‘Cardinal Charlie’: Girls baseball played on ‘Deal Field’ back in 1953

Published 9:44 pm Monday, July 26, 2010

Charlie GillJust an insight in reading a lot of Berenice Vanderburg’s back-page column, “Here and There About Dowagiac.”

I found she was an avid fan of Sister Lakes Playhouse.

She said you had to get there real early if you wanted one of those overstuffed seats the playhouse brought from the Chicago Theatre.

Boy, wouldn’t she go ga-ga if she was still alive to see some of those beautiful productions we now enjoy at Beckwith Theatre?

Indian Lake Yacht Club, first place win in the C class race went to Bob Lindsley and father Bill Lindsley.

How many remember “Deal Field” out in the Helen Haven addition?

This was when Mr. and Mrs. Deal bought the nursing home from Mrs. Lohroff.

Both the girls and the junior police teams played baseball on this field in 1953.

In the Dowagiac Farmers Dairy ad each day in the Daily News, if your name appeared in the ad and you took it to the dairy you received a quart of their good ice cream.

Boy, it was good and I enjoyed it many times.

One hundred and 10 youthful anglers tried their fishing skill at Lake LaGrange in the citywide Kids Fishing Derby sponsored by the Polish National Alliance Athletic Club.

Kids tried for 88 prizes donated by local businessmen.

As I recall, this was held out at Ralph Kefowits’ grounds at Whit Pond.

Dowagiac Creek has turned a lot of wheels in years gone by, but this is the first time that it has been used to operate a sprinkling system out at Russ Forest to water the planted seedlings.

William Campbell had to raise his price of garbage pickup 25 cents to make it now $12 a year. (If I’m not mistaken, this was two pickups a week.)

I also think they used to pick up your big galvanized garbage can at the back of your house and return it after they emptied it.

Ad in the paper: Pop’s Poppers will open Saturday, May 30. Pop Welch, owner.

Most of the gypsies who were camped near Barron Lake have moved on. However, four trailers of the caravan rented land at Hyatt’s trailer camp at Dowagiac.

“Cardinal Charlie” Gill writes a nostalgic weekly column about growing up in the Grand Old City. E-mail him at cardinalcharlie@hotmail.com.