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July 2012

         All the kids attended the Victoria Public School and walked both ways, not uphill.  The impressionable young Freddie remembers well his elementary days. 

         "Classes were held upstairs," he said.  "There were two rooms, one for grades 1 to 4 and one for grades 5 to 8.  There was a library table at the back of each room, where our grade sat when it was our turn for class.  I  remember a Mrs. Lahr was a teacher from Waconia, and one year we had a male teacher, which was very rare in those days."

         Fred recalls the layout of the old school like it was yesterday.  "On the first floor there was the gymnasium, the shop, and the cafeteria.  They served bologna sandwiches and mac and cheese at the cafeteria and little containers of milk, but most of the time Ma fixed lunch and I brown-bagged it."

         Newcomers to Victoria may or may not know that the Hartman Building at 1600 Arboretum Boulevard was once the old Victoria Public School.

         "Tony Vogel, who was Bud's dad, was the school janitor," said Fred.  "I never had a real grandfather and Tony was my surrogate grandfather.  He was usually in the basement of the school where the boilers were located.  He was a dear, dear man."

         Fred said there were five to six kids in each grade at Victoria Public, and he named those in his class:  Dave Kaufhold, Martin Luebke, Maxine Schroers, the twins Sharon and Sharlene, and a kid by the name of Eugene Lutters.  "There were only 300 people in town and most of the kids went to the Catholic school," he explained.

         Continued Fred, whose years at Victoria Public were 1946 to 1954, "Eugene was from Latvia.  Reverend Wallin at the Moravian Church in town took him in as a displaced person.  This was during the Cold War and there were refugees.  Years later, when I was in Intelligence School in Baltimore, Maryland, there was another guy from Latvia in my class.  Nope, they weren't related."

         Where was the Plocher family home?  "There were three that I know of, all within a block of each other," said Fred.  "First we lived in the stucco home, where Jeff Chapman lives today (on 81st Street).  Then we lived in the Tudor-looking home just north of where Bud Larson use to live (on Rose Street).  My brother Pat built a home for his family, that our parents eventually moved to, next to Math and Gladys Hartmann's house (on Sunflower Street), where Whitey Wellens used to live."  This third house burned down some years ago and a new home was constructed on that site near the entrance to Kirke-Lachen.

         In 1954 Fred was off to the Waconia High School.  "Kids from Victoria could go to high school in either Chaska or Waconia," he said.  "I went to Waconia because my brothers and sisters went there."

         Fred took college preparatory classes and played a lot of sports.  "When you only have 24 boys in your class,  you darn well better go out for sports," said Fred.  "They needed bodies.  I played every sport."

         In 1958 he graduated from Waconia High School and enrolled at Hamline University in St. Paul.  "I was so stupid," said Fred.  "I didn't know it would have been cheaper to attend the University of Minnesota or Mankato State.  I didn't know Hamline was more expensive."

         Since Fred had to pay for his own college, this had quite an effect on his wallet and his work.

         "To pay for school I cleaned the Student Union three nights a week and helped my roommate clean several Dry Cleaning places," he said.  "In the summer between my junior and senior year, I worked here in Carver Park …”

 

Click here to continue Drawn to Develop.

Fred, in about the 4th grade, at Victoria Public School.