I have some wonderful photos of Mother Goose Gardens to share with you. These were sent to me by a Facebook friend of my husbands. I was so touched to get her email. And, that she took the time to scan and share her photos with me. Thanks to Shelia for your memories. So many will enjoy these photos and the precious picture of the souvenir plate. What a treasure. Here is Shelia's letter to me:
Francie
My Dad brought me the article you wrote on Mother Goose Gardens...I really enjoyed reading it. I live in Morris, and remember it from when I used to go there when I was a kid. I went to school with your husband Mike and grew up in Grand Ridge. I have a booklet of pics from there that I took with my Brownie color Kodachrome camera, that I got for my 8th birthday....I remember licking the flash bulbs before putting them in! I was born in 1952, and these pics show the date 1960, my sister Chris wasn't born yet....Kevin, myself, Jimmy and Karen are in the photos,. I even still have a little china plate from there....so I thought I would pass along these pics to you.....only someone who remembers it really appreciates what a great place it was...all about the imagination!
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| Starting from the top: Sleeping Beauty, Train Ride, and Three Little Kittens |
Wow, I had forgotten some of these scenes, especially the "kind of creepy", Sleeping Beauty vignette. Hurry Prince Charming, please wake her up or else she may scare some of us away.
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| Starting from the top: Jack and Jill go down the hill, ticket booth and the famous corn dispenser that you would crank and crank to get a few morsels of feed. |
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Starting from the top: The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, the Bunny Hutch, and feeding the animals.
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I've saved the best photo for last. The tiny little plate that hundreds of people must have purchased as a small memento of the Gardens. Wonder how many are still out there? Footnote...since posting this I have found out that three of my friends have this plate!
My blog about Mother Goose Gardens and other stories of the Starved Rock State Park area have been published in a special edition book to mark the 100th Anniversary. Lots of great articles on Starved Rock. Here is the link
(http://mywebtimes.com/PDFs/TimesSTARVEDRk.pdf) to download this special edition. Friend, Kathy Casstevens-Jasek shot the cover photo featuring Conquering Bear playing his native flute beneath the waterfall in Ottawa Canyon. Kathy is a fantastic photographer as well as being the marketing director of Starved Rock Lodge. If you want to read all about Mother Goose Gardens Part 1 go
here. Enjoy the memories.
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This is such a cool post. I was a child of the same era, growing up in Wisconsin. I know we have photos like this floating around in shoeboxes. OK, sleeping beauty was kind of creepy for small children.
ReplyDeleteI have to make it a priority to get them together and scanned for posterity, or even for our kids to laugh at.
What a wonderful post. Thanks for the journey down memory lane.
ReplyDeleteomg!!! Thanks for this post! I so remember this, though I thought the name was Mother Goose Land. I will note the correction ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe link for the special edition book on the 100th anniversary of Starved Rock doesn't work anymore, can you tell me the title, author, and where to find the book? Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThe special edition "book" was a special section of the newspaper. Let me check with a reporter friend of mine who works for that paper and see if it is out there somewhere! Thanks for your interest!
ReplyDeleteIt was great memories I remember going there when I was a little boy I thought it was part of Mother Goose land
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