Beaubien Stories

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Josie has wonderful Candy Store memories to share.

Phil Guske - Class of '66

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Bill Wilson - Class of '66

"While I went to college at Wright I ran into a guy that was picking up the sport of Skydiving. My very first time in a plane was to watch someone jump out of one. I got turn on with the sport and started as a student jumper in East Troy, Wisc.

Every year around the month of August, Chicago sponsors one of the biggest Air Shows in the country and that is the Air & Water Show. It was started by an employee of the Chicago Park District back in 1959 and today it is still "BIG" business for the City of Chicago. One of the performers that still performs today is The Army Parachute Team "The Golden Knights" This team is the elite of the parachute world and I was fortunate enough while in the service and stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C. to try out for the team in 1975 and I made it. I am enclosing an attachment of my "Hero Shot" as a former Golden Knight and a shot of me while on the team at the Chicago Air & Water Show in 1976. I served on the team from 1976 and 1977. By far one of my greatest accomplishments as a young man along with becoming an Eagle Scout in 1969.

While stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., I ran into Phil Guske (Class of 66) who had gone to Lane Tech and was involved with ROTC. I have known Phil Guske since first grade with Mrs. Goodman as the teacher at Beaubien if anyone can remember that far back. Phil had to join the Army as one of his requirements and was an officer (Captain). Being on the Golden Knights made Phil excited but he wasn't excited when he had to play war games and I had the tough job of traveling the country and jumping into Air Shows."

Sincerely,
Bill Wilson
Class of 66

Beaubien Story from Phil Guske (‘66)

Sincerely, Phil Guske Class of 66

Beaubien Memories from Hope Garcia (‘65)

Kindergarten - getting to take a nap and playing with a wooden sink, stove and frig and going from the little kindergarten to the big kindergarten to watch cartoons
Bill Forkell’s parents candy store across the street from the school - serving hotdogs and kayo for Lunch
Josie’ dad coming to school on party days with ice cream - - party on!
Hitting your crazy bone on the metal part of your desk and thinking your arm was going to fall off
Wasps in the room caused mass panics - no screens on windows - no air conditioning - from May on we all were screaming - - drove the teachers crazy
Long pole for pulling opening and closing the top windows
Janitor’s closet where you emptied your paint water and stalled in the hallway so you didn’t have to go right back to class
Boys got to clean erasers on Fridays (lucky them - filling their lungs with chalk dust)
Some poor kid sitting on the heat register at the top of the stairs in the hallway to dry his pants (why???)
Rocco or someone cleaning up throw up with sawdust
Being a Hall monitor, messenger or door holder - got you out of at least a little class time. Being sent back down the stairs if you skipped a step.
Voting for Mayor and seeing all the campaign posters in the hallways.
Throwing toilet paper wads up on the ceiling in the bathrooms
Wood chips in the toilet paper (ouch!) art paper and writing paper - - how many forests were destroyed for that?
Carving in desks and then having to sand them down - - getting into trouble for it big time too - - hey my initials were everywhere thanks to my trusty compass.
Remember Mr. Homer??? Getting into trouble for calling him by a “different” name and cooling my heels at home for a while. .
Girls wearing blue shorts and white blouses on gym day - later years - wearing nylons under our shorts - -
Being separated from the boys in the playground from Kindergarten on - - what did they think we would do if they put us together??? Couldn’t cross over that imaginary line (probably would have gotten an electric shock or something)
Hey, come to think of it, girls got the nothing side of the school yard - boys got the screeching swings, bars, basketball court. . . not fair . . .
Sitting on the window seals on the side of the school in groups - especially by the Home Mech class outside of the girl’s side entrance.
Sitting in front of the school with Josie on the steps and eating candy - she had access to an unlimited supply.
Being on the third floor in 7th grade with the High School and having high school boys pass notes under the door to the girls
Greasers Dupers and Collegiate - which were you?
Girls wore tight black straight skirts, white blouses that were not tucked in and black flats - ratted hair a must. Remember, DON’T WEAR RED ON FRIDAYS
Boys wore Cuban heeled shoes with pointed toes, (or engineer boots) light colored shirts with the sleeves rolled up and Tight tight pants with slit pockets and stove pipe legs (did they call them continental??) let us girls use our imaginations.
Day Dreaming and wishing you weren’t there!!!

Memories - JANICE FILLICARO - Class of '64

(P.S. Didn't they sometimes make the bad kids sit in the back corner of the room? Or is that just in the comic strips?)

Janice Fillicaro

Memories - CHUCK BEZOLD - Class of '64

Memories - KATHY GORR - Class of '64

1. The green painted circle on the kindergarten floor
2. Trying to bend over and get a drink at the drinking fountain without having your skirt flipped up by a boy..............wasn't that sexual harassment??
3. Wearing snow pants under your skirt during the winter...............now there was a look....
4. Making valentine mailboxes and "punching out" valentines and pasting the envelope together and using too much paste so you couldn't get the valentine inside the envelope.......was it just me!!!!
5. Going to Foster Avenue Beach on "record day" and getting so sunburned that you could barely stand going back to school on the last day of school
6. Playing "rattlesnack" in the school
7. Speaking of school yard.....wasn't it loaded with gravel and glass. I think I had perpetual skinned knees (and still have the scars to prove it). And I remember going to Miss Jackson the gym teacher to have some caustic chemical put on your knees that made you want to strangle her.......
8. Orange polka dots on the auditorium doors
9. Going to "assembly" and singing on stage
10. Being very disappointed to go to high school in the same building that I went to kindergarten....
11. 4th grade...............there wasn't anything jolly about the "Jolly Numbers Workbook"
12. Miss Moore and Cruella DeVille are the same person.........

Memories - DON KAIHATSU - Class of '64

Don added more on July 17th. He is looking forward to seeing everyone at the Reunion!

1. Snaps (at 2¢ a box!).
2. Buying baseball cards, Mars Attacks! Cards and Civil War cards from Josie’s dad (along with that awful stick bubble gum!) And yes, my mom threw out my Roger Maris rookie card.
3. Wax lips, wax teeth and wax finger tips. And wax tongues. Who thinks of this stuff anyway?
4. Getting someone to take their hand, grab their tongue and recite “I was born on a pirate ship”.
5. Candy dots on adding machine paper.
6. School yard pick up softball, hard ball and basketball games. (I was always picked last, of course).
7. Watching the Catholic kids leave early on a Wednesday (I think) for something. Does anybody know where they went?
8. The first boy or girl you liked? For the life of me I remember liking somebody but I can’t come up with her name.
9. Being scared to death of Mrs. Moore. She always said that we needed to use our brain cell.
10. I have a vague recollection of being in a class with two grades in it. The right two columns of desks were one grade and the rest of the desks were another. Does anybody else remember this?
11. One time, for some reason the teachers had us sand our desks so that they (the desks) could be varnished. I remember Sarkis as being the only one of us to get down to the bare wood. What was that all about?
12. Hanging up my jacket in the Cloak Room and never even realizing that I didn’t know what a cloak was. Nor did I care.
13. Air raid drills. Having us kids taking cover either under our kindling wood desks or in an open basement in the event of nuclear attack. Waiting for the fireball. Ah, ignorance was bliss.
14. Mysterious colored liquids that came in wax tubes.
15. For those of you that took piano lessons at Beaubien, the teacher was some horrible woman whose name escapes me. Although I remember not being too bothered by it more that one kid cried during those group lessons.
16. Making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in shop class. Was it called Home Mechanics?
17. Buying a small carton of milk for 2¢ each. Also while drinking that milk, making someone laugh so hard that milk came out of their nostrils.
18. Does anybody remember the name of the game we played at recess which involved us running from one fence across the school yard to another fence and trying to avoid being tagged by someone that stood between the two fences? If you were tagged you had to join that person tagging other kids who in turn would join in the tagging with each successive running between the fences.
19. Book Fairs and Science Fairs. Does anybody know if Beaubien still has them?.
20. Putting thumb tacks on kid’s seats.
21. Gluing pennies to the sidewalk and watching people struggle to pick them up.
22. Mrs. “dead eye” Detterman. I’ve been told that she knew that was her nickname.
23. Don Johnson (the tall skinny one) got in trouble with Mr. Panczyk. When Mr. Panczyk threatened to tell Don’s father, Don freaked out and begged Mr. Panczyk not to tell. Don even got on his knees and tried to kiss Mr. Panczyk’s feet.
24. Spring Clean Up week. I seem to remember doing posters or other artwork and a parade around the school.
25. The school year taking FOREVER before summer vacation.
26. Mr. Debruzzi rolling up his shirt sleeve and revealing a bulging bicep!! I remember saying to myself "whoa!"
27. Sanford tempura paints.
28. Ink cartridge pens. You had to buy the pen and a set of ink cartridges (you could see the liquid ink in the cartridge).
29. Shoving paper into your desk just to get it out of sight. Of course eventually you couldn’t really get at anything because there was so much stuff in the way.
30. Stowing your notebook behind your seat back.
31. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the school clocks advance 2 minutes and go back one every minute? Or was that at Lane Tech?
32. Wasn’t there a parade around the school at Halloween?
33. I seem to remember a custodian who said to us at recess “Oside, Oside”.
34. Did Josie’s dad sell Pirate cards too, or do I have “Pirates of the Caribbean” on the brain?
35. Does anybody remember a game in gym class in which part of the class formed a circle and the other part was inside that circle? The kids forming the circle got to throw volleyballs at those in the middle. Those that were hit had to join the kids forming the circle until there was no one left.
36. Bombardment. Somebody has told me that schools are banning this game because it’s too violent. Can this be true?
37. I remember trying to play soccer in gym class. It was just a wild free for all whose only point was to kick the ball as hard as possible in the general direction of the other team’s goal. I have a recollection of me and somebody else trying to kick the ball at the same time and spraining each other’s ankles.
38. Playing in the school drum and bugle corps at school assemblies.
39. Learning to fold my patrol belt in such a way that it formed a neat, tight ball.
40. A game called “Scramble”? Do I have the name right?
41. Playing tag. I could only dodge Glen Larson with his long legs for only so long.
42. Going “Up Jeff”.
43. Playing in the construction zone while the Kennedy Expressway was being built (were we crazy or what!!?).

"Christmas Party" - Josie Kocemba

As was the tradition every year, the last day before Christmas break was the big Christmas assembly - you remember, we all sang our songs, then Christmas Carols - I think even Santa appeared once or twice (a real treat for an 8th grader, I might add). I think it was some of us “perfect in every way” girls who decided what to do. We would bring our gifts for Mr. P and not present them to him right away - hide them in the coat room. . . then one of us would run ahead of the class when the assembly was near done, get all the gifts out and put them on his desk. . . He would walk in from the assembly and SURPRISE! It had to work right?!? When he saw all those gifts he would surely soften and let us have a party! Why, Its Christmas, time of miracles!

So, the idea went off as planned - only it didn’t - - Mr. P wouldn’t budge - - Nope, . . . thanks for the gifts, but NOPE, . . . No Christmas Party. (can anyone remember what we did to get the punishment?? I can’t) Now, here’s the dilemma - me, being the Candy Store girl, was able to get 3 cases of Pepsi in undetected. . . Karen Lucia baked a nice chocolate cake. . I think there were some chips and candy and other treats from other contributors - - what do we do with this food? Ah, another idea. . . Let’s eat it. . I don’t know if anyone in the front of the room even got any of it, but I remember uncapping bottles of Pepsi (amidst sneezes and coughs to hide the uncorking ) and passing the bottles up the row down by our feet . . in order to drink , you would have to drop a pencil or something and bend down and take a swig. . Treats got distributed the same way - down low. . I remember the cake somehow landing on the floor. . .

I don’t know if Mr. Panczyk was aware of the “party” going on - but I bet if he did he probably kept on repeating to himself - a few more hours left and then two weeks off - a few more hours then two weeks off - think good thoughts - its almost over. I guess a regular old Christmas Party wouldn’t have been so memorable -- so, for that, thank you Mr. P for the punishment.

Josie Kocemba

Did you wonder? - Ken Mueller

Who was Jean Baptiste Beaubien?

Born 1787 - Died 1864

After a full half hour of research on google I present the definitive study on Jean Beaubien. Jean Baptiste Beaubien was born in Detroit and moved to Chicago in 1811. He is known worldwide and is quite famous as the inventor of rain, which feeds and waters us all. Nah, he didn’t really do much that I can find. I don’t know why they named a school after him. But anyway, below is a collection of cut/paste snippets I found on the net. He doesn’t seem famous enough to do any actual typing. But if you know something cool I missed, please send me an email.

He did sire 19 children through four different wives. His second wife was an Ottawa Indian named Maw-naw-bun-no-quah (Mahnobunoqua). His third wife was Josette, housemaid of the Kinzies. The Kinzies were actually famous in Chicago so that’s something huh?

Jean brought the first carriage to Chicago and, in 1834, shipped from Detroit Chicago`s second piano. Not the first piano mind you. That would have really been something though.

June 7, 1834 was the day of the election of Jean Baptiste Beaubien as 1st Colonel of militia of Cook County. I imagine in 1834 Cook County had about 49 people in it so that must have been quite an honor.

Jean Beaubien owned Fort Dearborn (no really). In May 1835 he bought the Fort Dearborn reservation [75.69 acres] through the local government land agent for $94.61, but the purchase was later declared invalid by the U.S. Supreme Court known as the "Beaubien land case".

For some current Beaubien fun you can check the bronze plaque on the east wall of the Cultural Center, southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street, inscribed: "Jean Baptiste Beaubien - On this site, then the lake shore, Jean Baptiste Beaubien, Chicago`s second civilian, in 1817, built a mansion to which he brought his bride, Josette LaFramboise a.k.a. famous housekeeper. It remained their home until 1845.” The lines are long so get there early for the best viewing opportunity.

Ken Mueller

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