If you are a Lebanon Kid, you have a big day coming up soon on Saturday, June 10. But who qualifies as a Lebanon Kid?
Hundreds, probably thousands, of Beacon-News readers qualify as Lebanon Kids without even realizing it.
Lebanon Park, as it is known today, is an open green space on the southeast side of Aurora. It occupies the equivalent of two square city blocks, and is probably the only open, public space between the Fox River and Phillips Park.
With the help of Fox Valley Park District Executive Director Jim Pilmer and his wonderful staff, I did some research on Lebanon Park and the land that it occupies.
It was purchased as a public property on a 10-year payment schedule from 1931-40. The park became a city of Aurora property in about 1950, and it was deeded to the park district in 1962.
Documents chronicled the purchase of several generations of playground equipment, and other improvements added over the decades. There was an in-ground concrete swimming pool which many of the older Lebanon Kids remembered. It was permanently closed in about the mid-1950s because of a polio epidemic in the United States, and the city had it filled in and replaced with an open pavilion in 1960.
Many other improvements to the park’s three baseball/softball fields and to the small building and pavilion at its north end were documented.
But as I interviewed several generations of Lebanon Kids, I realized that the history of the grounds was an insignificant part of what made the park important. Memories of what seemed to be endless summers with fun activities and being with friends were strong for all of the “kids,” no matter what their ages.
Southeast side kids who attended Bardwell, Dieterich, Krug and Our Lady of Good Counsel schools participated in summer sports and activities together with few, if any, problems.
Jeff Watson, a 1981 East Aurora High School graduate, spent his summers at Lebanon (the park became known to all of its kids by the one word title) during the 1970s.
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“When I moved back to the area last year and was close to Lebanon again, I posted some things on Facebook,” Watson said. “I posted ‘who remembers the Pow-Wows?’ and ‘who remembers four square?’ There seemed to be a lot of interest, so I thought about having a reunion.
“There were 40 or 50 people there, and we took photos. By the end of the day, after posting them, there were 120 people interested. So we are doing another reunion this year on Saturday, June 10.”
It was amazing to hear the similarities in the stories as I talked with Lebanon Kids of the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.
Some brief versions of their memories:
“I was 5 when we moved to the area, so I played at Lebanon in the ’40s, and swam in that pool before it closed because of polio. I practiced football there with the Our Lady of Good Counsel team, and our Little League baseball team practiced there.” – Rev. Charles Reichenbacher of Marmion Abbey in Aurora, the “senior” Lebanon Kid for this story.
“The log house was there for many years where the summer supervisors offered arts and crafts. I do remember that on some Saturday nights, they put a make-shift screen on the side of the log house and showed movies. You could bring your blanket and popcorn, and we enjoyed it very much. This would have been in the late ’50s” – Sue Gilla of Aurora.
“I got interested in pitching softball at Lebanon. All the playgrounds had teams — Copley I, Copley II, Greenman and others. I think they had track meets and other competitions also. There was playground equipment and a spray pool for kids to run through.” – Stan McGraw of Aurora, a 1950s Lebanon Kid.
“My best early memories of Lebanon are the crafting hours, sewing together leather coin purses and pencil bags for school. As we got older, my sisters and I loved playing four square with the older kids. We spent as much time at Lebanon as Mom allowed in the summers.” – Nancy Bretthauer Pierce, a Lebanon Kid of the ’60s who now lives in upstate New York.
“Supervisors taught us sports, games and craft projects. I made potholders, lanyards and a tile trivet there. We made paper bag vests and accessories for the Indian Pow-Wow which was held at Copley II, and we checked out games to play at the picnic tables with our friends. There were swings that went really high, and we pumped our legs to see who could go the highest. I learned to play softball there, and continued to play into my adult years. We didn’t have the electronics kids use today, but we played outside, made friends and made memories.” – Liz Watson Bartholomew, a 1960s Lebanon Kid.
Park district records indicate that the supervised activities at Lebanon ended after the summer of 2015 as the parks began to consolidate some of the programs.
But being a Lebanon Kid of the 1950s and ’60s, my lasting memories are of the baseball games we played on our own without supervision. The group may have had slightly different personnel each day, but we played four or five days a week.
It really was a Field of Dreams as we became Nellie Fox, Ernie Banks, Billy Pierce and Mickey Mantle. We shared bats and gloves and learned to get along. If an argument ended a game, we would all be back again the next day. Important life lessons were learned without our realizing it.
As referenced by some of the early generations, we played at Lebanon for as long as our moms would allow. Frequently we would return after dinner and play until it was too dark to see. It was an idyllic and peaceful place in time for Baby Boomers, and the generation which followed them, to grow up.
If you are a Lebanon Kid and would like to take a walk down memory lane, the Kids have a Facebook Group which was started by Jeff Watson. The second annual reunion is coming up on Saturday, June 10, at Lebanon.
Tom Strong is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.