Christin asked me to talk about growing up in Greendale. It was a unique experience because it was a unique place.
Slide (sign): Greendale is 15 km southwest of Milwaukee in Wisconsin. It was a planned garden city, built by FDR with unemployed workers (from the Depression) in 1938. It is one of three: Green Hills, Greenbelt and Greendale. They were called the Greenbelt Cities. (Sound familiar?--Gruen Guertel) It was somewhat isolated. There was a bus every hour or so leaving for Milwaukee.
Slide (map): This is Greendale today with 26000 population. You can see all the Green—these are parks and forest land. We will talk about the original village (point out), which stayed at about 2600 people until after 1951, when it was sold by the federal government, house by house, to the people living there. Up to then, everything was cooperatively operated.
Slide (original map): As you can see, the original village was a small town surrounded by park, forest and farm land. The center of the village had all the stores and governmental buildings. Here is where we lived—everything within walking distance. Maybe one of the first “15 minute cities”. We walked or rode bicycles everywhere.
Slide (downtown): Here is an old photo of the village center with the stores and governmental buildings. All the stores were cooperatively owned by the villagers (inhabitants). It was a communitarian type of living. Nothing was privately owned. We rented our homes. There were strict limits on who could live there: You had to be white, lower or middle class (by income), and working with a job.
Slide (detail downtown): This is part of downtown, showing the brick buildings, including the tavern and the stores: supermarket w/butcher, drug store, cinema, post office and others.
Slide (Theatre): The cinema was very active all the time we were growing up
Slide (Administration Bldg.): Here is a photo of the Village Hall during some kind of village celebration. The village was governed by a Village Board and School Board, with a hired city manager.
Slide (Houses): Here is what the houses looked like when just completed in 1938—quite uniform, cinder block, solid and very comfortable houses.
Slide (Different houses): There were different styles of houses, some single family, and here you see some multiple unit houses, some with apartments for single persons.
Slide (houses): Here is how those uniform houses looked about 20 years later. Most of the following photos are from my father's album of photos he took and developed himself at home.
Slide (Christin in front of our house): Here is someone (whose birthday is not today) admiring our house, on Azalea Court. The village was divided into sections: A, B, C, D—with all the streets named after flowers or trees (eg.Azalea, Balsam, Crocus, Daffodil, etc.).
Slide (Margit): Oops, another one year old—but in Munchen (Margit in her Loden Jacke)
Slide (5588): Our house in 1939 with the newly planted cherry tree.
Slide (5588): This is how it looks today with my father's paint colors—In university, I got the ugliest house award. While it was not pretty, it was very substantial and like some plattenbau, ugly on the outside, but very nice inside. It had three bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen and utility room with one bath upstairs, plus the garage and large back yard.
Slide (snow): 1947 there was a tremendous snow of about 1 meter 50. We could not leave the house.
Slide (snow to door): We had to shovel out a passage to the house, and we had to shovel the street to get cars out. No snowplow could enter. This was done by hand with all the neighbors helping—a typical reaction in Greendale, where we all depended on our neighbors and friends for help, fun and entertainment.
Slide (K & C on trike): Life in Greendale was very family, friends and neighbors centered. We played in the streets since they were dead ends with virtually no traffic.
Slide (jeep): We did things together—my father always said the we need to make our own fun
Slide (5588, '68): (No comment)
Slide (Kids going to school): There was one school building which had grades from Kindergarten to 12th grade—we all walked to school near the center of the village, in snow, rain or sunshine.
Slide (July 4th float): Much of our life we celebrated in the Village with neighbors—here on the Fourth of July, we costumed and made a float on our wagon and won a prize. I still have this wooden rocking horse my father made for me.
Slide (C in Kix box): Someone with her favorite cereal box (Kix) on her head, at one year old.
Slide (C with prize): Later, Christin won a prize with her decorated doll buggy (our neighbor Mary was admiring).
Slide (C at Easter): We also dressed for, and walked in the Easter Parade.
Slide (V's School): Our sister Virginia (at about 14 years old) organized and taught an informal summer school for neighborhood kids in the summer in our backyard
Slide (Virginia and Karl): Here is Virginia (10 years old) with a very cute baby (2 months)
Slide (back porch): My father, after having been able to buy the house in 1951, decided to make an addition to the house.
Slide (Papa and garden): He also had a very large vegetable garden in back
Slide (back porch): Here is what the back porch looked like before the new addition, with the family (except my father who took the photo). We often ate lunch and dinner outside.
Slide (Paul and Klara): The backyard was the center of much of our entertainment with family and friends. This was 1957, the first time I met my grandparents. I was 14 years old. We had no family relatives since my father was the lone immigrant from his family and my mother's side were distant.
Slide (backyard party): Many of you will recognize the people here visiting from Germany, who I was meeting for the first time also. But note also our brother Paul (with Margit and Judy), who you will meet later tonight, on the far right.
Slide (Card Club): Every Thursday was card club evening with my two “uncles”--Uncle Fred and Uncle Hans, who played Rauber Skat (and they occasionally let me sit in for a round or two). There was a long tradition of having a nice chacuterie afterwards, with all the families, after 9 pm. At the end of the evening, all three put in a dollar or two and once a year, the card club took everyone out to a restaurant for dinner—a very rare treat for us. They weren't really our uncles, but close friends from the Milwaukee Deutscher Verein and football from before any of them were married.
Slide (K birthday party): My mother was a top cook and baker and made birthdays extra special with her food and cakes—this is my 5th birthday, celebrating with neighborhood kids.
Slide (camping): My father got 2 weeks off from work every year and we went camping (often in Penninsula State Park in Door County, Wisconsin). There were less than 30 campsites then where there are now more than 300—and we often were alone. This was in 1937 before Christin and I were born.
Slide (Camping 1949): We all (5) fit into the Jeep along with all the camping equipment and tent in 1949 when this photo was taken. Virgina was at her summer job.
Slide (Toboggan): Snow sliding in Greendale—a much enjoyed entertainment. My parents, Virginia and Paul in 1941
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Slide (skating): Nancy Mueller, me and my brother Paul, skating on thin ice in the park. We skated often all winter.
Slide (Christmas): Christmas was always a family and friends celebration with the traditional Christmas tree, church on Christmas Eve, opening presents, and a large family and friends gathering with a lot of food on Christmas Day.
…And that is how we lived in Greendale
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