Doris is telling the rest of the bunch to catch up as we head to the front entrance of the Good Ol’ Days restaurant for breakfast. We heard that there are some pictures on the wall that have Don’s uncles in them.
Sure enough! Doris found them! Harold and Oscar Bollmeier both appear in the 1941 picnic pictures!
Harold is on the far right, bottom row, and Oscar (the one with the chubby round face) is in the middle of the front row. The Bollmeier traits are easy to spot!
After breakfast, we headed out to find the old family farm, located between New Baden and Mascoutah. After driving up and down narrow country roads and trying to look over the corn fields, we managed to finally find it. The house, built in 1900 is still standing, along with some of the other buildings. Here is a picture of the old chicken coop, which has seen much better days. The windows were probably blown out from the numerous tornados that have been through here.
This is the house that Doris was born in! It has been added on to and remodeled, but the basic house remains. It's now occupied by a widow who has lived here since 1956 and remembered the Bollmeier name. She told us that Carol and Doris had written their names on the bedroom wall!
Looks like Doris is thirsty and trying to get a drink out of the old pump while Don and Sandy pose nicely for their picture. Doris used to get a drink out of this when she was a little girl.
This brought back lots of memories! They only had an outhouse to use while living there. I’m glad things are different today. I can't even imagine what it would be like to have to use an outhouse at night during the winter.
Doris and Sandy are standing in front of the little structure that stored the milk until it was picked up.
Maybe the wire egg basket and old sled were here from when Doris, Sandy, Don and Carol lived here. Who knows?! As you can see, there are still farm cats here; we were greeted by 3 of them.
Don graduated from Mascoutah High School. This old building will no longer be in existence next year and the new one is under construction right behind it.
To escape the heat, we dashed into a drug store to cool ourselves off. Don’s holding the weekly Mascoutah paper. What do you find on the front section of a small town newspaper? Here are 2 of the articles that appeared in the News briefs:
1) No bingo in the park because of the Homecoming festivities. Bingo will resume on Thursday, Aug. 12th. 2) More pinochle players are needed. There are 7 regular players at the Senior Center with room for more. That sure doesn't compare to what makes the headlines for Phoenix!
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