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The following is the third in a series of articles about growing up in Gowanda. It is a VERY long article. You may want to save a copy of the pdf version of the article to your computer to read at your leisure. Just click the icon to the left to load the file into your browser. Then use the 'download' option in your pdf reader to save the file to your computer.

Gowanda PennySaver - March 2, 2003

I Remember Gowanda, 1933-1945, part 3

By Richard Westlund

     The corner of Walnut and Jamestown streets, now occupied by Burger King, was at one time the home of the Witt and Anderson automobile dealership. I believe they handled Chevrolets. A family named Rose used to live in an apartment above the garage. They had a couple boys in my age bracket. They also had a player piano. We used to love to peddle away to produce the song "Whispering."

     The building now occupied by the Gowanda PennySaver/News was the home of Doc Allen. I believe he was one of the more popular doctors in Gowanda. He had a large family who must have come close to filling that huge house. He was active on the school board also. His son, Hank, was one year ahead of me.

     In a previous article I mentioned the Riviera tavern on North Water Street. I don't believe I was ever in there, but I remember they had book matches advertising their bar, as did many such establishments. On theirs was a picture of a young kid in a straw hat, urinating in a creek. The caption under the picture said, "Don't drink water, drink good beer."

     The Slovenian Club in those days was open to Slovenians only. Somehow I was in there once in my early teens. They were having a dance, and my wife, Monie, being a Slovenian kid, was there. Although she doesn't remember it, she taught me to polka then. I remember her, but she doesn't remember me. Probably because I wasn't as pretty as she was.

     Ken Boss lived on East Main, about where the Mentley Funeral Home is. He ran a taxi service from his home. When I first came home from the Navy in 1946, I drove taxi for him for a while before I went off to school. He had a couple nice Dodges with Fluid Drive, the precursors of automatic transmissions. Vogtli's also ran a taxi service at the same time (a bustling town). They were located on the very south end of Buffalo Street, which is now mostly a parking lot for Jubilee. They had a garage there then. I'm not sure which of the Vogtli's owned it but I used to see Vic driving for them a lot.

     I had some interesting adventures driving cab at one time or another. We usually had two or three cabs on duty most of the time. We were radio controlled and Mrs. Boss, Kathleen, did a lot of the dispatching. She was a very nice lady, and pleasant to work with. Spending that much time on the road, I had a couple wrecks with their cabs, both caused by icy conditions, but nothing serious.

     When our family first came to Gowanda in '33, we lived across from the Palm Gardens. It wasn't a tavern or motel then, but a sort of a neighborhood delicatessen with a soda fountain. I say sort of because I remember you could get a loaf of bread there, or candy, but I'm not sure what else. Mr. Fansher (phonetic spelling) owned it and he had a pronounced Boston accent. He was also very pleasant to us little kids.

     The first day I went to school (first grade), I didn't remember my way home. I got as far as the town square where Gibb Harris, the chief of police, was directing traffic. I went up to him and told him I was lost, but I knew my street address. With that information, he took me home. Thanks Gibb. There was no such thing as an Aldrich Street bridge at that time.

     People did a lot of swimming in the swimming holes in local creeks in those days. On Sunday afternoons in the summer, our parents would often take us kids to some place where we could picnic and swim. One place we liked was down in Forty. I see the road is closed now so you can't drive down there, but it used to be a much-used recreation area.

     Out Forty Road a ways the road went down a very steep curvy road to the creek. About halfway down there was a plank bridge across a small stream that crossed the road. Whenever a car went down and crossed that plank bridge you could hear the planks rumble from quite a distance. At the bottom, there was a steel bridge across the Cattaraugus, and very high cliffs towering above you. There was a large rock outcropping near the top of the cliff that always looked split and about ready to fall. I wonder if it has come down yet. Near the bridge was a decent swimming place that would attract quite a few swimmers on a Sunday afternoon. I remember being on a scout campout there once also.

     There was another pretty good swimming hole in the Cattaraugus in Zoar Valley. It was probably used more than the one in Forty. It was not very far from where you first entered Zoar Valley on Zoar Road and had quite an expansive sand and gravel beach. Us kids on the east side of town used to walk to a place we called Burdicks. It was about two miles out of town on a footpath off Becker Road in Clear Creek. It was really a nice place. The swimming hole was the result of about a three-foot, slate-based waterfall (good to dive from) and there was a slate ledge about a foot below the water on one side that made a good place to sit.

     I remember swimming in Thatcher Brook, and jumping in from the bridge on South Chapel Street. There was a girl floating in an auto inner tube and I, being a bit impish, jumped close to her to splash her. She put her arm out to try to paddle away and I hit my chin on her arm loosening the teeth in my lowerjaw a bit. My mother never heard about that.

     If there was any place in any creek with a pool bigger than a puddle, you would sooner or later find a bunch of kids swimming there on a hot day. Even out on Route 62 under the bridge just past Richardson Road a ways there was a pretty good hole. It was small but we used to call it "Twill-do."

     My generation was the first TV generation, and I enjoyed my work very much WBEN had the first TV station in Buffalo. I believe they went on the air in 1947. That's when I first heard about the new technology and decided that it would make a good career. I spent my working life in television broadcasting. In looking back, it seems to me that TV was quite effective in changing the way we live, and not always for the better. It seems that people don't get involved in community activities the way they used to. Is it because they are content to stay home with the boob-tube? Perhaps they don't want to miss the next episode of Law and Order.

     For example, when I was a kid there were often parades in Gowanda on days like Memorial Day. The Legion had a drum and bugle corps. The firemen had a marching band. I remember John Badowitz, who lived halfway up Hill Street on the left. He was a member of the American Legion and always led the parade. He had a drum major's uniform and he would strut proudly in the lead with chin up, knees stepping high and baton waving directions, as classy as Robert Preston in the "Music Man." The town would ring with the strains of Sousa and was certainly exciting to see. Someone always marched near the front playing the Glockenspiel and how it would ring.

     I remember once they had a regional firemen's convention and the parade was filled with firemen's marching bands and drum corps from all over Western New York. A friend of mine from Olean marched in the firemen's marching band from there. I wonder what happened to all the firemen's marching bands. I miss an annual exposure to John Philip Sousa crossing the bridge on Main Street.

     Every summer the Legion would have a summer picnic. My dad was a Legionnaire and we were Sons of the Legion. We really looked forward for weeks to the Legion picnic, because you could have all the pop and ice cream you could eat. WOW, talk about free-wheeling indulgence!

     Apparently some of these accounts I have written have been circulated beyond the local townships. I received a brief note from a high school classmate of mine who now lives in Lincoln, California. He was disappointed that I never mentioned the Main Diner. It's the Olympia Restaurant now, but back in the '40s the Main Diner was one of the main hangouts of local high school kids in the evening. I bet a good share of their profits came from the many kids who tried to influence the path of balls in the pinball machine without tilting it. I wasn't a pinball player, but I've had many a second supper there, as typical teenage appetites were always hungry.

     The note from California was from Dick Rooney. The last time I saw him was about 20 years ago when he attended one of our class reunions and later played a round of golf with me at the Gowanda Country Club. He spent 13 years working with a fellow scientist (Edmund Law) on the development of the now-famous tiles that shield the spaceships from burning up on re-entry. He has every right to be proud of his contributions to the space program.

     Receiving this note started me thinking. I'm sure that Gowanda High School has graduates across the United States who have had very distinguished careers in various fields. Gowanda may be in a valley, thus causing the sun to appear to rise a little later and set a bit sooner, but Gowanda's light has spread far and wide across the globe. I am not familiar with them all, but in my little articles here I have been able to acknowledge two of my classmates, Dick Rooney, NASA scientist, and Art Luine, Navy jet pilot and aeronautical engineer. I don't know for how long and on what project, but I also know that a third classmate, Edmund Mende, spent a lot of time out at the White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico on government projects. That's where they do a lot of guided missile testing, and they never send dummies out there. I bet, truth be known, the influence of Gowanda reaches far, wide and deep across the globe.

     As I have continued an account of my childhood memories in Gowanda; I hope you, the readers, will understand that some of these memories are a bit shrouded in mist and getting moss covered, just like the "Old Oaken "Bucket" of song. If you detect inaccuracies I hope they are not too glaring. I mentioned before that Louie Scrabec was killed playing football for the town. I don't know where I got the name Louie. I don't think many people knew his real first name, or if it was Louie, certainly not me. I later recalled that everyone called him Stubba. If there is, or was, a Louie out there besides Stubba, please accept my apologies.

     As I reminisce about those days long ago, I think how my mother would have enjoyed the conveniences that came to bless the later years. There were five of us kids and washday was quite a chore for my mother. She would get out the washing machine and a couple washtubs for rinsing. No spin dry in the washer and no drying machine, Everything went through the ringer to the rinse tubs a couple times, and then was hung outside to dry. That could be a very unpleasant task in the winter. While I spent many an hour drying dishes after supper, I don't recall ever being asked to help mother with washday chores. She worked hard taking care of her brood, but she always seemed to take it in stride.

     I said in the first episode of this story that I felt like I grew up in the Garden of Eden! I think I would have to give Mom credit for much of the pleasant atmosphere I enjoyed in those days.

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