I went to school in Winona, Kindergarten through High School, and then after a brief time at the University of Minnesota, I went back to Winona and got my teaching degree at Winona State University. Here are my schools.
Madison Elementary School (K-6)
Here's a link to my school pictures. I loved my teachers. Here also is a link to my mom's photo album of pictures from my childhood.
Winona Junior High was in these two buildings across the street from each other (7-9).
Winona Senior High at that time was a brand new state-of-the-art school with an art wing, theater-in-the-round, music wing, gym, pool, agriculture wing, and huge grounds with tennis courts, football field, and canoeing on the lake. I wish I had more pictures of the inside, but we didn't have smart phones then, and very few of us had cameras!
This is a picture from the 1970 yearbook that shows the grandeur of the concourse, and the huge floor to ceiling windows looking out over the lake.
The library wall to the right is also glass, so the view was able to be seen from inside the library too.
Here's an aerial view of the back of the High School with its amazing grounds. The college-prep education I got there was fantastic.
I graduated from WHS in 1973. Here's my graduation picture.
Then I graduated from WSU in 1977.
Winona was built on a sand bar in the Mississippi River, and was originally an island. But the channel was blocked off at some point, making the town long and narrow, 7 miles long and 16 blocks wide, in between the lake and the river. Here's a view from Garvin Heights.
When I was a very little girl, we lived in an apartment across the street from Saint Teresa's College. This is the Tea House, which my dad took me to.
Later we moved to a house at 307 W. 8th. A block away was McVey's Ice Cream Shop, and we went there often. It was the first place I was allowed to go alone, at age 4. I learned later that this was prep for the following year when I would walk 4 blocks to Kindergarten alone. I also learned that my mom followed me and watched to make sure I was safe, crossed the street, found it, etc. The homemade ice cream here was WONDERFUL. They would let us taste the different flavors on a little flat wooden spoon. We could get penny candy there too.
My dad and I would often go to Bloedow's Bakery to get sweet rolls.
This town was my stomping ground, and my friends and I knew our way around, and we knew every inch of the buildings, streets, stores, bluffs and trails. We walked across the interstate bridge to swim at Latch Beach on the other side of the river, we jumped off the old wagon bridge, and played in the boathouses.
These are some of the boathouses, with the wagon bridge in the background.
We swam across the lake in the summer, and skated across in the winter. I couldn't find a good picture of us at the lake, but this postcard looks just like I remember it.
Here it is in the winter, plowed for skating. The beach house became the warming house.
We knew how thick the ice had to be to hold us up.
At Lake Park there was also a big band shell for concerts.
We knew how to avoid rattlesnakes in the bluffs. We climbed the hills, and on top there were trails,
and caves.
There was often an old steam ship paddle-wheeler docked at the levee downtown, and I went for rides on it a couple times.
Or a tugboat and barge to watch.
Here's an old newspaper clipping from the Winona Daily News about the 1965 flood. I was in 5th grade.
When I was in Junior High my friends and I would go downtown after school and have a Coke and french fries at Kresge's or Woolworth's lunch counter. If the waitress wasn't busy, she would pour a little cherry juice into our Cokes, making it a Cherry Coke. Delicious!
Here's the way our downtown looked back then. This one was taken in 1965.
The public library was beautiful, and I spent many hours there.
Upstairs in the stacks, there was wonderful iron scrollwork and glass floors.
The movie theater,
The Piggly Wiggly,
The fabric shop,
The old hospital, where my brother was born (I was born in St. Paul),
And the McDonald's, which came around the time I was in 5th or 6th grade.
From the Winona Daily News 1971:
My high school was in the west end of town, and this beautiful cathedral, St. Stan's (Saint Stanislas) was way over in the east end.
Here's my own church, the First Congregational Church of Winona, and a link to a post about it, which was in the center of town, just a few blocks from my house.
And the Methodist church, also near the center if town, where Mr. Duel played the church bells from 5:00-5:15 every day. These could be heard all over town, and all the moms had the rule that when we heard the bells we had to stop playing and come home. We had to be home by the time the bells were done playing. (In the evening we had to come home when the street lights came on.)
The county courthouse was downtown by the foot of the bridge. It was open to the public (including us kids), and it was just as beautiful on the inside.
I still go back to Winona periodically to get together with two of my oldest best high school friends, Darla and Lynn. Here's a link to a post about one of those trips. We have so much fun! It's as if no time has passed.
Following are some more beautiful pictures of my wonderful home town. Most of the pictures in this post were taken by other people, not me. But I think they are beautiful, and they bring back so many memories. There's also a wonderful Winona Daily News article that lists memorable Winona icons. Here's the link. I hope this link always works, but if not, search "What Defines Our City? We Take a Crack at Identifying the Icons of Winona," dated December 17, 2019.
The lake bridge.
Winona Sugarloaf sunrise.
The interstate bridge at night.
Looking east at sunrise,
and west at sunset.
Another tugboat pushing a barge up the river.
Lake Winona.
Aerial photo of Sugarloaf.
The back side of Sugarloaf.
Another view of my pretty town from Garvin Heights.
Sunrise with mist
When I was in college, my boyfriend Jim took my picture with her. He planned the back lighting and set it up just so.
Aerial view
The old Wagon Bridge
Arches in Farmers Community Park, where we had MANY wonderful picnics
and played in the stream where we picked watercress to go on the sandwiches. We also climbed the exposed sandstone bluff and carved our initials in there.
Sunrise over the fog.
Darla, my best friend from Winona, showing the back side of Sugarloaf, the view from her house growing up.
I moved to Wisconsin to teach after college, and convinced my mom to come here in the 1980's, but my dad stayed in Winona until he passed away in 2012. He is buried in the beautiful Woodlawn Cemetery.
Here's a cool video that Sean Campbell posted on the Facebook page "You Know You're From Winona If..." site. https://www.facebook.com/seancmpbl/videos/10219687006067305
