The Square

The business association of my Mom's hometown is sponsoring a contest about recollections of downtown. It's a contest, so I just had to enter. Here's what I submitted:

My Mom Marion was born in Town of Hull in 1919 and my Dad Alex was born in 1905 in Mill Creek. My Dad’s first job was at Uncle Pete Kaminski’s grocery store where he learned how to be a butcher. My Dad later worked at Rudnick’s grocery store on the corner of the Square, and that’s where he met my Mom.

For as long as I could remember, we traveled on vacation from Racine to Stevens Point to stay with my Grandparents Anna and Joe Bonowski. One of our first and frequent stops would be Market Square. My Dad looked forward to meeting his friends on the Square and talking in Polish, of course, about the old days. A lot of farmers would be there selling beans and other vegetables. It seemed like my Dad knew most everybody, but then a lot of people had shopped at Rudnick’s in those days, including my Grandpa. When my Mom was still a young girl, she and her sisters went with my Grandpa to Rudnick’s. The handsome butcher carried the groceries out to the car where the sisters were sitting in the back seat. He smiled and said, “I’ll take the one with the brown eyes.”

Years later, my Mom (the one with the brown eyes) worked as a maid and child care provider to one of Stevens Point’s prominent families. In the evenings she would go to Fisher’s Dairy to buy an ice cream cone. She would eat that cone very, very slowly as she walked back and forth in front of Rudnick’s, hoping to be noticed by the handsome butcher who worked there. They met, became engaged, and in 1945 they were married at St. Casimir’s Church, Town of Hull.

The Square was the center of all the activity in town. It was where my parents met and fell in love. For me, no trip to The Square was complete without including a stop at Fisher’s Dairy for a double scoop cone of raspberry ripple ice cream, and my Dad reminiscing about his days as a butcher at Rudnick’s.