REVISITING THE RIVER CITY

                  WITH BILL & CONNIE

PICTURE ABOVE:  America was poised between World War II and the Korean Conflict when this First Coast photo was snapped in 1948.  Who were these smiling kids in front of West Riverside Elementary School?  A couple in their sixties, Bill & Connie, were two local natives who wrote to JacksonvilleStory.com in April 2004.  Bill had attended West Riverside as a child, but he didn’t recognize any of the happy faces. 

Lots of Jax memories did bubble to the surface, however, after the Bill & Connie visited JacksonvilleStory.com.  Do you recollect any of these things?  Here’s what Connie revealed in several interesting emails sent to the website:

Bill and I love to go back and remember how it was.  We have seven children, five of whom were born in Jacksonville.  We also have 13 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

My husband and I were both born in Jacksonville.   I was born at the old St. Luke’s Hospital, and my husband at St. Vincent’s.  We were both born in 1940.  We were raised in the Riverside and Murray Hill areas. We didn't meet until we had been out of school for two years. We just never ran around with the same people. He liked sports.  I didn't.  I liked to read.  He didn't.

We mostly went to church socials during the year, and we enjoyed trick or treating on Halloween night.  We also loved to visit the Jacksonville Beach Boardwalk.  

I went to Lackawanna Elementary, and my husband went to West Riverside Elementary. We both attended John Gorrie High, and then moved on to Robert E. Lee High.  We went to school with Hoyt Axton (the late singer/songwriter who once lived in Murray Hill).  We visited the Gator Bowl every Friday night because that's where our school had its weekly football game.  We also played Andrew Jackson High at the Gator Bowl on Thanksgiving Day.  

PHOTO ABOVE:  Hemming Park, Downtown Jacksonville, in around 1950.

I remember visiting to the Edgewood Theater on Saturday mornings.  It cost just nine cents to get in.  In the same area was the Edgewood Bakery.   Also in the neighborhood was the Murray Hill Theater, but I wasn't allowed to go there.

I remember too the Normandy Drive-in. I was NOT allowed to go there. Well, you know how things were back then: You had to report where you went, and you had a curfew.

I didn’t work, but my husband went to work for the A&P Grocery Company when he was a teenager.  My father owned his own grocery store.  It was out on Lenox Avenue. The name of it was Butler's Meats and Groceries.  I do remember all of the grocery stores you talk about at JacksonvilleStory.com… 

I loved to shop at Furchgott's, May Cohens, and other places all over downtown.  I also enjoyed Grant’s, Kress, and the five & dimes.  I never did like it when they started to open the shopping centers.  I didn’t like the expressway either, for it took our home when I was a young teenager.

I always ate at Krystal's when we went to town, and other places I enjoyed eating at were the old Sandwich Inn, the Penny Burger, and Berney's ("Dine With the Man in Green").  Mayport had a great restaurant too.  On JacksonvilleStory.com, you spoke of McGinnis'( spelling?) Bar-B- Q.  My husband went to Mr. Mac (as he was called), and that was where he learned to eat coleslaw on his Bar-B- Q.

I loved to go to the Five-Points Theater and to the stores nearby.  I wasn't allowed to go to Willow Branch Park for the dances, but my husband was.

I can remember catching the bus to go downtown, and nobody would bother you. It's too bad that the young people today can’t go back just for a little while to see what it was like. There's no innocence today. 

Do you or anyone else remember buying bus tokens at Hemming Park?   Also, I think a little juice stand operated at a bus stop on Forsyth Street.  They sold the best juice.  I remember how fresh it always tasted. 

We really loved looking at all of the pictures on JacksonvilleStory.com...  As I was reading about you (Glenn Emery, the website manager), I saw that you like the movies "The Yearling" and "Cross Creek."  Bill worked on "Cross Creek" when it was being filmed over near Ocala. He did stage work for about 18 years, but "Cross Creek" was by far one of his favorite things that  he did.  

Thanks for the memories.

Friendship is the thread that ties friends together,

Bill & Connie

A very special appreciation goes to Bill & Connie for taking us back in time!

If you have any memories and/or photos to donate to JacksonvilleStory.com, please feel free to email them to the website.  Share them with Jax history lovers around the world!

Sources of images: Above photo is from the Florida Photographic Collection at the Florida State Archives, and the picture below is from the Florida Collection at the Main Public Library.

  THANK YOU...  

       FOR VISITING THE JACKSONVILLE STORY,

        YOUR TIME MACHINE TO THE PAST