By Regina Villiers. Originally published March 9, 2005 in The Suburban Life, added March 17, 2020.
Time moves on, too rapidly to suit most of us. Before we realize it, areas which still seem new to us have suddenly become a part of history.
Tim Yeomans pointed this out to me several months ago when he reminisced about growing up in “the point.”
“The point” area of Madeira is the area that meets at the corner of Euclid and Camargo Road. It includes the business area there, plus the nearby residential streets, which sprang up after World War II.
Yeomans grew up in that area and lived, 1944-1963, at 8009 Iuka, which is now called Sanoma. He has vivid, happy memories of the area, especially of collecting pop bottles and selling them at Parkview Market and at Lou Wendt’s store and filling station.
He and a friend had quite a business enterprise going.
“We alternated between the two stores,” he said. “When one would get over-supplied with our bottles, we’d sell to the other store for awhile.”
The boys received two cents for each bottle.
The source of their bottle supply came from all the new houses being built around them. There was a building boom of new streets-Osceola, Iuka, Thomas Drive and all the streets built by builder Tom Bergen. The workers at the house sites drank a lot of pop. Yeomans and his buddy would go around and collect the empties.
He remembers one house that was built in 1948, net to the Yeomans’ garden. The house was built by Dave and Annette Frisch. It appears to be a stone house, but it isn’t. It’s a hand-carved stucco house.
He and his friend watched the building of it, Yeomans said. Every day, two men would show up, mix up some cement, add color to it and put it on the walls, carving stone shapes into it. The house is still there, at 8005 Sanoma.
A few months ago, Yeomans did a program for the Madeira Historical Society about the history of the point. He led a discussion, aided by Mary McCreary and Jim Deerwester. Both worked at businesses in the point area.
McCreary worked for many years at Parkview Market, an IGA store owned by John Yasbeck. His daughter, Amy Yasbeck, went to Hollywood and became a movie star. She’s current actress of note, with many movies to her credit, and she’ll star in a new television sitcom that will start on Fox in the near future.
The Parkview Market building still sits in the same location, looking much the same. It’s now occupied by Madeira Frame and Body Shop.
That night, Yeomans brought a handout he’d made for members of the audience, which listed the businesses he remembered in the point. He, McCreary and Deerwester went though the list, relating stories and memories.
Yeomans also brought copies of old newspapers that had ads of the businesses. These, as well as some old snapshots, were passed through the audience, resulting in a lot of reminiscing.
Some of the businesses discussed were: Patton Dry Cleaners owned by Russ Tappon; the Point, a bar and restaurant owned by Nile Hayes and Dale Beard’s Plumbing.
A lot of discussion centered around Lou Wendt’s Service Station. Yeomans remembered a bench there that sat between two trees, and that the station had two trees, and that the station had two bays. All remembered the soft drink cooler, a washtub of water. You’d pay your money and reach into the tub of cold water and select your drink.
Yeomans also brought along that night a copy of a blank buyer’s contract for houses in the Osceola Park subdivision, which consisted of streets Osceola, Iuka and Sanoma. The contract conditions indicate that we’ve come a long way in 50-plus years.
Yeomans is lucky that he experienced history being made, and we are even luckier that he remembered it and wrote it all down, so that we can experience it too. History happens before we realize it’s being made. We need to record and hold on to it.