Old Number 9, The Lobo Tank Busters, Cabin 21 at Valley Forge
Grocery stores in Antwerp in the 1930’s
By: Stan Jordan
My memory is pretty good from 1930 on for a number of years, and the disastrous fire of Doug Bragg’s River Street Market brings back memories of grocery stores in downtown Antwerp when I was growing up.
Starting from the south and going north on the northeast corner of Main and Daggett Street was Joe Carr’s store. After WWII it was sold to Kammeyer. That was Fred’s first IGA store.
About midway, on north on the west side of the street where the Keystone building is, was a Kroger store. About 1935 it was moved north to what is now the Antwerp Hardware.
That three floor building on the southwest corner of West River Street and North Main was the Doering and Long Department Store sold out to Doug and Taylor Long in 1928. Taylor Long married Lucille Doering.
After WWII, Jim Panico married Taylor Long’s daughter, Joan, and he bought out Doering and Long when Taylor retired. In the 1950’s, Jim built the store on East River Street that became Kammeyer’s and then the River Street Market.
In the 1930’s on the west side of the first block north of the center red light was Harry Ely’s store.
Then on north where the Bee-Argus is now was the Frank Reeb grocery. It had been under other names at one time.
I remember in the early 1930’s at the east side of what is now the VFW building, there was a Meat Market operated by an old German fellow called George Redderson.
Over the years there have been many grocery stores in the area and a lot of them changed hands many times.
See ya!
The Lobo Tank Busters
By: Stan Jordan
This is December 26, 1944. The fog was gone now and our Air Force was doing a great job helping the foot soldiers with the Battle of the Bulge. There was about ten days when we couldn’t fly and the German Armed Division were running all over the Allies in Belgium, but we had slowed up the German advance and would soon have the upper hand.
This morning our P51-D Mustangs were loaded and we took off as early as possible to go to the Houffalize area. There was less than a company of the 29th Division holding the main highway against the German advance. Those boys only had one 57mm anti-tank gun and ground launchers. They blew the track off of a Tiger Tank and he was blocking the highway for the minute, but he was holding up a huge column of German tanks.
We swung to the east and got a little altitude and swung around and came at the tanks from the rear. I put a rocket into the rear of that number two tank and blew the turret off and by then I was past and went up to a higher altitude for a minute. I swung around to the east in a big circle and come back at that number one tank that was firing his 88mm gun, even though his tracks were blown off, he was dead in the middle of the highway. I put a rocket right into his engine area and he started to burn and I was by him again and I went up to about 1,000 feet so I could look the area over.
The first five tanks in that column were either demolished or burning, the following tanks could not maneuver, as they would have gotten stuck in the mud if they had tried to go around the disabled leader tanks. We had them suckered, just like they had us a few days ago. We all made another big circle and came in on those tanks from the rear—they were sitting ducks. Every tank in that line, for a quarter of a mile, were out of action.
We turned around in the air and we spotted some Royal Air Force Spitfire. They were armed with the same type jumbo rockets that we had. I had heard that the R.A.F. would be getting some rockets and use them, and we were glad to see that.
We pulled up and got out of the area a little ways and watched those English boys go to work. They would approach from the rear, just like we did, eventually they had used the rockets.
We wiggled our wings in recognition of the Spitfire’s pilots in and we went back to our air base for a little lunch and loaded up and went back to Belgium again to see what we could blow up. That jumbo rocket was an awesome weapon.
See ya!
CABIN 21 AT VALLEY FORGE
By: Stan Jordan
This is March 10, 1778 at Valley Forge Army Base. The boys finally got their new uniforms and three months of their back pay. The weather has gotten a little better and the boys did a lot of drilling by day. The camp is more like an army base now and morale is great.
This last Saturday, things got very exciting in just a little bit. The soldier boys sure raised their standing in the community in just a little bit.
Along about three o’clock, Betsy Willingham had decided to walk across the frozen pond at the feed mill. She got about sixty feet from the shore and the ice gave way and she fell in and was going down. Her friend, Lizzie, managed to get back to shore and she ran to the feed mill as fast as she could.
It so happened it was Saturday and Trooper #7 was working at the mill. Of course, Lizzie was all excited and found Trooper #7 just inside the door. She told him about the accident and how it happened and that Betsy was in the water, alive yet, but the ice had broken and would probably break again.
No. 7 shut off the main lever and the mill went silent. He pulled up the ladder leaning up against the wall and they both ran out to the pond.
He could see that Betsy was alive yet and still hanging on to the rim of the ice with both hands—scared to death, wet and cold, but alive.
No. 7 put the ladder down on the ice and he laid down on the ladder about in the middle from top to bottom. He pulled out his skinning knife and jabbed the point in the ice and he pulled the ladder along the ice headed toward Betsy, He repeated the act of jabbing the knife into the ice and sliding the ladder and himself toward Betsy, a few feet at a time. He worked as fast as he could and he kept telling Betsy that he would soon be there. “Just hang on and don’t move or let go!”
It seemed like it took ages, but soon he was along side of the hole that Betsy was in. It was a very hard job to pull Betsy out of the water, her clothes were wet and very heavy. No. 7 had to keep laying on the ladder or the ice could break. He finally got her out of the hole and, laying on his back, he moved the ladder toward to the bank.
To be continued…
See ya!
By: Stan Jordan
There was a local pig farmer who was going to retire, so he called a trucker who had a big 18-wheeler livestock trailer, big enough to take all his pigs in one load.
Well, they got them all on except one, and the driver refused to put another pig on the truck. He argued that would make him overloaded and if he got stopped by the highway patrol they would fine him and he wouldn’t make a dime on the trip. He was very adamant about it and he wouldn’t budge – that pig had to stay on the farm. He wasn’t going to take the chance by being overweight.
The farmer begged him, “I don’t want to raise yet another pig. I want to retire.” After an hour or so, the farmer agreed and let the driver go, but he left that one pig for the farmer to raise.
Well over the year, the pig got bigger and bigger. He was sort of a pet and all he did was eat and get bigger. He grew and grew and got to be huge and lots of people came to the farm to see the monster pig.
When people came to see the pig, they had to drive by the house and out to the barn. All this traffic was hard on the farmer’s wife, as she was sick and bedridden. The farmer was forced to put a sign out in the yard: “While my wife is down sick, I wish you wouldn’t come and see the big hog!”
