everywhere; eating a lot of raw herring; a propensity to do without; and perhaps genetics. There were no super markets.  We had to get the fish at the fish store, the vegetables at the vegetable store, bread at the bakery; and the meat at the butcher. There were small shops that sold staples.  The Dutch ate very healthy foods and really enjoyed their herring. Instead of hot dog stands, there were raw herring stands.  For a guilder, one could get a couple of raw herring which were then dipped in raw onion, held by the tail and eaten by tipping the head back and taking bites until it was gone.

Perhaps Michael remembers fast food restaurants in Europe.  I was there in the early 1970's and McDonalds was just starting to open restaurants in Paris and Holland.  Initally, the Dutch wouldn't go so they decided to offer beer.  As long as there was beer, the adults would take their children.  But that was the only fast food franchise I remember. 

At UW in Madison, we would often buy a bag of McDonald's hamburgers.  They were dirt cheap at the time, maybe 15 or 20 cents, and we would bring them back to the dorm and watch the Packers.  I'm not a historian of fast food, but I think McDonalds might have just opened up their first restaurants in Madison in the early 1960's so it was a new phenomena that students quickly embraced. 

Grant (Dave) Paull

One of the things WFBH was noted for in the 60"s was dress fashion for that time. If you shopped at Colony Shop on Silver Spring, the boys would wear the shirts with button down collars, pants with that back strap and buckle, or in the winter the all popular "Pendleton" wool shirts. I also remember a fad that was started by Vince Guzzetta, boys would wear a watch with the face on the inside of their wrist. Try doing that today with the massive size of new watches.

Grant (Dave) Paull

Another question, can anyone remember the name of the drug store that was located on the corner of Idlewilde Ave and Henry Clay St? There was also at the opposite corner on Hollywood Ave, a small business with a men's barber shop.

Barry Leon

That may have been Schwartzman's.

David Stearns

As I recall there was a little grocery store (maybe it was a pharmacy too?) on one of those corners.  I looked at Google Maps street view and there are commercial buildings on three corners - one on Woodruff, one on Elkhart and another on Idlewild.  I remember the store had a diagonal door just like all of these have.  I sort of favor the one on Elkhart as being where we used to walk to at noon to buy potato chips or soda or whatever but after seeing all of these buildings, I am not sure anymore.  Dick Olsen might remember. 

Mary Dorner (Howard)

Dave,my brother Dave says the drug store was Schwartzman's and I remember the grocery store on the corner of Hollywood & Henry Clay that was first Piepers and then became Gunvilles.    The pharmisist who was at Schwartzmans then went on to open his own place on Santa Monica Blvd north of St Monica's. 

Grant (Dave) Paull

Mary, David, Barry and Jerry Thornbery, you have all confirmed that it was Schwartzman's drug store.

I recall walking there or riding my bike and having a cola and vanilla or cherry soda phosphate at the sit-down fountain. You also confirmed and agreed on the grocery store.

After 50+ years, I am amazed that anyone can recall these memories, when I have trouble remembering things one year ago. This is a good exercise.

One place that I did frequent in my neighborhood was "Winkie's 5&10" on the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Hampton Ave. Across the street from "Winkies" was a "Mobil" gas station, that my Dad would gas up at all the time. Near by on Hampton Ave was the "Dairy Queen" where you could get your favorite "Dilly Bar". 

Allen (Sandy) Williams

The small grocery store was Piepers on the southeast corner of Hollywood and Henry Clay, 3 doors north of Bob Rice's house. 

Ken Rotter

I had a part time job at Schwartzmans pharmacy and drove a new 1960blue corvair delivery carrember those ? had a automatic on the dash with a tiny lever sticking out. You are right Paul things you remember and places that exist only in our memories mean a lot to us now. The ones that still exist are fun to go to  how about Whitefish Bay Inn Pandels and their famous  whitefish lunch still served there and still great.

Armin Sher

Wow, do I remember Winkie's on Hampton. The Mobil station became a Shell and is now an Amstar station. I still get gas there. As far as the whole lunch thing, in 4 years at The Bay I never once had the pleasure. I lived right behind Cumberland School.How about the Food Lane Store kitty corner from the gas station.

Grant (Dave) Paull

Believe it or not, the "Food Lane" was orginally in the building that "Winkie's" ended up in, and "Food Lane"  then constructed a brand new store on Hampton Ave, west of the (Schadle Cradle's) "Bay Village" apartments.

When my family moved to Whitefish Bay in 1950, we lived in the "Bay Colony" apartments on 179 East Fairmount Ave, and later purchased our home at 631 East Chateau Place. 

Bill Fink (Fink)

Some of you on this forum may remember me.  I transferred at Dominican's request to WFB my senior year.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Mary, I used to walk  to school with you many mornings.  I think that pharmacy North of St, Monica's that you are referring to was called Bear's Pharmacy.  It was on the far North Eastern corner of the 5900 block of Santa Monica Blvd.  David Stearns and I lived on that block as did Jerry Albert.  I worked for Saul Bear off and on delivering, stocking shelves, and working the register.  Dave Paul's Mom was nice enough to invite me for lunch many days as did Karl Fox's mom.  Wayne Schroeder dated one of my younger sisters for a while. I hope you are all doing well.  

Mary Dorner (Howard)

I have to say memories of Winkie's crosses generations.  When I brought my kids home to visit we would always go there.  Then a few years ago my son, 42 at the time, was in Prague at a meeting with 20 people and only 1 was an American.  She told Sean she was from a small town in Wisconsin.  They got to talking and she was from Fox Point and they started talking about the great store on the corner of Silver Spring that had toys, etc.  They both said "Winkies" at the same time.  What a small world. 

Bill, I remember we went to Saint Monica's together and I do remember walking to school together.   We used to call Saul Bear "Pappa Bear"  when he was at Schwartzman's.   That's what my dad always said.  And you are right Dave, some people have great memories...not me, I had to rely on my "baby" brother for the info.

Take care everyone.