Editors Note:
It is impossible to underestimate the value and wisdom of our senior
citizens. Their knowledge of historical events and their recollections
of days past can provide countless hours of thought-provoking entertainment
and nostalgia.
Although many elderly folks now reside in nursing homes and retirement
communities, they are often eager to share stories of the full, productive
lives they have led.
For this reason, the North Platte Traveler wants to bring their stories
to you - the reader. Beginning with this issue, the Traveler will
celebrate senior citizens and their stories with a special "Echos
of the Past" feature in each edition of the magazine.
These stories will be gleaned from senior citizens in North Platte
and the surrounding areas who would like to share a portion of their
past with North Platte Traveler readers.
If you are one of our cherished seniors who has a story to tell, or
if you know of someone who is interested in sharing their story, we
want to hear from you. Please contact us at (308) 532-4040 or send
your name and phone number to the North Platte Traveler at PO Box
203, North Platte, NE 69103-0203
New
Feature! Echos of the Past
By Denise Poss
Memories - what would life be without them?
Whether good or bad, memories are a part of our own unique history and
make us who we are. Many senior citizens have treasure troves of memories
they readily share with those who will take the time to listen.
Memories of depression, war and hard times loom in the minds of many elderly
folks, while recollections of weddings, babies and family celebrations
fill the heads of many others.
For this issue of the North Platte
Traveler, we visited with two area residents who took time to share some
interesting stories of days long ago. So, sit back, relax and prepare to
journey back in time as Louis Kleewein and Marion Young remember when…
Louis "Lou" Kleewein
Lou Kleewein didn't necessarily intend to be a baker - it just turned out
that way.
Born Oct. 16, 1901, in Pueblo, Colo., Kleewein was just 18 when he went
to work for a local bakery.
"I lived close to a bakery in
Pueblo and went to work over there because it was nearby," he said.
It didn't take long for Kleewein to become good at his trade. As he recalls,
the first bakery he managed was in Wichita, Kan. After working there for
a year, Kleewein moved to Dallas, where he managed a bakery for eight years.
The store in Dallas made about 200,000 pounds of bread each week to be delivered
to stores in the area. That was an astonishing amount, according to Kleewein.
He later moved to the Omaha area, where he managed the bakery in a Safeway
store for four years.
In 1944, he moved to North Platte after purchasing Gillen's Bakery, which
was located in the heart of the downtown area at 606 S. Dewey.
"There is nothing there now," he said. "It was a bad location
and the building had everything in the wrong place. There was a dance floor
above it and the floor sagged so bad they made them put in support posts.
That made it worse. The racks of bread would have to go around each post.
If there was somebody working on the oven, they had to stop and let them
go by."
In 1949 or 1950, Kleewein built the Krispy Krust Bakery at 301 S. Jeffers
in North Platte. As Kleewein recalls, those were busy years in the bakery
business. One of their daily tasks was making cakes to deliver to the now
famous North Platte Canteen.
"I had to use my sugar allotment
for cakes for the canteen because sugar was rationed at the time,"
Kleewein said. "It cut me short on the cakes for the stores, but I
never did hear any complaints because the canteen was a good cause and they
knew that."
Kleewein said he had one cake baker and four to six men on the bread line
most of the time. When the canteen ordered cakes, they made them at the
bakery and delivered them to the canteen the next day. Kleewein's wife,
Ethel, decorated most of the cakes the bakery sold. "She sure
decorated a lot of cakes," he recalled fondly.
Kleewein said he also made Johnny Carson's wedding cake when he married
for the first time in North Platte.
"He lived in Norfolk
and the girl he married lived here," Kleewein said. "They ordered
the cake and we baked it and my wife did all the decorating. We delivered
it to the church for them."
Kleewein laughed as he recalled another wedding cake he had made when he
lived in the small town of Russell, Kan. "I baked a cake for an
Angel in Paradise," he said. "This families name was 'Angel' and
they lived in Paradise, about 20 miles north of Russell. When their daughter
got married, I made the cake for them."
Not only did Kleewein bake cakes, but he became an expert in baking bread,
even going so far as to develop some specialty breads.
"I
used to make a nice wheat loaf I called the 'Pawnee Meal,'" he said.
He and his son, Paul, even designed a special wrapper to sell it in.
Kleewein offered a special recollection of a young woman who worked wrapping
the bread at the bakery near the end of World War II.
"I had
a girl working for me whose husband was in the Army," Kleewein said.
"It was her job to wrap the bread. On the day that she heard the war
had ended, she went off to celebrate and I had to finish wrapping her bread
for her."
Kleewein not only remembers the day World War II ended, but he can recall
the day the World War I ended as well.
Kleewein said he lived in Brighton, Colo., with his brother at the time.
"When we heard about the end of the war, we drove to Denver,"
he said. "That was really a celebration. I remember that well."
Kleewein said he was lucky to have never been called upon to fight in either
war. "I was a little bit too young for the first war and a little
bit too young for the second one" he said.
In 1960, Kleewein sold the bakery to his son, Louis "Bud" Kleewein
Jr. It was sold to several other people throughout the years and is now
Happy Heart Foods at the corner of C and Jeffers streets.
Since he sold the business, Kleewein said he has done a great deal of traveling.
"A rolling stone gathers no moss, you know," he said with
a chuckle.
His beloved wife passed away 45 years ago and Kleewein never remarried.
The couple had three children, Elizabeth "Betty" Stump, Louis
"Bud" Kleewein Jr. and Paul Kleewein.
Kleewein resides at Centennial Park Retirement Village in North Platte,
whre he is often visited by many family members who live in North Platte.
Bill and Marion Young.
Marion Elaine (Norall) Young
Marion Young loves to reminisce. Her eyes sparkle and her face lights up
as she shares fond recollections of her past.
One of her favorite memories takes her back beyond her childhood to a time
when her parents, Clarence Norall and Anna May Rowe, met and married.
As Young tells it, her father was teaching school in Ogallala, Neb., and
her mother lived on a farm south of the town.
"Dad was looking to buy a calf for some reason and he was told that
mom's family had a calf for sale," Young said. "Mom was outside
doing chores when she saw this handsome man pull into the drive, so she
hurried into the house to fix up a bit."
The couple married March 14, 1918, at Ogallala, according to Young. Her
father entered the military and was stationed in New Mexico. Her mother
was able to join him and they lived on the base in military quarters.
As World War I raged on, it was inevitable that her father would be selected
to be sent overseas; however, fate intervened in a strange way.
"He was ordered overseas and was sent to the East Coast," Young
recalls, "and my mother moved to Overton to get acquainted with his
family."
As her father prepared for the
trip overseas, Young said he contracted influenza, which was an epidemic
at the time. As his wife raced by train to his bedside, she had no way of
knowing her husband had supposedly succumbed to the illness. Her father's
commanding officer was made aware of his apparent death when he came to
check on him.
"The commanding officer always checked on his men to see how they were,"
Young explained. "When he got there, they told him dad was out on the
porch with the dead."
As fate would have it, the young soldier moved one of his fingers ever so
slightly. The alert commander noticed the movement and quickly shouted for
help.
"I can still hear dad saying that his commander yelled, 'Get this man
back inside. He's still alive!'" Young said. "My brother and I
thank our lucky stars that dad moved his finger or we wouldn't be here."
Young said her father was honorably discharged on June 1, 1919. The family
eventually moved to North Platte and lived in a home across the street from
McKinley School.
"My folks were so delighted because my brother, John, is five years
older than me and when it was time for him to go to school, they had just
built the school right across the street," Young said.
One of Young's most vivid memories of the house she grew up in was when
Better Homes and Gardens magazine came to North Platte to take pictures
of the home.
"They were doing a story on Buffalo Bill's home and they searched North
Platte for a home in town to compare it with," Young said. "They
picked the folk's house to show what a typical family home in North Platte
looked like.
"It was quite a production and it took forever," she said. "At
first mom was excited, but in the end she was wondering when all the people
would leave."
According to Young, her first time away from home was when she attended
Stephen's Girls School in Columbia, Mo.
"It was very traumatic," she said. "I wrote a letter to my
parents every day."
Later, Young went to the University of Nebraska. It was there she met the
man who would later become her husband, William "Bill" Young.
She said the first time she saw his photo on her roommate's dresser, she
thought he was very handsome.
"When I saw his picture I said, 'Who is that?" she laughed.
It turned out to be her roommate's boyfriend, so Young let the matter drop.
In fact, she ended up riding with the couple on a trip to North Platte.
The couple did not stay a couple for long, however.
"They broke
up during that trip. I think she kind of invited me along as a buffer,"
she said.
Still, it was several months later before she would meet up with Bill Young
again.
"My father had an insurance office on the second floor in the Mutual
and Loan Building," Young said. "I was always kind of his helper.
One day I was taking some mail to the post office and I felt someone on
the stairs behind me."
That "someone" turned out to be Bill Young. After dating for several
years, she and Bill were married on Feb. 27, 1956.
"He died in 1997, and we had such a happy life," Young said. "We
didn't have any children. We always had the four-legged kind. He was a hunter,
so I learned to be a hunter and we would go out together. We did a lot of
things like that."
As Young recalls, one of the highlights of their married life was when they
rented a place out in the country on Burlington.
"It was our first farming experience," she said. "We planted
the corn so close that we couldn't get through. It was so close we had to
thin it out and then thin it out some more."
Young said they later moved to 110 N. Oak in North Platte, where she lived
until moving to Linden Estates Retirement Community a few years ago.
Although she misses her husband a great deal, Young said she now shares
her cozy apartment with someone very special - her beloved cocker spaniel,
Tinkerbell.
NPTSummer 2004 Issue
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