There must be something in the water in Stillwater.
Jean Ledding Junker, 89, and Elaine Lofgren Frederickson, 88, both of Stillwater, looked as if they might be attending their 30th or 40th high school reunion — not their 70th.
The two were among 23 graduates of the Stillwater High School Class of 1949 who gathered Friday afternoon at Indian Hills Golf Club in Grant for the class’s final official reunion.
The key to looking and feeling young?
“Clean living and a glass of brandy,” Frederickson said.
“Say, I’ll have to try that,” Junker said. “It’s been a good life, hasn’t it?”
Junker, a retired dental hygienist, married her high school sweetheart, Jack Junker, who graduated in 1950.
“We moved away, but we never stayed away,” Jean Junker said. “The Junkers always come back to Stillwater.”
Stillwater was a beautiful place to grow up, “and it gets more beautiful the longer we live here,” Junker said.
The graduating class, which had about 160 students, was a close-knit group, according to Frederickson.
“We didn’t have a lot of money, for one thing, and hardly anybody had a car,” she said. “After the football games, we’d all walk down to Happy’s Harbor and have a hamburger. On Friday nights, we’d go to the canteen and dance.”
Other popular activities: swimming at the beach in Kolliner Park on the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix River and roller skating at the Crocus Park rink in Bayport.
“There weren’t that many things to do,” Frederickson said. “I remember going to the roller rink and skating and flying around the rink and getting the whistle blown at you because you were going too fast.”
Frederickson, an artist, said she was glad she grew up when she did.
“I would not want to be in high school today,” she said. “I grew up in a more calm time. Everybody was friendly. Everybody knew everybody. I don’t think it’s like that today. We didn’t have any money, but we made the best of what we had. Lucky? I think so.”
Jack Register, 88, of Menomonie, Wis., served in the Korean War and made his living as a veterinarian. He was happy to see one of his wedding groomsmen, Ralph Utecht, 89, of Bayport, who also served in Korea, on Friday afternoon.
“He looks good, and he’s older than I am,” Register said.
Register said he and his wife, Eileen, met at the Prom Ballroom on University Avenue in St. Paul.
“That’s where I met Cindy!” Utecht said, referring to his wife.
“It was a great place to meet girls,” Register said.
The Registers got married on Sept. 11, 1954, and have six children, 18 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.
When Bill Lecuyer approached Register to shake his hand and say “hi,” Register squinted to read Lecuyer’s name tag.
“If I didn’t have those name things, I’d be lost,” Register said, laughing.
“We look old,” Lecuyer agreed.
Across the table, Roger Kuhn, 89, of Brainerd, was showing off his socks. The black socks were embroidered in red with “Stillwater” and a picture of the Stillwater Lift Bridge.
“He got them at the State Fair,” said his wife, Mary Jo Kuhn.
Roger Kuhn, who played football for Stillwater High School, was a longtime physical-education teacher and coach in Minnesota. Stillwater High School, he said, “was a good school. They got me out the door. Barely.”
Stillwater High School graduates often feel a strong connection to their community, said Carissa Keister, a spokeswoman for the Stillwater Area School District.
“We talk a lot about tradition in Stillwater,” Keister said. “We’re the oldest school district in the state, and there is a lot of pride in our schools and in our community. That’s one of the things that makes Stillwater so unique — People always seem to find their way back home.”
The event on Friday included a social hour, dinner and a presentation titled “Stillwater … Then and Now.”
MaryAnn Morris Danielson, 88, of Maplewood, who helped organize the event, said she most enjoyed reminiscing with friends.
“It was just a simple life,” she said. “A lot of us didn’t have cars. We went to all of the basketball games, all of the football games. We didn’t have a TV. During the summer, we went swimming across the (St. Croix) River … and we canoed on the river because there weren’t any big boats then.”
“We all say we lived in the best of times,” she said. “You didn’t really have to worry about anything.”
