The Middle Years: 1953-1956

Prologue

 

            This is the second installment of a series of reminiscences entitled “Some Childhood Memories” by the Rev. Dr. Richard B. Tudor whose family moved to Bismarck, North Dakota in 1948 when he was six years old.  It is intended to be a collection of snapshots of life in Bismarck during the decade of the 1950’s. This installment will deal (more or less) with the middle years, 1953-1956.

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On June 11, 1953 in the early afternoon, I remember standing with my brother, sister, and mother across the street from the old Bismarck Hospital on Sixth Street. My mother had taken us there to watch President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s motorcade pass through Bismarck on the way to the airport. Earlier in the day, the President had dedicated Garrison Dam at a ceremony in Riverdale fifty miles north of Bismarck. Bismarck in that year had a population of about 20,000 people and a good crowd was lining Sixth Street to see the President. When his car came down the street, “Ike” as he was affectionately called, was sitting up on the back of a convertible. The crowd was silent. I guess that they were in awe. I remember a woman standing near us who spoke up and said, “Imagine that! The President of the United States here in Bismarck!” Remembering that statement and reflecting on it, I have concluded that it said a lot about how North Dakotans thought of themselves in the 1950’s. A key word would have been isolation.

The Midwest

            I don’t think that there could be much argument with the proposition that the childhood lives of the members of the BHS class of 1960 would have been very different had they lived in another area of the country such as the east coast or California or the South. Regionally, the United States was very different culturally then and still is to some degree today (television has been a leveler). We were fortunate to grow up in the Midwest, often described as the heartland of America. It was called that for a reason. The Midwest was considered to be characterized by solid, traditional All American values. Our part of the Midwest was dominated by a concern for agriculture and it was populated by northern Europeans (Germans & Scandinavians) for the most part living on farms or in small towns. They were hard working, solid, religious people, the salt of the earth! People who work the land for their living have always been presumed to be closer to God.

In those years, Bismarck, North Dakota did seem to be a long way from everything.  Today, people on the east and west coasts refer to the Midwest as “fly over country.” There certainly was a sense of that attitude about our part of the country in the ‘50’s. We were too young to realize it, but we were living in what was regarded by many Americans as “the sticks.” Everything new was happening in the East or in California.

On the other hand, the traditional values of family life, hard work, morality, and religion which characterized the plains states were often spoken of positively and with a note of nostalgia. In 1955, a writer named Jack Schaefer after visiting the northern plains wrote, “After coming to know the limitless, serene, indifferent land, you begin to understand the quiet, unhurried manner that marks so many Dakotans. [North] Dakota as a whole still has an uncluttered, unsoiled air, a simple freshness, untainted by the stale weariness of most older, overrun regions. The land, not what man has done with it, predominates.”

There is a ring of truth about Schaefer’s assessment! The vastness of the land in North Dakota – it’s sometimes harshness (cold in winter, hot in summer); the plains stretching as far as the eye could see - was the dominant characteristic of life in North Dakota. Even in the 1950’s, there was still a sense of the pioneer spirit. This is why Teddy Roosevelt is still so admired in our state. He was the Easterner who for his health came west to unspoiled North Dakota to test his will and strength against the challenges of life in the Bad Lands. North Dakota’s highest honor given to those who achieve great distinction in their lives is called the Rough Rider award. It is an award intended to honor “rugged individualism”.

When I tell people where I grew up, most invariably say that they have passed through North Dakota on a vacation or were there for some other reason. When I ask them about their impressions, they usually say that they were surprised by the lack of people. They talk about the interstate highway seeming to go on and on forever with few towns along the way to break the monotony. It’s true! For its size North Dakota has always been under populated. And there is one other problem with asking people about their impressions of North Dakota. They always focus on the “North” in the name of our state. Saying you are from North Dakota is tantamount to saying the North Pole. People immediately think of the word “cold”.  It’s a negative!

In an effort to put a more positive spin on the North Dakota image, there was a contest back in the late 1950’s when we were in high school to write a new state song. To the best of my memory, the following stanzas make up the song that won the competition. I can still sing it. (It’s sung with an emphasis on the “ta”.)  

North Dakota State Song 

You ought-ta go-ta North Dako-ta,

See the cattle and the wheat

And folks that can’t be beat,

You say hello-ta North Dako-ta

And you just can’t say goodbye. 

The skies are bluer than blue

The Sun is sunnier too

And it you don’t believe it then

There’s only one thing to do 

You ought-ta go-ta North Dako-ta

See the cattle and the wheat

And folks that can’t be beat.

You say hello-ta North Dako-ta

And you just can’t say goodbye. 

            To the best of my knowledge, this song never had much public relations impact on the North Dakota image.

Population 

On the subject of population, in 1950 the United States had a population of 150, 697,000; North Dakota, 619,636; and there were 18,541 people living in Bismarck. By 1960, Bismarck had grown to 27,670. It is interesting that in 1930, the population of the state was 680, 895. By 1950, it had declined to under 620,000.  In 2000, North Dakota had grown to 642,200 and Bismarck to 62, 665. The population of the United States in the fifty year period from 1950-2000 doubled to over 300 million.

The population of North Dakota has been on a roller coaster since it was first settled. North Dakota became a state in 1889. Like all of the plains states during the second half of the twentieth century, North Dakota has seen a steady migration from the farm to the city.

The Political Scene in the 1950’s

When the decade of the 1950’s began, Harry Truman was the President. He was succeeded by Dwight Eisenhower, the former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during WWII. Eisenhower served until January, 1961. In 1950, the Governor of North Dakota was Fred Aandahl (1945-1951). Norman Brunsdale became Governor in 1952 and he was followed in 1956 by John Davis who served until 1960. The two North Dakota Senators during the 50’s were Milton Young and William “Wild Bill” Langer. Langer died in 1959 and Gov. Davis appointed former Governor Norman Brunsdale to serve out his term. The Congressman from the Western legislative district during the 50’s was Usher L Burdick. There was an Eastern district Congressman until 1972 when population shifts forced the loss of one of these seats in Congress. Thomas Kleppe was the mayor of Bismarck during the years 1950-54. He was followed by Evan Lips who served from 1954-66. 

Television Comes To Bismarck 

            This installment of memories began with a picture of President Eisenhower riding down 6^th Street in June, 1953. That was a big year for us in Bismarck. On December 19^th, KFYR, owned and operated by Meyer Broadcasting, began transmitting a television signal. I think that I can remember the first show. It was a musical presentation called, ”The Hormel Girls.” I can still see our first television set in its big blond cabinet. Blond furniture was very popular in the 1950’s.

            KFYR began its programming day at about 5:00 pm. If you turned your set on prior to that, what you saw was a test pattern. The station news director was Jack Swenson. And who could ever forget “Esky” Solberg, the weather wizard? He really looked like a wizard with those enormous eyebrows. All he needed was a pointed hat and a magic wand.

            My memories of the very early days of television watching in Bismarck are very limited. The first kid’s show that I can recall watching was Winky Dink. The show was hosted by Jack Barry. Winky Dink was an interactive show, meaning that the viewer got to participate. You needed to purchase a magic screen for 50 cents to apply to your TV screen. This then enabled you to connect the dots with crayons at crucial moments when Winky Dink needed a ladder or a bridge or an ax. What fun! The Winky Dink show ran from 1953-57. I also remember watching shows like “Boston Blackie” and “Adolph Menjou Theatre.” I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Vantine’s Varieties, a locally produced show sponsored by Vantine Paint and Glass (Ron Vantine’s father & uncle). It featured a band called the Wagon Masters.

TV trays quickly became a necessity so people could eat in front of the television set. Sunday nights were a big family TV night. Together, we watched Walt Disney and the Ed Sullivan Show. What I liked best as I got older was the Late Show. After the news, weather, and sports at 10:00 pm, a movie would be shown from 10:30 to about midnight. Then the National Anthem would be played and KFYR would sign off for the day.

            What I really have to shake my head about as I reflect on the difference between television in the 1950’s and television today is the issue of choice that I talked about in the first installment of my childhood memories. After KXMB, channel 12, began broadcasting in Bismarck on November 19, 1955, we thought that we were in hog heaven. Two television stations! If you didn’t like what was being shown on one, you could watch the other. Who could ask for more than that? The cable system that I subscribe to today offers about 150 choices, and I am convinced that there is really nothing worth watching on TV. People surf endlessly through the channels hoping to find something interesting or entertaining and usually find nothing. Too many choices! We have been spoiled. The more people have, the more they want. They are never satisfied!

From Jack Lyons to the Big Boy 

            There is a picture in the North Dakota Historical Society archives of a group of men sitting in the Jack Lyon’s Hamburger Stand in the 1920’s. I have a picture of the front of the store taken in 1938. What a place! It was a Bismarck legend. It was located on the south side of Broadway between fifth and sixth. I was only in there a couple of times to eat. It had a right angled lunch counter facing west where most of the people sat and there were a few small tables along the west wall. It was not a big place. Bottles of pop were in a water cooled machine. You remember how those worked. You put in your dime, moved the bottle you wanted along a track to the opening where you could lift it out. People always talked about how great the hamburgers were. It was torn down in the 1960’s to build a parking ramp. That’s called progress.

            Another Bismarck legendary eating place opened up in 1954 when Harley Mcdowell decided to invest in a Big Boy restaurant. It was a pretty good investment! It was a drive-through not a drive-in. It was and still is located at the eastern end of Main Street, the perfect location for teenagers dragging Main. You pulled into a driveway lined with speakers, gave your order, pulled up to the window, paid and got your order, and then drove into the parking lot to eat it. A lot of time was spent in that back lot. How many Pizza Burgers Flying Style did I eat there? It was the place to be. I can remember warm summer nights when there might be several hundred young people standing outside their cars just talking. No fights! No drug deals! In the 1960’s the climate in America changed and it soon became forbidden to get out of your car in the Big Boy lot. It was the end of an era!

The Okay Confectionary 

            The reason many of us lament the disappearance of businesses like the Jack Lyons Hamburger stand is the fact that they had a character that is irreplaceable today. I would also put the Okay Confectionary in that category. A confectionary was a small candy store that sold a variety of items including magazines and paperback books. The Okay Confectionary stood on the northeast corner of Seventh and Thayer behind the old Bismarck Hospital.  The building must have been thirty or forty years old in the 1950’s. You entered it by climbing three steps right at the corner. Most of the store was elevated above street level. At the rear of the building, one went down three or four steps to a lower level where the pin ball machines were located. I like to tell people today that the Okay Confectionary is where I learned to play pin ball and was introduced to dirty books. Gary Lahr, Mark Williams, and I went in there after school during our sophomore year in high school to play the machines. Whenever I was in there, it was being run by a German lady named Freda Zerr. I believe that her maiden name had been Heupel.  Freda and her husband Bob and their daughter Donna lived in a basement apartment in the building.

The biggest racy novel of the 1950’s was Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. It was published in 1956 and the paperback came out in September, 1957. It sold like the proverbial hot cakes! Frieda sold them from under the counter at the Okay. Adults had to ask for them. I remember hearing her say one time that, “It was a real good seller.” That was something of an understatement! The copy that I possess was part of the 19^th printing in 1962. Emblazoned across the front cover is the statement: The All Time best Selling Paperback Novel. Over Eight Million Sold!” Incidentally, this novel has a great first line, short and to the point. “Indian summer is like a woman.” Looking back, I think that it would be accurate to say that this book and its popularity was one of the opening salvos in the fight against the repressive, almost Victorian attitudes about sexuality which dominated the 1950’s. This would become a major battle in the 1960’s.

On June 28, 2002, the Bismarck Tribune featured a pictorial essay about life in Bismarck in the 1950’s. One of the pictures was an exterior shot of the Okay Confectionary, with a caption that called it, “A Bismarck Landmark.” Apparently, its landmark status didn’t count for much. It was torn down in 1976. At that time, it was owned by Emil and Vi Martin who had purchased it in 1962. My brother went down before the scheduled demolition and had his picture taken on the front steps. Good bye, Okay Confectionary!

Summer & Carnivals

 

                        It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness

                        and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind

                        had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and

                        warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window,

and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom

and living, this was the first morning of summer.

 

                                                                        “Dandelion Wine”

                                                                          Ray Bradbury

 

            Ray Bradbury was a well known 20^th century novelist/storyteller who wrote many science fiction and fantasy stories. He had an amazing imagination! One of his favorite themes was the excitement of young boys about the summer months when they were out of school. It was a time of freedom and really living! One of my favorites is entitled, “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” It is a story about two thirteen year old boys living in Green Town, Illinois who one day towards the end of the summer see a handbill announcing that Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show - a carnival – is coming to town. The boys are excited about this news! Summertime, a time of youthful adventure!

 

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As kids in Bismarck, North Dakota, we also got excited back in the 1950’s during those long summer months of freedom when we saw the handbills appear announcing that the carnival was coming to town. It would be in town for three nights, usually Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. They would set up the tents and rides on some vacant land south of town. I think that it was off the road going to the airport. It’s strange! Nothing looked seedier than a carnival during the daylight hours when everything was shut down. But a transformation took place at night. All the lights and music really created an effect. It was exciting! There was just something about the carnival at night. Magic!

 Our parents took us when we were young and put us on the rides. However when we were older and could drive (we got drivers licenses at age 14), we went out there with our friends and walked up and down the midway. I loved the Ferris Wheels, particularly the ones with enclosed seats. As the wheel went around, you could also tumble the seat around. Just the thought of doing that today makes me feel queasy.

  I can remember one summer night out at the carnival when my friends and I became fascinated with the barker at the ring toss game. The object of the game was to toss a ring around a milk bottle on a table in the middle of the booth. The guy running the game was pretty creative. He stood there all night saying in a sing-song voice,” Pitch till you win. Pitch till you do win for fifteen cents, Hit ’em and get ’em and take ’em home. Pitch till you win.” He was entertaining to listen to, a real talent as a pitchman.

  I can even recollect being out at the carnival one night when I heard somebody call, “Hey Rube!” That was the universal distress call when someone in the carnival needed help. One of the carnival workers had gotten into a rather heated discussion with “a townie” about the honesty of the game he was running. Nothing came of it.

The carnival coming to town was a summer ritual. Does one of these shows still make a yearly stop in Bismarck? I wonder!

The Religious Barber Shop 

            Being taken downtown to a men’s barber shop was quite an experience back in the 1950’s! For my brother Tom and I, that always happened on a Saturday. My father went to the Hoffert Barber Shop for his haircuts. It was located on Broadway between 3^rd & 4^th on the southwest side of the street. My father called it “the religious barbershop.” That was because the two regular barbers were named Pius Hoffert and Beatus Deibert [emphasis mine]. There was a third barber who was occasionally there whose name was John Tkach. When we were little boys, this was one of our few entries into the adult male world. It was great fun! We would go into the barber shop and sit down to wait our turn. There were usually a number of men sitting around and they would talk while they waited. We would listen with interest to their comments. It was usually a lot of good natured kidding or perhaps a more serious discussion of some Bismarck issue. It was like Floyd’s barbershop on the old Andy Griffith show. As a matter of fact, Hoffert’s had the same butch wax poster on the wall as Floyd’s did in the TV series.

The barbers saw and talked with a large number of people each week. Consequently, on Saturday they had a lot of information (gossip) to broker. They would usually ask us something and we would sheepishly mumble a reply. I also remember that the men, even on a Saturday, wore suits. They were for the most part business and professional men. This fact points up another difference between the fifties and the culture of today. Men did not go downtown in baggy shorts and t-shirts emblazoned with beer logos. There was a strong sense of decorum then which is largely absent today. In those years we would have laughed at a sign on a restaurant door which said, “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service!” We would have thought that that was nonsense. Who in their right mind would go into a restaurant without shoes or a shirt? Who indeed! Not so ridiculous today! Americans have taken the idea of “dressing casual” to extremes.

My comment about entering the adult world at the barbershop illustrates another major difference between the fifties and popular culture in the 21^st century. Bismarck society then was an adult culture. Today youth culture dominates everything! The most graphic example of this is mature women attempting to dress and look like teen aged girls. Other examples are legion.

Anyway, sadly the male barbershop is another one of those institutions that has almost disappeared from the American scene. I haven’t had my hair cut by a male barber in years. Its all beauty shops and hair styling today.  

 

On To Junior High!

            In 1954 – the year the Big Boy opened – the BHS class of 1960 entered their Junior High School years. There were four grade schools in Bismarck in the early 50’s: Roosevelt, Wachter, Richholt, and Will-Moore. Sixth graders from all four went to the one Junior High when they graduated from grade school. Those of us who went to Roosevelt moved from one old building to another. Actually, Will-Moore was the only one of the four grade schools which at the time could have been called modern.

            I have to say at the outset that I do not possess one piece of historical material from my junior high years. For instance, no annuals were produced to record who was teaching there. There was no school newspaper published to report on what was happening. No pictures! At least I have none, so I am proceeding entirely on memory.

[After the above was written, Gloria Johnson Doll was kind enough to send a copy of the last Jr. Hi-Lites published in May, 1956 as our class was leaving the eighth grade. It provides a wealth of names, some of which have since been added to this reflection.]

            Bismarck Junior High, a red brick building, was located on 7^th Street just north of Avenue C and to the south of the high school building.  It had originally served as the high school. When was that building constructed? My guess would be the 1920’s (vintage Jack Lyons Hamburger Stand). The building was two stories with a basement where a sunken gym was located. The floors were wooden and it was heated with steam heat. That means radiators! I can still hear those things hissing. There wasn’t a level floor in the whole place. If you dropped a marble it would roll forever. There wasn’t a desk in the  school that didn’t have at least two generations of initials carved into the writing surface. I believe that we were not allowed into the building until about twenty minutes before the beginning of class. I can remember sitting on the stairs on the south side of the building or hanging around in the area on the north side everyday waiting for the doors to open.

            It seems to me that at the beginning of every school day we went to our home rooms for a few minutes. One year all the home rooms had Indian names. Students with names starting with S to the end of the alphabet were Chippewas. Everything was alphabetical in those days. I spent a couple of years sitting in a seat behind Don Tabert. At the end of the day at 3:30, announcements were made through speakers located in each room. One of the announcements was the reading of the Room 3 list. These were the individuals who had to serve detention.  We would always listen to that with some interest.

            Most of the boys were becoming more and more interested in sports. My big ambition was to be chosen for the X Squad, the 8^th grade select team. It was the beginning of having to learn to live with disappointment. I didn’t make it. The best basketball players in junior high when we were in the 8^th grade were (I think) Ted Upgren, Gary Pederson, Gordon Postovit, Ron Anderson, Bill Gillen, and Tim Turner. We also played tackle football in the 8^th grade. The big game was when we played the freshmen. We lost but it would have been much worse if Larry Schmitke had played for the freshmen. They mercifully held him out. He was some runner!

            One of the benefits of being in junior high was that you could go to Teen Canteen. These were dances held on Friday nights for 7^th & 8^th graders downstairs at the World War Memorial building. Sgt. Mack Thompson was the adult who ran this for the city. The first time I ever went to Canteen, I was talking to someone and suddenly my pants were down around my ankles. Hazing was a part of life then.

             The Jr. Hi-Lites reported in May, 1956 that Ralph Vinje was the 8th Grade city spelling champion.
 

            What follows is a partial list of our junior high teachers: Evander Nelson, Principal; Ed Agre, History; Art Kemp, Math; Mrs. Rudser, Art; Arnie Offerdahl, Gym and Science; Harold Kepler, Band; Vic Solheim, Civics; Beatrice Goplin, History; Warren Henke, Civics; Viola Bohn, Geography; Miss Marie Huber, Mr. Carlsen, Mr. Henke, Miss Kistler, and Fred Schilling, Math. Jack Morland became the boys choir director late in the school year to replace Orlon Heskin who died. Morland was assisted by Karen Upgren, pianist. Mrs Augustadt worked in the office.
 

The Calm before The Storm

            Life was relatively serene in Bismarck, North Dakota in the first half-decade of the 1950’s. Some have called it languid. World War II was receding in people’s memories. They had put their lives back together after the disruption of the war and things were more or less back to normal. They country was prosperous and confident under the leadership of President Eisenhower. The United States was involved in the Korean War but we didn’t seem to hear much about it in Bismarck. My awareness of it came from reading comic books. Bismarck was prosperous and growing. It had grown from 18,000 at the beginning of the decade to about 25,000 in 1955. Life was good! I would hasten to add that the 1950’s were not a materialistic era. Certainly not compared to today! Life was much simpler. People’s expectations were not so high. The day of the charge card was on the horizon but had not yet arrived.  We had television in the mid 50’s and it was entertaining, but we were not dependent on it.

            During the 1950’s, boundaries were clearly drawn. “Blue laws” were still enforced. At midnight on Saturday evening, things shut down. Very few places of business were open on Sundays. It was the Sabbath enforced! A few “Ma and Pa” groceries like Bashera’s were open but they could only sell necessities like bread and milk. Absolutely no liquor sales! Sunday was the day people went to church. Sunday afternoons were pretty quiet. It really was a day of rest to prepare for the coming week

            The Church was highly respected in the 50’s. So much so that Wednesday evenings was accepted in Bismarck as church night. Other groups like the schools did not schedule meetings or events on Wednesday nights. Compare that to today with Sunday morning soccer leagues.

            The difference between then and now lies in the fact that a sense of community was much more important in the 1950’s and there were authorities that enforced that concensus. Today American society is all about personal autonomy. Enter Frank Sinatra singing, “I did it my way.”

            Even though things were relatively serene and ordered in the mid 1950’s, arbiters of change would soon appear. The #1 song for eight weeks in 1955 was “Rock Around The Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets. It was also the lead in song in a movie we all saw, “Blackboard Jungle.” Elves Presley released “Heartbreak Hotel” in 1956 and a major revolution in youth culture called “Rock ‘n Roll” began to take the country by storm. The BHS class of 1960 entered high school in the fall of 1956. An exciting four years lay ahead.