‘Tell me a story’ Archives
50”'s emigrants found romance, jobs, home, and business ownership Right on Lake Street
By Carol Blair as told to Chris Oien Carol and her husband were involved with Soderberg”'s Floral at 3305 E. Lake St. for almost 50 years, and owned it for 30 of them. She remembers how they got started there and what it was like. To see the full interview, go to www.youtube.com/visitlakestreet My name is Carol Blair, my husband is Lyle Eugene Blair, sometimes call him Gene. My husband started working at Soderberg”'s in 1957, and we got married in 1959. He graduated from high school in 1956 from Huntley, Minnesota. He stayed on the farm and helped his dad, and got a chauffeur”'s license so he could take grain or cattle to market. He worked for one year and came up in the fall of 1957 to go to North Central Bible College. He was looking for work for about a week, and they had a bulletin board at the school where they listed job opportunities. So his roommate came in and said, could I have a ride to Soderberg”'s Floral, they”'re looking for a driver. [...]
9 Cent Movies and Sugar from Minnehaha Fire Station
By Joyce Wisdom and Chris Oien My name is Bill Nelson, and I showed up in the neighborhood of March 1941, which was just a few months before Pearl Harbor. Some of my earliest memories go back to shortly after the beginning of World War II, when I and my mother, along with my brother who was an infant at the time, would make the trek from 36th Ave. to the old fire station on Minnehaha . And of course, you take a kid my age, she could hardly drag me away I was so fascinated with the fire engines. But the reason we went there was to get our sugar rations. Those were the days of austerity and World War II. I grew up at 36th & Lake, just a half block off from Lake. In the vicinity were businesses like Peterson Drug, Lubiss Hardware, Supervalu, and of course everyone knew Liberty Grocery, which was on 35th & Lake. When we went to the movies, we went to the matinee usually, and paid nine cents to get in. We went to the El Lago Theater, but also in the area on 27th was the Lake [...]
“Tell Me a Story””¦in Kathleen Anderson”'s Words
Lake Street Council is working hard this year to collect and promote the history of this area. The first stage to this project is collecting oral histories of longtime residents. Here”'s part of the interview with Kathleen Anderson, longtime district director for Congressman Martin Sabo, who lived in Longfellow growing up. Please visit youtube.com/VisitLakeStreet to watch the whole video interview with Kathleen and others! And if you are a longtime resident who remembers well the Lake Street from decades past, and would like your story recorded, please get in touch with us! Call 612-824-7420 or email coien@lakestreetcouncil.org. By Kathleen Anderson as told to Chris Oien I lived on 39th St. & 44th Ave., which is about 9 blocks from Lake Street, and several blocks from the river. Mostly we would ride our bikes, or I would take the 42nd Ave. bus to about 36th St. and then transfer to the Lake Street bus. Sometimes we”'d go east toward the river, there was an ice [...]
