Health & Fitness
GROWING UP IN GREENDALE by Karen Thomas Conklin
This is about growing up in Greendale from fall of 1938 until the village was sold in 1952. Anybody else want to share their memories as we approach this 75th anniversary?
Greendale was one of three villages built by the Resettlement Administration, a branch of our federal government, and rented to those who qualified, as more or less a sociological experiment designed to get the working poor out of the inner cities and provide jobs for the unemployed. The concept was borrowed from similar towns in England which had proven successful in curbing growing resentment and crime in slum areas by giving God-fearing, hard-working people a fresh start in the country. In today’s politically correct world, none of this could happen, because everyone selected to live in one of these villages had to be white, with an income within specific guidelines, have no criminal record, and so forth. Thus, everybody was pretty much just like everybody else, instilled with core family values appropriate for the times. Fortunately for me, my family was one of those selected to live there.
The village was built to be completely self-contained. It had its own police and volunteer fire department, trash disposal services, and even facilities to provide electricity and clean water. Rents were adjusted to the income levels of those selected to live there. Our three-bedroom home was for those with annual incomes between $2,100 and $2,700, and the rents varied from $27 to $46 per month. Free-standing homes like ours were the most expensive. Monthly charges for electricity ranged from $2.65 to $4.10, and water cost between $.65 and $1.30. Quite different from today’s standards of many people paying upwards of half of their income just to maintain their homes, except for those in Title 8 housing, of course.
Everyone had a coal furnace and bought their own coal as needed. Fires were stoked at night to be, hopefully, restarted in the morning. If it got too hot when the furnace was going, the problem was fixed by opening a window. Baths and laundry were always done on the weekend when the little stove was lit that controlled the hot water tank; the rest of the week water was heated on the stove for doing dishes and such. Some of the country kids who were bussed in to our school were without indoor plumbing in those days, so we thought we really had it made, living in such modern housing. We moved into our three-bedroom, one bath house in 1938, when I was just 9 months old, and my sisters were ages 6 and 10.
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The entire village had only 2,800 inhabitants and was built in a valley adjacent to a ten-square-mile park. The valley was divided into four sections referred to as A, B, C, and D; and the streets in each section were named by Eleanor Roosevelt when she came to view the progress being made on this uniquely designed village. We lived in the B section at 5618 Berry Court. Each section was laid out with the safety of its residents in mind.
In the B section, each street dead-ended onto a walkway leading to the neighborhood where the children could play. All of the single-famiy homes were at the end of the street, and apartment buildings were located adjacent to the main road called Northway that curved through the entire village. It was safe to play in the street because nobody could drive through, and those coming down Berry Court were always careful to watch for children jumping rope, riding their bikes, skating, or playing some game like “Captain, may I,” kick-the-can, or hide-and seek in the street.
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All of the mothers with children stayed home, because until WW-2 it was considered inappropriate for a married woman to hold a job; jobs were for men and it was simply expected that a man would support his wife. The children were pretty much all dressed alike because our mothers went with whoever had a car to do their shopping together. One regular stop was at the army surplus store to pick up jackets, fatigues, and other such items we all thought were very cool, even if sometimes the items were way too big for us. We also had the warm, wool, army surplus blankets on our beds. Many other items of clothing we wore tended to be a lot like everyone else was wearing too, because our mom’s bought whatever was on sale as they shopped together. It’s interesting to compare our standards of dress back then to today’s standards; brand names are such a big deal now. In my growing-up world what counted was being clean and appropriately dressed for the climate, with little of the “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality.
My growing up memories are, for the most part, all wonderful. In the summertime, when not involved with games on the street or nearby park with other kids, I spent hours and hours playing in our backyard with my plastic horses, building barns, fences, and riding trails. Everybody had a bike, and long rides into the countryside were commonplace. Skating was another fun summertime activity; our roller skates clipped onto our shoes, and we wore our skate keys around our necks. Ice skating, sledding and tobogganing were very popular in the wintertime. The tennis courts with their tall fences were flooded over and allowed to freeze, making an ideal confined skating rink. The warming house had a brightly glowing Ben Franklin stove in the corner and wooden benches all around the sides where we could sit to put on and take off our skates.
By 1947 television was gaining in popularity, and my dad bought one of the first sets in Greendale. It was quite a novelty, and neighborhood kids crowded against the windows to be able to see, smashing down my mother’s flowerbeds. She fixed the problem by allowing them in for an hour of cartoons every Saturday morning in return for their promise not to stand outside the windows at any other time. That worked, because in those days a promise really meant something.
Victory gardens became the “in” thing during the war years when rationing came into being. We kids thought we were really getting away with something when we’d go out after dark with a salt shaker in our back pockets to raid the tomato and cucumber patches. Looking back, I can see the humor in all of that–we loved the excitement of doing something we didn’t think we were supposed to, and the adults were so delighted to have us interested in eating healthy stuff that they could not have cared less about what we “stole.” It was the same when we raided various fruit trees. We ate well and spent a lot of time playing outdoors so got plenty of exercise. I don’t recall anybody in our village being overweight.
I guess I could say that was one of the good things resulting from living through the Great War. Another thing I remember about the war years was polio season, which lasted throughout the hottest part of summer when all of us kids were to remain in their own homes or yards and not allowed to play with others. The very thought of catching polio and possibly being crippled or, heaven forbid, needing to live in an iron lung, terrified us. We were more than happy to stay away from other people if that would help keep us safe from polio.
The police offered their assistance in keeping us amused by coming through each neighborhood in their squad car, which was equipped with a speaker on the roof. As soon as we heard the music, we would gather in our front yards to listen to the day’s announcements and collect treats if we had written a letter to one of Greendale’s servicemen stationed overseas. Apparently the city paid for the postage, because I don’t recall needing any 2-cent stamps. When the neighbor I wrote to regularly returned, he made a point of giving me a big hug and thanking me for those letters. That made me feel pretty guilty, because, truth be told, I had mainly written them to get the treats.
Throughout the year, Saturday afternoons were movie times for us kids. For just 11 cents, the local theater provided a double feature, cartoons, follow-the-bouncing-ball sing-alongs, and newsreels. Somehow everybody quickly figured out that the little kids belonged down front, the junior high level all sat in the middle, and the older kids got the back rows (where they could neck!). My cousin, who was three whole days older than I, informed me that all the kids were sent to the Saturday matinee so their parents could have sex. I was shocked! Those were the innocent days when children thought sex was horrible and parents only did it when necessary to have another baby. How different things are today; sex is now so blatantly included in advertisements, movies, and TV shows that parents find it almost impossible to protect their children’s innocence.
It was a safe, secure world in which I lived, and I sometimes wish I could bring those times back for today’s children. We didn’t have much, but then we didn’t need much; and as they say, “you don’t miss what you never had.” We were surrounded by adults who cared enough about us to tell our parents if we misbehaved, so we learned early on to behave appropriately. Good manners were expected, and everybody understood the basics of sharing and taking care of others. Another thing that contributed to our values and standards of behavior as we were growing up was the strong religious and community life available to us. We had lots of churches in our small village; and as far as I know, just about everybody went to one of them, at least for Christmas and Easter if not on a weekly basis.
The city Parks and Recreation department provided lots of fun things to do, all family-oriented. We had donkey baseball to round out the regular ball games that went on all summer, parades on a regular basis (we could decorate our bikes or wagons and march in the parades, too), and even a grand ball on President’s Day in February where everybody dressed up, cakes and other goodies were sold, and all proceeds went to charity. What a great way to break up the long, dreary winter that special event was each year.
Many things about today’s world are an improvement over the world in which I grew up. In those days, we didn’t have air conditioning, computers, flat-screen TVs, cell phones, or a myriad of other treasures that are commonplace now.. Yet the simplicity and goodness of life as I knew it in Greendale seem to be missing these days. What happened?