What a change, huh? I like to think of how it was then, when I was a high school freshman at Griffin. Then again, memories of that era might not be so pleasant, if I’d been born black, hemmed in on the East Side.
Congrats on the promo for the Dem candidate in Fla.
Worked on corner of 6th & Adams at Allen Shoe Store part time while in school in 1947 and even after had other job, worked their on Friday Night and Saturday
I was employed by GMAC from 1949 to about 1953… started out with GMAC in Decatur then was transfered to their office here in Springfield with offices on the fourth floor of the CIPS or Illinois Building. Roy Dawson was a barber also located on the fourth floor. The GMAC office and Roy’s place was side by side on the 4th floor. It was Roy who gave me a tip for a new job at CIPS when I got tired of working seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours each day as the Branch Accounting Manager. I informed Roy that I was leaving GMAC and wanted a new job working like from 8AM to 5PM five days a week. He said he had just given Mark Kirk a hair cut and to go see him on the 9th floor. Mark was the Personnel Manager for CIPS. I immediately contacted Mark and told him what I was looking for. He hired me on the spot so to speak. I began with CIPS as an Junior Plant Accountant and advanced gradually to a Plant Accountant during the period of 1955 to 1964 when they promoted me to the position of Risk and Insurance Supervisor. That job was so terrific, I enjoyed every day on the job from 1964 to 1990 when I retired at age 60. I had offices on the 9th, 11th, 14th and the 15th floors of the building. Always good views of the downtown business district…. the best being when the old Illinois State Capitol Building was taken down, pillar by pillar, stone block by stone block and hauled out to the State Fairgrounds. Then I watched the excavation of the four square block area to build the new facility, now standing intact and serving as the Illinois State Library.
As aside to this particlar aspect, I was the President and CEO of Boys Baseball, Inc’, the group that bought the Old Springfield Boiler Works facility out on McCreey and E. Capitol Street and built a baseball park now called the Bill Chamberlain Park… the point being that while building the park over the period of seven years with all volunteers, I needed several hundren thousand truck loads of clay from the excavation site being removed from the Old State Capitol site. I arranged to secure all of the dirt or clay free of charge and have it hauled out to the Old Boiler Works site which was later spread out over the six and one half acres to enscapulate (sp?) the “mine waste” that covered the property. Talk about an act of Providence, that was the answer to my prayers for resolving a requirement to finish the ball park to be named after my mentor, Mr. Mitch Shaddid, who was more or less the father of all youth baseball for boys and girls in Springfield. Mitch was a Vice President of Boys Baseball, INC with headquarters in Washington, PA. He was also the owner and operator of Shaddid’s Book Store near the corner of 6th and Capitol. For various reasons, I lost the battle to have the park named after Mitch when we more or less “sold” naming rights to the park to the RCS in exchange for several thousand dollars donated by their organization to help pay for the lighting system installed at the park. Well, the records and documentation of this effort were donated to the Archive Section of the Lincoln Library of Springfield, IL…. I believe the documents are still there for public inspection and review. I’m now 81 years old, been retired from CIPS (Ameren Illinois now) for over 20 years. Maybe there are some people still living that served with me on the Board of Directors and the Ladies Auxiliary of the Park…. if so, give me a call 217-698-5864 and I’d love to hear from you. I’m tired of typing now and have to quit.
Hi, Dick!!! Just read your paragraph here!!! So glad to see you’re still among us and doing well!! Bo and I live north of Kansas, IL and are both doing great! Thankfully we’ve had good health for the most part!!
Physically we’ve not changed much at all! Bo’s hair is now silver and mine is whatever color I want it to be, but other than that .. . and some aging . . we’re pretty much the same! Our family is growing!
Our daughter Amanda has been married 6 1/2 years and has a 19 mos old red headed Naomi (I always think of [Nonie] Naomi Luedke from the mail room. They have another baby due 6/30/11 – live 8 miles east of Paris (20 miles from us). Our son Gabriel is married for 2 1/2 years and live about 3 miles from us. We moved over here 15 years ago this June so Bo would be closer to his work in Mattoon. He retired from CIPS in Jan of 2003 and went back to work for Electric Power Systems in March 2003. He is their Safety Manager. He is also a licensed home inspector for the state of Illinois. I did not realize you were instrumental in building that baseball field nor did I realize you took all the dirt!!!! I miss parts of the ‘good old days’. I found this website b/c I was trying to think of the name of the restaurant that used to be at 6th & Washington – north of Marine bank – on the East side of Washington – just south of Coney Island on the corner. I used to go there when I worked at Marine bank.
We see Jack Herren at the annual Wells Fargo christmas party – used to see Marty Megeff but they moved away and we lost track of them. I still receive Christmas cards from Dale Gronewald and Bob Patterson.
I don’t know if you can see my email or not, but if not – it’s pixieboedecker@midwestfirst.com if you want to write back. If not, that’s okay too!! Take care – tell pete hello for us!!
What a change, huh? I like to think of how it was then, when I was a high school freshman at Griffin. Then again, memories of that era might not be so pleasant, if I’d been born black, hemmed in on the East Side.
Congrats on the promo for the Dem candidate in Fla.
Nick Penning | Sep 29, 2010 | Reply
Worked on corner of 6th & Adams at Allen Shoe Store part time while in school in 1947 and even after had other job, worked their on Friday Night and Saturday
Bonnie Shontz Berendes | Nov 13, 2010 | Reply
I was employed by GMAC from 1949 to about 1953… started out with GMAC in Decatur then was transfered to their office here in Springfield with offices on the fourth floor of the CIPS or Illinois Building. Roy Dawson was a barber also located on the fourth floor. The GMAC office and Roy’s place was side by side on the 4th floor. It was Roy who gave me a tip for a new job at CIPS when I got tired of working seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours each day as the Branch Accounting Manager. I informed Roy that I was leaving GMAC and wanted a new job working like from 8AM to 5PM five days a week. He said he had just given Mark Kirk a hair cut and to go see him on the 9th floor. Mark was the Personnel Manager for CIPS. I immediately contacted Mark and told him what I was looking for. He hired me on the spot so to speak. I began with CIPS as an Junior Plant Accountant and advanced gradually to a Plant Accountant during the period of 1955 to 1964 when they promoted me to the position of Risk and Insurance Supervisor. That job was so terrific, I enjoyed every day on the job from 1964 to 1990 when I retired at age 60. I had offices on the 9th, 11th, 14th and the 15th floors of the building. Always good views of the downtown business district…. the best being when the old Illinois State Capitol Building was taken down, pillar by pillar, stone block by stone block and hauled out to the State Fairgrounds. Then I watched the excavation of the four square block area to build the new facility, now standing intact and serving as the Illinois State Library.
As aside to this particlar aspect, I was the President and CEO of Boys Baseball, Inc’, the group that bought the Old Springfield Boiler Works facility out on McCreey and E. Capitol Street and built a baseball park now called the Bill Chamberlain Park… the point being that while building the park over the period of seven years with all volunteers, I needed several hundren thousand truck loads of clay from the excavation site being removed from the Old State Capitol site. I arranged to secure all of the dirt or clay free of charge and have it hauled out to the Old Boiler Works site which was later spread out over the six and one half acres to enscapulate (sp?) the “mine waste” that covered the property. Talk about an act of Providence, that was the answer to my prayers for resolving a requirement to finish the ball park to be named after my mentor, Mr. Mitch Shaddid, who was more or less the father of all youth baseball for boys and girls in Springfield. Mitch was a Vice President of Boys Baseball, INC with headquarters in Washington, PA. He was also the owner and operator of Shaddid’s Book Store near the corner of 6th and Capitol. For various reasons, I lost the battle to have the park named after Mitch when we more or less “sold” naming rights to the park to the RCS in exchange for several thousand dollars donated by their organization to help pay for the lighting system installed at the park. Well, the records and documentation of this effort were donated to the Archive Section of the Lincoln Library of Springfield, IL…. I believe the documents are still there for public inspection and review. I’m now 81 years old, been retired from CIPS (Ameren Illinois now) for over 20 years. Maybe there are some people still living that served with me on the Board of Directors and the Ladies Auxiliary of the Park…. if so, give me a call 217-698-5864 and I’d love to hear from you. I’m tired of typing now and have to quit.
Dick Oglesby | Dec 12, 2010 | Reply
Hi, Dick!!! Just read your paragraph here!!! So glad to see you’re still among us and doing well!! Bo and I live north of Kansas, IL and are both doing great! Thankfully we’ve had good health for the most part!!
Physically we’ve not changed much at all! Bo’s hair is now silver and mine is whatever color I want it to be, but other than that .. . and some aging . . we’re pretty much the same! Our family is growing!
Our daughter Amanda has been married 6 1/2 years and has a 19 mos old red headed Naomi (I always think of [Nonie] Naomi Luedke from the mail room. They have another baby due 6/30/11 – live 8 miles east of Paris (20 miles from us). Our son Gabriel is married for 2 1/2 years and live about 3 miles from us. We moved over here 15 years ago this June so Bo would be closer to his work in Mattoon. He retired from CIPS in Jan of 2003 and went back to work for Electric Power Systems in March 2003. He is their Safety Manager. He is also a licensed home inspector for the state of Illinois. I did not realize you were instrumental in building that baseball field nor did I realize you took all the dirt!!!! I miss parts of the ‘good old days’. I found this website b/c I was trying to think of the name of the restaurant that used to be at 6th & Washington – north of Marine bank – on the East side of Washington – just south of Coney Island on the corner. I used to go there when I worked at Marine bank.
We see Jack Herren at the annual Wells Fargo christmas party – used to see Marty Megeff but they moved away and we lost track of them. I still receive Christmas cards from Dale Gronewald and Bob Patterson.
I don’t know if you can see my email or not, but if not – it’s pixieboedecker@midwestfirst.com if you want to write back. If not, that’s okay too!! Take care – tell pete hello for us!!
Bo & Pixie
Pixie Boedecker | Apr 3, 2011 | Reply
Leave it to Nick Penning to use his space here to comment on alleged racial injustice in Springfield and partisan politics in Florida. Give me a break
Craig | Apr 27, 2011 | Reply
Nick,
When you were at Griffin were you taught history by Father Wayne Dupuis? He was my Director of Calling in Las Vegas, NV.
Helen
Helen Lubin Bridges | Aug 26, 2011 | Reply