The following is an article by Fran Thiercof. It originally appeared in The Carlin Express newspaper on Wednesday, June 30, 1999. It is being reprinted here with permission from the editor-in-chief, Ruth Hart. Zwingle’s was also known as Victory Station because it sat on Victory Highway (Bush Street).
“THE GOOD OLD DAYS IN CARLIN”
Right across the street from the school house was a service station and motel owned by Mr. Zwingle. Isn’t that a neat name? He had a daughter Betty Joy and fellow working for him by the name of George Taylor. George still lives here.
Most of the cabins were rented to school teachers, which was convenient for them as well as Mr. Zwingle. In the station part was a candy and ice cream counter. When my dad was home from his job on the railroad, some evenings we’d go to Zwingle’s and get an ice cream cone, always maple nut, and take the downtown, park on Main Street and watch the people. Why didn’t we buy them at Pete’s you’re wondering. Pete only sold chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. My dad liked maple nut, so we went to Zwingle’s. I used to really enjoy watching the people and I still do.
Mr. and Mrs. Zwingle were divorced. That was rather a mysterious state of affairs for me at the time. Betty Joy usually only spent part of the year here and the other part with her mother. She was with her mother in Hawaii during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. She was able to get back to Carlin right away and entered high school with us. She was a celebrity in a way, having been living in paradise like Hawaii and telling us about looking down from her mother’s house above Pearl Harbor and seeing the Japanese planes dropping their bombs.
She had long red hair, freckles, and a personality to match. Everybody loved her and some of us envied her, her independence. She had her very own cabin!! I mean, come on, most of us didn’t even have our own room, let alone a cabin!
She was a great dancer and she and Donald Fredrickson would show us all the latest dance steps during the noon break at school. We’d all go home for lunch and run back to dance before the afternoon classes began.
One day in the showers after gym class, she showed us all and tried to teach us the hula. We didn’t have any music, but she sang the “Hawaiian War Chant”. It was a good thing there wasn’t any hidden cameras around we sure could have been blackmailed.
Betty Joy’s mother finally was able to get back to the “mainland” and moved to New York. Much to the sorrow of all of us and mostly Mr. Zwingle, Betty Joy moved too. Not too long before she moved, she asked George to cut her hair. He did and it looked like he had used lawn clippers. Thank heavens hair does grow out.
Mr. Zwingle committed suicide awhile later and the station changed hands and eventually, except for one or two of the cabins, was torn down.