Forty Years Ago

Fantasyland is the full-page food ad from a forty-year-old Forest Park Review. This time it’s from your friendly independent White Way Food Mart:

Stake out your steak with a sirloin at 85 cents a pound, a round steak at 75 cents a pound or a porterhouse at 98 cents a pound. Then there’s toffee torte layer cake at $l.15 or a coffee cake for just 69 cents; potato chips, 49 cents one pound box, butter, 49 cents per pound, sour cream, 1/2 pint 25 cents, bananas for 10 cents a pound, sliced bacon, 75 cents one pound package, grade AA butter, 69 cents, Bird’s Eye frozen O.J. 6-oz. tin can, 17 cents.

Last week’s column reported on the elimination of pre-meeting meetings at the village hall. The new or “reformed” system didn’t go as smoothly as some council members had hoped. Example: on an ordinance to update the garage tax levy, Commissioner Mike Lambke asked for more time to study the ordinance. Mayor Mohr replied, “Our purpose for being here now is to study and discuss it.” Lambke countered, “I didn’t know anything about this. It is thrown at me cold, and I’m forced into an 11th hour decision.”

From the Dec. 1965 issues of the Forest Park Review.

Thirty Years Ago

With 18 months still to go in his third four-year term as state senator, Mayor Howard Mohr (R. 5th) announced he would not seek re-election to the Illinois Senate. However, Mohr disclosed that he would serve through the following year as the Senate’s Assistant Minority leader. He said he would support former state representative Richard Walsh as his successor.

Mohr said his decision was reached “after more than a little soul searching.” He added that his job as a legislator was a demanding one, requiring extended periods of absences from his home, his business and community. “I will continue to be involved in the political process,” he said, “which I believe is more vital to our future than ever,” He also said he would stay on as the village’s mayor. Alas, this was to be another story, as he barely lived out his final term as state senator.

From the Nov. 1975 issues of the Forest Park Review.

Twenty Years Ago

Continuing the country’s Bicentennial Celebration, the Heritage Committee of Forest Park noted further historical milestones as they affected our village:

 In about 1835 the general area was known as Oak Ridge and included present day Forest Park, River Forest and Oak Park.

 In 1839 a French-Indian trader, Leon Bourassa, purchased government owned land along the Desplaines River.

 Ferdinand Hasse, a German immigrant, bought 40 acres from Bourassa at $10 an acre in 1851. He enlarged his holdings to 240 acres and built a 30-roomNew Orleans style manor house.

 In 1854 three members of the Hasse family died and were buried on the homestead”the beginning of Forest Home Cemetery.

The second successful production of the (then) fledgling Circle Theater was “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.” Directed by co-founders Karen Skinner and Wayne Buidens, the play was presented to a full house at the Recreation Building in The Park. The set, designed by Buidens, was a converted small town drug store, complete with soda fountain. Circle’s first production? “Fiddler on the Roof.”

From the Nov. 1985 issues of the Forest Park Review.

Ten Years Ago

From the Police Report: “A Nissan Maxima, parked in the lot of Wal-Mart, 1300 Desplaines Avenue at about 1:15 p.m. was broken into and more than $1,400 worth of Christmas presents were reported stolen.

Rather than filing another “Meanest Thief” story, look at it another way. We work to make money to buy gifts for those who often have more than they need,”and who could be spiritually poor”to make them materialistically fat. And too often we experience a hollow feeling inside when all the shopping and tinseled hoo-ha are over and done. Happy Foo Year.

Who Remembers? drip dry shirts … tie-dyed shirts … polo shirts … fender skirts … dirndls … dickys … bodices … crenolins … petticoats … pettifoggery … Sonny Tufts … Soupy Sales … Tom Snyder … Dion O’Bannion … Chucagi activist Florence Scala … alderman Leon Dupres (alive and well on the north side) … Jim Bakker (OK, proselytizer, prosel!)

From the Dec. 1995 issues of the Forest Park Review.