1965: Carol Linton (bass), Barb McKechnie (vocals),
Diane Abray (drums), Jan (lead), Mary Linton (rhythm).
Dear Detroiters,
I am looking for contact information for several former members of my band,
The Debutantes. There are three gals for which I have no leads: twins Mary and Carol Linton who played guitar and bass, lived in Hazel Park and, I believe, attended Hazel Park High School. They had a brother, Bobby, and their parents were Dexter and Patsy Linton. They were 14 when they joined the band in 1966.
The other woman is drummer Denise Mandell who attended Southfield High School. Her father was saxophonist Sammy Mandell.
Occasionally I receive emails I feel would be of interest
to our Detroit Memories Newsletter subscribers.
With permission from the authors, I'll publish them.
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The Twin Pines milkman went right to work in Andy Dubill's Lionel village.
Eileen,
I grew up in Detroit in the 1950's when milkmen delivered milk and dairy products to each home two or three times a week. Each house had a milk chute and the milkman left whatever the homeowner wanted. In our neighborhood, it was Rudy and he drove for Wilson Dairy. When we saw the milk truck coming down the street, we would stop what we were doing and run out to the curb to wait for him. He would let us hop up into his Divco truck, take his ice pick and chip some ice off for us kids to munch on as he took the milk to our milk chute.
Twin Pines was another big dairy in the Detroit area. We all watched Milky the Clown, sponsored by Twin Pines, on TV each Saturday. When I saw the Twin Pines Divco truck with the driver for sale on your website, I knew that I hade to have one for my postwar Lionel train layout that I've been building in my basement. When the truck arrived, the driver went right to work delivering milk to the inhabitants of my miniature village.
When I was a kid, I started an American Flyer layout around 1956. I've been building my Lionel layout using items from 1946-1964 for about eight years and it brings me back to my days when I was growing up in Detroit.
The Twin Pines truck is a beauty. It has great detail and I am proud to have it on my layout.
Thanks for making the Twin Pines Divco truck available to us!
Andy Dubill
Overland Park, Kansas
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Hi Eileen,
So nice to hear from you. I enjoy visiting your web site
from time to time for a good dose of Detroit nostalgia.
When I was born, we were living on Drexel Avenue
off E. Jefferson near Conners and later moved to
Royal Oak (Dondero High). Although I have lived all over
(Grand Rapids, Flint, Louisville, Houston, LA, Atlanta and
for the last fifteen years in Nashville), I still always feel
Thanks for the Newsletter invitation. I'll sign up and hopefully will be able to contribute some items from time to time. Attached is an article titled "Destination Detroit" that
I wrote for Performing Songwritermagazine a while back as part of a series they were doing on music destination cities.
I was the president of Farmington High School Class of 1963. Four hundred of the nicest people I have ever known. There are dozens of us who are still in touch.
Thanks,
Doug Griffin, Denver, CO 80202-5712
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Hi Eileen,
My mom's cousin, Gene Holowchak, was Technical Director at Channel 4. He gave us a studio tour one night when I was a kid. I met Dick Westerkamp, (it was actually just a 'hello').
We got to watch the news-weather-sports broadcast (which was only 15 minutes then) from the studio floor. I also met one of Gene's best friends, Sonny Eliot. It was a riot to see him do the weather on the chalk board. He was (and still is) just as funny in person as on the air.
Many years later on July 30, 1975, Gene had invited us to the studio again. It was a night to remember because, as it turned, we had front row seats to history in the making. That was the day Jimmy Hoffa "disappeared."
Thank you for the info about the Ford Rotunda (Jan 2010 issue).
Unfortunately I was never inside, but I do remember that it was visible from I-94, and was especially spectacular at night with all of the colored spotlights shining on it.
I also remember watching Channel 4 news with Dick Westerkamp on the night of the fire and, of course, that was the lead story. The station had just recently started filming stories from a plane or helicopter, so they had a birds-eye view of the fire, including the moment when the roof collapsed.
Jim Heddle, Tucson AZ
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You're right about the significance of the Ford Rotunda to the area. I grew up in Royal Oak but my Uncle Stanley, who worked for Ford, lived in Lincoln Park. When we occasionally made the drive to visit them, we would pass by the the Rotunda, but
I could barely see the top. I was nine years old when it burned and I recall it being a loss even to me as a child. I never got to see the inside.
Thanks so much for the gallery and the Newsletter. I’ve been reading for several years now. It does my heart good.
Donna Vandermark, Lawrenceville, IL
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Does anyone remember the miniature cars and trucks exhibit at the Ford Rotunda that portrayed cross-country driving on super highways?
Stanley A. Wickman, Livonia, MI
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Seeing the old pictures of the inside of the Rotunda brings back a lot of memories.
My brother-in-law, Edgar Carlson, took many of those pictures attached to the upper walls of the building. Does anyone know whether copies of the original photos are available anywhere, and how I might go about getting some of them?
Carl Carlson, Burlington VT
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EILEEN'S NOTE:
If you have information regarding Messrs. Wickman or Carlson above requests, email it to me at info@detroitmemories.com and I'll publish your response in a future issue.
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GOT QUESTIONS?
Something about metro Detroit from the 50s, 60s or 70s
you've been wondering about but didn't know who to ask? Send it to us.
We'll do our best to get you an answer from our team of experts.
That was probably Dorothy Ashby. She had a jazz group, The Dorothy Ashby Trio, if I remember correctly. They used to visit my family's music shop on the east side. She had a van with her logo painted on the outside. A fantastic musician!
By Craig Pittman, St. Petersburg Times Staff Writer
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Born: Aug. 5, 1943 ~ Died: Nov. 16, 2009
Every night in 1965 Detroit, from midnight to 6 a.m., a bemused voice floated from the radio. The night man on WKNR-AM spent hours spinning stories and platters, entertaining the third shift at the auto plant, the cops on patrol and the insomniacs craving diversion.
Other disc jockeys went by fancy handles or funny nicknames, but that wasn't the night man's style. The fans of the station, known as "Keener-13," knew he was just plain Jim Jeffries.
One night he joked about swiping one of Ringo Starr's jacket buttons and auctioning it on the air to augment his meager salary, then took a call. A listener asked for a tune by the Lovin' Spoonful. "I'd love to hear Summer in the City," the listener said. "Oh, let's not get emotional," the night man quipped, then cued up the song. Being a Detroit disc jockey in the 1960s was one of the toughest jobs in the music business.
"That was the home of Motown," explained Ron Alexenburg, a record company executive who eventually persuaded Mr. Jeffries to work for him. "You had to know the music. You had to know the artists. You had to relate to the lyrics."
Mr. Jeffries was one of the best, Alexenburg said, because "he loved music. He wasn't one of those DJs who apologizes for his job."
While working nights for WKNR and later at WQXI-AM in Atlanta, Mr. Jeffries spun top 40 and hot 100 tunes. Then in the early 1970s he slipped out from behind the mike to take a job promoting artists.
When Alexenburg lured Mr. Jeffries to New York to head up promotions for Epic Records, he helped make hits out of the Isley Brothers' (Who's) That Lady? Lou Rawls' You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine and Wild Cherry's Play That Funky Music.
He also promoted a group Alexenburg had signed to Epic against his staff's advice, a bunch of has-beens once known as the Jackson Five, now calling themselves the Jacksons. The lead singer then produced a solo album called Off the Wall that didn't need a lot of promotion.
When it came to pushing a record Mr. Jeffries believed in, "he wouldn't take no for an answer," Alexenburg said. Because of his imposing size and his vast knowledge of the music business, he could be hard to turn down.
By 1986, though, the northern winters had begun getting to him and his wife and son, Shawn. They moved to Land O'Lakes, and he left music behind to work for local concerns — the Tampa Lighthouse for the Blind, for instance. He later tried his hand at running his own business helping authors and other would-be celebrities line up radio and television interviews.
Last month, Mr. Jeffries returned to Atlanta for the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame dinner. He was stunned at how many people wanted to shake his hand or give him a hug, said Bob Todd, his former boss at WQXI.
"He didn't realize the impact he had on people's lives," Todd said.
Monday, he had a heart attack. The night man finally signed off. He was 66.
The Jaworski Sausage Company existed into the '60s. My mother worked for the company in its Chene street store for several years before her marriage. I have a picture of her taken in the Chene Street store.
Frank Jaworski had a number of stores in Polish neigborhoods. The one in Hamtramck was on Jos Campau between Caniff and Trowbridge.
I know of no history of the company, but since they were important in the community, there is much on them in the Polish newspapers.
My mother remembered that Jaworski's wife, who visited each store wearing her mink coat and driven by her chauffeur, was the one who oversaw the day-to-day operations of the retail section, while her husband handled the making of sausages.
Jawaorski was a committed Pilsudski supporter. He took out full page ads in all the Polish papers on the Marshall's death to express his sympathy and mourn Poland's loss. I found these while doing other research. To this day I miss his wonderful Kiszka (Kasztanka).
The stores closed after his death and his wife's. If I remember correctly, no one in the family wanted to continue the business.
