25 Years Ago - 1985

The Nordell Graphic Communications firm has completed its move from Fifth Street to Sixth Street at the old city hall location.

Staples Jaycee John Kincaid was one of 100 Minnesota Jaycees to receive the Presidential Medallion at the recent Jaycee state convention. About one in 140 Jaycees receive the annual award. In ad- dition to the medallion he was named the Outstanding Management Development Vice President of the Quarter for the state.

Excerpt from Looking Back (1935): “The current movie showing at the new Staples Theatre this Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, is “The Little Colonel” starring Shirley Temple and Lionel Barrymore. Matinee 10 cents and 25 cents, evenings 10 cents and 35 cents.

The Staples Cardinal Girls Basketball Team are the 1985 Region 6 A Champions. Staples defeated Starbuck for the title. The girls are headed to the state tournament.

50 Years Ago - 1960

Last week, the Robert W. Hand Post 1910 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of Staples donated their second television set to the Mary Rondorf Home. The 21” table model set was donated for use by the residents on the second floor of the home. A couple years ago they donated a television set for the first floor residents of the home.

REMINISCENCES: It is a source of delight to me to receive letters from those of you who have personal knowledge of how things used to be here in Staples, a town whose residents can be very “puffed up“ with pride. (Perhaps that is the reason for my weight problem.) I’m going to share parts of two of these letters with you today.

I received a letter from Lydia A. Goodwater of Motley who has made some inquiries about the old Brickyard School. She stated that her mother lived around Staples when she was a girl. Her mother, Mrs. Otto Pribbenow, was a member of the George Bristlin, Sr., family and died in 1982 at the age of 90. She used to tell Lydia that she went to the school on the corner where the new Lakewood Health System is now located and that it was called the Brickyard School. Lydia said she doesn’t imagine there would be anyone “left” that went to that school. In her note, Lydia said her mother told her the students at the school heated many of the bricks to keep their feet warm.

As it happens, my ancestors, the many, many Martin’s went to the Brickyard School in its short existence. A few years ago a very nice man from Staples by the name of Pete Card, Jr., gifted me with a box of old photos and personal items that had belonged to my great great-grandmother, Charlotte Martin (Mrs. Urias Martin). He had gotten these items from some kind of sale. Among them was a very rare photo (probably the only one in existence) of the old Brickyard School. The photo has

a number of students in it - perhaps one is your mother.

I hope you can find her among the students as my sister Kitt, the family genealogist, has only been able to identify some. If space allows, Brenda Halvorson, General Manager of the Staples World, has agreed to try to print this photo in my column this week. If space doesn‘t allow, I will send you a copy of this photo.

With regard to your mother “taking the milk to the cheese factory” when she was in her teens, some research shows that there was in fact, a small cheese factory near what would later become the Dower Lumber, Lampert Lumber and Rockwood Sales building. Apparently the cheese building was closer to the railroad for shipping the cheese than the creamery was at the time. Thank

you for your letter and

for teaching me about the “cheese factory” in Staples.

A response to my request for information on gambling or slot machines in Staples - way back in the thirties, came from Mae B. Jenkins. In a very sweet letter she explained that her father, “…Gust Scharf, had built the Scharf Chevrolet- Buick garage from an old house in 1924.” She said that much, much later the garage was sold to Nyhus by her two brothers Gordon and Arnold Scharf.

Mae said, “There was a small restaurant at the west end of the garage that had about four or five seats at a counter. I was about 10 years old and my dad had me work in the restaurant. There was a slot machine there. It took nickels.” This then was known as “Skelly’s Café” a place known in this writer’s youth. Thank you Mae, for sharing this information with us.

Thanks to my sister Kitt and Brenda Halvorson for your help this week - no doubt I’ll be begging for more in the future.