Mary D. Bradford High School

I graduated from high school in 1978 from Mary D. Bradford High School.  The day after I graduated I left Kenosha.  My parents had moved to California via Ohio at the beginning of my senior year so I was moving out west with them and then heading to BYU.  I have only been back to Kenosha since then 2 or 3 times.

Our high school was in downtown Kenosha.  A beautiful old building.  I didn't appreciate it for the amazingly beautiful place it was when I went to school there.  To a teenager it was just a school.  Now, it is a beautiful old building.  It is no longer Mary D. Bradford. A new Bradford was built and this building became an alternative high school.

LuAnne and I stopped by hoping they would let us wonder the halls.  They graciously let us do that and they even had one of the staff members come give us a tour.  It ended up that he also graduated in the class of 1978 and we had several friends in common including Mark Hoferitza and Bill Glaser (my high school boy friend)  He took us to some places we normally wouldn't have been able to go which was great such as the pool, the auditorium and the tunnel under the school that use to go to the old annex.  We had so much fun!!!

Here she is....

 

The thing I couldn't believe was how incredibly clean this school was for a high school!  The halls were spotless.

 Alumni Class of 1978.

The school looked pretty much the same as it did over 30 years ago when we were there.

I am sure I had never noticed the beautiful light fixtures when I was a student there.

And I had forgotten about the beautiful stain glass in the ceiling over the main stairwell.

And how incredible the old bathrooms were with their tile floors.  The bathrooms were spotless too!

And then we went into the auditorium.  I had forgotten how beautiful it was!

From there we went down into the basement below the stage.  There is a room there where students have signed their names over the many years.  Somehow we had never done it while students there so we did it now!

Fortunately I had a Sharpie in my purse.  I had a hard time remembering my name and signed it as my married name so had to go back and write in Best.  I also wrote the wrong date, forgetting the year we graduated.  Guess it was too long ago so my date is rather messy and I'm not sure what that S is at the end!!

Then we went into the tunnel.  The tunnel use to connect the main building to the annex.  The annex was another building with classrooms but soon after we graduated it was condemned and torn down.  The tunnel is still there and we walked through it.  It comes out into a small utility shed now in the parking lot.

We were allowed to use the tunnel on really cold, snowy days.

We also got to see the pool.  I use to hate PE when I had swimming.  I had it the first hour of the day and I'd have to go around with bad hair all day!!

We had such a fun time exploring the old high school!  She is a beauty!

Kenosha Landmarks

This week I had the opportunity to go back and visit the town I grew up in - Kenosha, Wisconsin.

I was invited to a blogger event in Milwaukee and I jumped at the chance since it would allow me to spend a little time visiting Kenosha too.  My best friend from childhood LuAnne Yenawine lives a few hours from Milwaukee so she drove over to pick me up and then we headed down to Kenosha.  I was so excited and it was so fun to see LuAnne again and spend the two days with her.

I knew I was in Kenosha as soon as I saw this.  Looks a little different now but the same sign!

 Our first stop was our old church building.  Looks the same except for the new phase they added on.  The surrounding area looks totally different!  The church is now surround by houses/apartments.

 I really knew I was in Kenosha when I saw this!

 We drove through the beautiful Petrifying Springs Park and the leaves were just beginning to change.

From there we headed into town to see some of the old sites!

We weren't looking for it but we found Woodhaven - our old Girl Scout Day Camp, right in the middle of the city!

 Then there was Tenuta's - a landmark in Kenosha.  I don't remember it that well but LuAnne did and she said it smelled exactly the same - the place has more inventory than any other store I have ever seen!  It was unbelieveable!!

 Pioneer Women had featured their Italian Seasoning in one of her recipes so I had to pick myself up a bag!

From there we headed down towards the lake.  It was a cool, blustery day.
I always loved the huge, rocks that line the lake front.  I remember many a fourth of July spent sitting on them watching the fireworks and throwing sparklers into the lake.

 We even saw a rainbow.

 We drove through Simmons Island on our way downtown.  I had forgotten about all the old beautiful bath houses.

And then we hit the harbor and that was a huge change!  The huge AMC plant is now gone and replaced with hundreds of apartments and condos!  The harbor looked smaller than I remember.

 Friday morning was another blustery day and the lake was really wavy and choppy.  We went down by the lighthouse to watch the amazing waves crash against the rocks.

 I got a little too close and turned my back on one and got a little wet!

 Downtown Kenosha - pretty much a ghost town.  More than half the stores were empty.

 The old Penney's and Barden Department stores.  I loved buying candy at the candy counter in Penney's on my lunch break from Bradford.

 

The old Eagles Club where we had our senior prom.

 And the Lakeside Theater - where I saw Gone with the Wind for the first time!

 

The old Elks Club where I learned to swim in the pool in the basement and enjoyed many dinners in the dining room.  It is totally empty and in horrible shape.

 The old municipal building across from the harbor.

We also visited the old neighborhood, Bradford, Library Square and Kemper but they deserves posts of their own!

Dining Room Redo

Last weekend Jim flew to Utah to visit the kids and go to BYU's first home football game.  This was his birthday present from me and the kids.

He had a great time despite the horrible, terrible, no good football game!  He got into Provo later Friday night so Saturday morning he met all the kids for breakfast and then he and the boys and some of the David Wilkes' boys played golf.  After that he went to watch Cali's play practice and then he went to a special pregame dinner/presentation with Logan and sat with Logan at the game.

Sunday Logan spoke in his Sacrament meeting so Jim and all the kids went to hear him and then Cali fixed them a yummy Sunday dinner after that and before Jim headed to the airport.

No one managed to take a single picture all weekend!

While Jim was in Utah I totally enjoyed my weekend home alone. I made a big fat mess too.  I spent the weekend repainting a piece of furniture and painting all kinds of frames and other things getting ready for a guest blog post I was doing.

When I picked Jim up from the airport Sunday evening I did warn him not to have a heart attack when I opened the garage door.

I decided our dining room needed a little facelift. I decided to paint this piece of furniture.

It now looks like this and I love it!
I repainted a bunch of older gold frames too.  And added a few pieces of art work and some wooden W's to the wall too.

I found this fun vintage tray at Goodwill for four dollars and it was the perfect thing to old some old family photos.

I have always disliked our ugly 90's gold light fixture so I painted it too - it is amazing what a little spray paint can do!

All in all it was a very productive weekend!