by Lee Mannheimer May 20, 2003
My name is Lee Mannheimer. I was born in February of 1943. My father was at war in the Panama Canal Zone and my earliest memories are those of moving to Park Forest when I was 5 years old in 1948. We lived at 93 Forest Boulevard in a duplex, which to me was very large home. It had three bedrooms and a full basement. Next door our neighbors were the Riordans. John Riordan was with the FBI and would eventually head the Illinois Bureau of Investigation.
Joy was a stay at home mom. They had only four children at that time with more to come; Michael was my age as was Steven Doty who lived in the next building. Our home had no sidewalks when we moved in. There were wooden planks that we called duckboards between all the buildings in the court. There was mud everywhere most of the time and in the spring they finally installed the sidewalks and the grass. At that time the Park Forest Fire Department consisted of one jeep with a hose and some fire extinguishers on it. Our telephone number was a Juniper exchange followed by only 4 numbers and we were on an 8 party line. This was troubling because when you tried to make a call and picked up the phone you would hear someone else talking. I began school in a converted multiplex housing unit as the new schools had yet to be built. My first school was the Forest Boulevard School near the not yet completed Shopping Center and I had to carry my lunch. After a year I was moved to the Juniper School another converted multiplex housing unit closer to my own home. From Juniper I could walk home for lunch each day and watch Uncle Johnny Coons and the Our Gang movies as I ate. I went to the Juniper School for a year until Lakewood School was competed. That was a great school. It was brand new and it was very modern. I was in third grade and my teacher was Mrs. Loeb. I also attended fourth grade with Mrs. Huncilman, fifth with Mrs. Reeves and sixth with Mr. Buffey who later became the principal and who drove a blue and white 1954 Ford Fairlane two-door which was really a cool looking car. There was a contest to name the new school newspaper and I was the winner naming it the Lakewood Planet, just like the Daily Planet on Superman, which was on each day in the afternoons on our 12 inch black and white television. After school there were lots of kids to play with but on rainy days we stayed in and watched Hopalong Cassidy, Sky King and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon as well as westerns on Saturdays.
The Holiday Theater was finally completed in the Shopping Center and on Saturdays all the kids would go to the show from 12:30 until almost 6PM for three cartons and three movies, usually old westerns all for a price of 9 cents. This theater was very modern with a crying room for babies to go in that was sound proofed. But the day was mainly pandemonium with Jujubees and flattened popcorn boxes flying in every direction. There was a little candy shop around the corner from the new Jewel that sold waxed lips and dots on paper and stuff like that. The Jewel was supposed to be the biggest one ever built and it was very modern in 1950. The shopping center developed slowly with a Rexall Drug at one corner that had a soda fountain where you could get a Green River or a chocolate coke. One of the last stores was Marshall Field's. One day when playing around the clock tower a long green limousine arrived and we kids had a chance to meet Marshall Field who talked to us for a few minutes.
About 1952 Park Forest had grown considerably and now had a police station and some black Plymouth police cars. I recall that the Chief of Police was Captain Plaza [archivist's edit: actually Milan Plavsic]. There were also new fire trucks and this was all very exciting to us boys. By this time I was old enough to ride my bike all over town. We never locked our doors or windows. That year my mom let me take the bus to Chicago Heights alone for the day. I liked Chicago Heights because we use to go there to the theater before the Holiday Theater was built. I saw my first 3-d picture there, Fort Ti and my dad went bowling there where I watched the pin boys set the pins and jump out of the way. The summer of 1952 also saw a great campaign for President. It was Eisenhower versus Stevenson and a lady named Jinks Falkenberg came to town to campaign for one of them down near the Forest Boulevard School but all we kids wanted were the campaign buttons.
As I became older I needed to find a job so I went to Vistain's newspaper agency that had a spot in the mall and got a job delivering papers. My paper route took me about an hour each day after school for which I was paid $2.50 per week. But this time conflicted with Mrs. Perlmutter's Hebrew class, which I never managed to reach at Lakewood school until it was half over. Finally I gave up Hebrew and continued with selling papers. I had a second route on Sunday in the newly developed single-family homes going in near Sauk Trail. Right next to Vistain's Agency was a record store that sold phonographs and televisions. In 1954 they had a Motorola color TV in the store and we all went on Saturday to see Mary Hartline in Super Circus in color that was really exciting although it was not a very clear picture.
At Forest Boulevard and Western Avenue there was a Mobil Gas Station with a big flying horse sign. And on Western a bit north of that was a Deli type place run by a man named Shelly and up from that was a building with a sign "Doctor Fix It and Mr. Make It" where I would hang out and be allowed to use the jig saw. He was a very kind man but I can't recall his name.
One summer I became friends with Jimmy Klutznick. He had lived in a duplex off of Western Avenue but his folks built a really cool house on Monee Road. He lived next door to Tommy Taradash who in turn lived next to Billy Pomerantz. About a block or two away lived Pam Sweet whose father helped Phil Klutznick build Park Forest. Ethel Klutznick was a great lady and she had a 1952 blue Ford woody wagon. There were five kids in the family. The oldest Betty we never saw. Tommy was next and he had an Indian Motorcycle, which we thought was really neat. Then there were two younger kids one we called Skippy. We use to crawl under the house with flashlights and come up in one of the bedrooms. We would play hide and go seek all over the house but we were not allowed in the living room or dining room. In the master bedroom there was a side room that had a steam type cabinet but it was heated with light bulbs and was a good hiding place. There was a huge bed with a wooden bolster that was hollow and the pillows were hidden inside but it was not big enough to get into. There was a hidden bar off the family room that had a secret switch that buzzed the lock and opened the door. This was a pretty good hiding place also. It was a great house and the maid would make us lunch. The Pomerantz house had the kitchen facing the street and the other rooms facing the forest preserve. It was also a friendly house and Mrs. Pomerantz was always making lunch or doing something for us. The Taradash house was in between these two homes and we never were allowed to spend time in there as Mrs. Taradash was not as welcoming of all the kids as the other moms. The Taradash's owned the local liquor store in the shopping center where we would go with Tommy for a soft drink on hot days. His father was a quiet man but always nice to the kids.
In the summer time the ice cream truck would stop in each court of the rental homes and we would by a square ice cream covered with nuts. It was not Good Humor, I think it was a KarmelKorn truck from Chicago Heights. There was also a bakery truck it was a Chevy Panel truck with shelves in the back that would come to each court. One day it turned over on its way back to Chicago Heights on the big dip in the road where you could get your bike up to 50 miles an hour going down hill. After that we didn't see that bakery truck again. My parents would also drive us over to Steger to a special restaurant that served Chicken In the Rough and I would look at the menu that showed all their locations all over the United States. The sign out front had a chicken with a golf club and the food was always good. Then we would all go to the Sauk Trail Drive-In to see a movie. My sister and I would put on our pajamas so when we fell asleep we could be put right to bed when we got home.
Before Lakewood School was built there were trees and swamp in that area. We use to catch salamanders and frogs and build mud damns in the summer. We kids were out all day and it was totally safe. Then they decided to build a very elaborate aqua center. They cleared the swamp and cut the trees. We were all very upset to lose this play area. One summer night we were climbing around the construction and found a sump pump running. Someone unplugged and then rolled a number of large pipefittings into the water, which promptly sank. The next week there was an article in the paper about vandals delaying the centers completion since the plumbing fittings had disappeared. I imagine they are still under the large pool if the aquatic center is still there. The summer always brought the circus. There was always a circus parade down Forest Boulevard and I would get a job working in the popcorn stand or something, it was an exciting time. There were court parties where everyone would bring a dish of food and we would have fun with all the other families. We would sit out on the porch and watch the traffic go up and down Forest Boulevard from our large metal chairs that rocked on their bases. On Saturday I would have to cut the grass with a push mower and I hated the fact that we lived on a corner lot that had so much grass to cut. But in the winter the snow would blow into six and seven foot drifts and I wished for the warm weather as I snapped the cold metal buckles on my rubber boots. But one summer the refinery in Whiting, Indiana exploded and we felt the shock. We could see the fire and the smoke from our back window but it did not stop us from playing.
In the spring of 1955 my father's company was moving and my parents told me that we would be moving at the end of the school year. I cried every night for three days. I had grown up here, all my friends were here. Lanny Walker, Shelley Stromquist, Susan Jeski, Marsha Wood, Linda Van Gurpen, Mike and Dennis Riordan, Steve Doty, Richie Salmon, Ricky Ross, Charlie Rosenberg, Billie Treitler, Gene Mendelsson, Jimmy Klutznick, Billy Pomerantz, Mike and Pat Kirby, Jamie Patterson, Carol Gaussbeck, Janice Surlin, Greg Stephenson, Marianne Chote, Patricia Longerman, Bob Shock, and Allen Sutherland. These people and all the other memories I have of my life in Park Forest from 1948 until 1955 I will cherish for the rest of my life.
Lee Mannheimer
