Awake: 6:02am Temp 61 sleep 6+49 partly cloudy
elevation 774’ overnight @ Milwaukee, Wisconsin
As I mentioned yesterday, this State Fair RV Park is simply a vast
concrete parking lot with water connections, electrical boxes & sewer
attachments. There are no trees, playgrounds, showers, etc, but it was
fine…..it was big rig friendly, quiet, reasonably close to the city & the
price was right.
After breakfast, we drive our Suzuki 30 min south to a place called:
“Greendale.” It’s one of (3) greenbelt communities founded by the
Roosevelt administration in 1936 during the great depression; housing for
needy families & work for the unemployed. It took (2) yrs (from 1936 – 38)
to complete the 572 homes. Interesting fact: the homes are backwards.
Built very close to the street with the living room @ the rear of each
home & done on purpose, to allow the pioneer residents a better view of
their picturesque backyards in lieu of looking out on a street.
It’s easy to find where friends live in Greendale. That’s because of its
“alphabetical sections” parceled off into the “A” section, “B” section,
etc. Every street in each section begins with the coinciding letter of the
alphabet---Apricot Court, Arrowwood Street, & so forth. In 1936, the
government-owned houses rented for $19.00 to $32.50 a month. A garage was
$2.50 extra. Only those earning $1000.00 to $ 2400.00 annually were
considered for this middle-income housing venture.
Anyway, this is the town where Roy Reiman of Reiman Publications purchased
some 200 acres during the 70’s, including the abandoned Allis Chalmers
Tractor Factory. He renovated the huge three buildings factory & is using
them as the main offices for his publishing of 14 magazines including
“Taste of Home” & their most recent magazine: “Cooking for Two.” 3 of the
4 test kitchens for the cooking magazines are housed in the main office,
where a staff of 25 home economists, recipe editors, food stylists, and
editorial assistants carefully evaluate each recipe before it gets put
into a magazine.
We were 30 min early for the visitors’ center & had to wait for it to
open; we forgot that we were in the Central Time Zone. Kathy was pretty
excited to see this place as she gets a lot of recipes from the “Taste of
Home” books & I am the lucky guy to enjoy eating those great tasting
meals.
We watched a movie on how Roy Reiman & his wife started up the magazine
publication business to begin with & how quickly it grew into the 14
different magazines per month business it is today. Then we checked out
the many innovative birdhouses & feeders on display throughout the center.
Also in the visitors’ center, a full collection of the Norman Rockwell
magazine covers; that in itself was so amazing to simply walk around &
look at.
But….the downstairs outlet store was awaiting Kathy’s interest & she saved
the best for last. Being the prudent purchaser that she is, she was only
interested in the previous yrs cooking books that she could use @ the
greatly reduced prices. We were both happy to have visited this most
interesting town & learn more about the Reiman publication business.
From Greendale we drive to the heart of downtown Milwaukee, do a grid
pattern up & down the streets & check out the town. It’s an older city
with obviously a lot of history that we’ll just have to read about @ a
later time. Back to our bus around 6:40pm.
7:45 dinner: Tuna cheese casserole (recipe from one of the newly purchased
books), spinach salad & toast.
No movie tonight…..we retract our slides early evening due to light rain &
later, turning into heavier rain.
High temp:? Lights out: 10:52pm
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