Between 1905 and 1909, my grandfater Joel Hokkannen and his brother-in-law Elias "Ed" Turppa operated a mixed items store on the southeast corner of South Avenue and Oak Street (now Martin Luther King Jr. Drive). The store had living quarters on the second floor where the two families, each with four or five children, lived.

The year was 1941, the beginning of World War II, when I was 9 years old.

I was born in 1926 on May Street on Waukegan's south side. This was a time when any family could, in a few steps, get anything needed right in one's neighborhood.

The articles written by citizens of Waukegan of the yesteryears have brought smiles to so many faces -- mine included.

The year is a little bleary, maybe just after the Korea war. It was lakefront fun at the harbor area and the pier with its upper deck, a catwalk from the beach to the harbor lighthouse was great for fishing. Back then, most everyone had cane poles with lead sinkers, with a bobber float.

My husband and I both are native-born Waukegan people. I came from the South side of town, and my husband from the Northwest side.

I have a lot of good memories of downtown Waukegan and walking everywhere in the '50s and early '60s. I attended Washington School from fourth to sixth grade and remember walking to the corner of Washington Street, where Waukegan Bible Church used to be, to catch the bus that took me downtown. When I got off the bus, I walked to the YMCA where I had fun learning to swim and dive. I did this for several years.

The roots of the Waukegan Swedish Glee Club go back to 1892 when Hjalmar Fredbeck organized a quartet composed of Hjalmar, his brothers Simon and Harald, and K. Hagstrom. It wasn't until 1905 that a Swedish- language newspaper reported, "A Swedish Chorus was organized in Waukegan on December 8, 1905, led by conductor Gustav Stark." During the Depression, many of the singers, unable find work, went back to Sweden. The Swedish Glee Club's 100-year anniversary was celebrated with an anniversary concert on May 15, 2005.

When I was a little girl, cash registers were just that. The man would put in the various amounts of what things cost by pushing keys.