Emails

Emails for March

William VonBehren biography

Thanks for the Biography on William Von Behren - very interesting! Such an 'ordinary' life, but yet he and his wife contributed to the area, much like many other 'ordinary' people that have populated this great land! Without them, what would we have become? Very well written!

Martha Lyons

Stoddard brick road paved over, not removed

Dave, as you know, I lived on the county highway west of Minonk for many years and I am pretty sure that the (Stoddard)brick pavement west of Minonk is still under the blacktop. The county just put several inches of gravel over the bricks and then blacktopped over that. I am thinking that occurred in the middle fifties.

I remember that on real hot summer days, occasionally the bricks would buckle (blow up) and then the county would have to clean up the loose bricks and fill the hole with concrete. There were quite a few concrete patches on that road when they blacktopped it. I agree that the bricks were durable but they were not very smooth, especially on farm machinery with no suspension.

Arlen Ruestman

Suggestion for park pavilion fund raiser

Dave what do you think about having a sale where people would donate crafts, house wares, etc? All the money would go for the west park pavilion. Plus if some of the items were valuable enough raffle tickets could be sold for these items.It would take some planning plus some volunteers. I for one would volunteer plus donate some of my wood crafts.

Bob Cufaude

Guess on mystery I.C. Dispatcher

In the 40's I believe that H. Henrichs ("Harmy") may have been the dispatcher in this office. If that can be confirmed, and it is agreed that he retired at about that time, he may have been the person in the picture.

Just a guess.

Gerry Schmitz

Dollar General not locating in the parking lot

David,
I believe the plans have been change as not to take the city park lot. The developer has changed the site plan to the rear of the area and leave the parking lot intact. We look forward to serving the Minonk community in the near future with our new store. If you have any other questions or comments, feel free to use the information below to contact myself or the company in general.

Thank You,

Terry Bailey
Dollar General Regional Real Estate
Evansville, Ind

Editor's note: I am sure that the rest of the community joins me in welcoming the Dollar General store to Minonk in its new location.

Looking for pictures of bonfire on VE Day

The Minonk site is wonderful! I grew up there with sister, Barbara, and brother Richard. Any chance of addition of records of the Catholic cemetery? Are there any photos of the bonfire on Chestnut Street on VE Day? Thank you for hours of pleasant browsing.

Rita Stevens (Buchness)

More feedback on Chocolate Shop

Don did a great job with his article on the "Chocolate Shop". I could almost see Babe Smith in his seat at the counter and all the cooks and dish washers.

Don left for school in 1948. My brother Jerry started working at Morrison's about that same time. He and Tom Tolar were the "soda jerks". I started a few months later-probably in late spring of 1949. Now comes the part you're not going to believe! Don said he started out doing "jobs that didn't require much gray matter". That's what I was hired for!! Don kept the position for several months, BUT I kept my position for at least two years. I did fill in as a soda jerk when the others didn't show up for work or had a basketball game.

I did appreciate Don mentioning the cooks and other Kitchen workers. I'm not good at remembering names, but from his list I could picture each one. I believe Don came back as a guest "soda jerk" once or twice. We wondered if he could handle the job. Little did we know that we were in the presence of a collegiate "soda jerk".

THANKS DON. GREAT ARTICLE. KEEP THEM COMING.

Barth Weistart

Another park pavilion fund raiser idea

Hi Dave, Just an idea that came to mind when I thought of the lampposts uptown with the commerative plaques on. Could the committee offer a commerative brick, tile etc in the bldg or patio area? Buy a brick, put your message on.

Bob Schmitz

National Park Service offers web site

Dave.

I enjoy looking at the Minonktalk.com web site...helps me catch up with a few acquaintainces. I really enjoy the alumi page and the fact that I now have about 17 classmates on either your site or classmates. com.

For your readers, you may consider posting a note regarding a website about the National Park Service and how on line information can be useful not only for folks planning their vacation but also for teachers of various classes as they can find other useful information linked to each park site. The home page is http://www.nps.gov. We (the National Park Service) were offline for nearly 3 months due to some court case regarding access to various bureau information in the Dept. of Interior. We seemed to have cleared that hurdle and sites should be available for people's use.

Thanks for the web site and catching up with a bit of news!

Steve Cinnamon

Minonk Talk made his mother's day

The picture that you have posted on March 1st of the Grampp Poultry Store is a picture of my great grandfather's store. I believe that the man in the wagon on the right is Frank Grampp, my great grandfather. He passed away in 1970 or so at the age of 91 I believe. I was 7 or 8 at the time but remember him fondly to this day.

My parents were visiting this week with some friends from college who now reside in Florida. They were playing around on the internet and got on your website. When they saw the picture of the store, well lets just say that it made my mother's day, month and year.

My mother's name is Gloria June Moline Avant. She was born in April 1925 in Minonk. Her parents were Helen and Walter Moline.

I will try and get her to give me some old picture of Minonk and try to scan them and send them to you.

Thanks for such a wonderful site and making my mother's day.

Mike Avant

Too many users connected to Minonk Talk?

My website just informed me that I was unable to connect to minonktalk because there were too many users!!

If that is not success, what is, Webmaster!!

Gerry Schmidt

Editor's reply: I have gotten this message and many other people have told me they have been getting the same message. The problem is with the server at the internet provider's computer site. I am checking into this situation to see why this is happening. If it doesn't happen to Microsoft who gets 5 million hits a day, it shouldn't happen to Minonk Talk who gets 200 hits a day.

Traffic laws seem to be ignored

Dave, I have noticed that the police reports never mentions that a ticket has been issued. Are there any tickets issued for running thru stop signs, speeding or are matters just given a slap on the hand? Also what is being done about the problems of bikes being driven on the uptown side walks? No wonder people do not pay any attention to these problems as they seem to be ignored.

Bob Cufaude

Remembers Chocolate Shop days

Excellent article about the Chocolate Shop. I can remember sometimes on Saturday night or Sunday noon being VERY busy and earning 45 cents per hour (but that was after I was an EXPERIENCED waitress).

Bob Morrison was a sweetheart -- can't imagine handling that many teenagers today.

Bypassing the town with the highway changed a lot of the patterns for out-of-towners to stop for a meal on the way north or south on Route 51or even those coming into town for the Saturday night shopping. Bet no one drives two cars into town on Saturday afternoon so they could park one near the bank corner to sit in to watch the people go by!

Betty Wheatley