Still alert and smiling at the age of 109, Dorothy Hunter has much to say about growing up near Tower Grove Park in the first and second decades of the 20th Century. “I think children obeyed more readily then than now,” she told me.
Fred Blumenthal was the son of a Jewish pathologist who moved his family to Kirkwood right after World War II because he didn’t want to live in a Jewish enclave. Although he was generally accepted, Blumenthal recalls there were moments of uneasiness. “I remember one time the teacher was scolding me for something, and she said, ‘Was that the Christian thing to do?'”
It’s a taste of the stories of two of the people I’ve interviewed for my upcoming book, tentatively called Growing Up in St. Louis. In it, I’ll tell the stories of people who grew up here from the start of the 20th Century until now. I’m excited. I think you’d be too. If you want to be interviewed for possible inclusion in the volume, e-mail me at southsidemerkel@gmail.com.
I’d love to hear from you.
Jim Merkel the Writer 