| The Bowling Alley & Baseball "Sunshine" Swendby & Roy Matson About 1930 - 1935 |
| This picture is taken in Strum with the backdrop being the old T. M. Olson building, the brick T. M. Olson building. I believe the two men are "Sunshine" Swendby and Roy H. Matson, my dad. Sunshine appears to be showing Roy how to throw a curve, just guessing. I don't know the person walking on the left nor anything about the car parked on the street. When I first looked at this picture I wasn't sure of the location. But put the background painted sign together with the hand railing and there is only one place in Strum. Note the sign on the side (south side) of the building: Bowling - Billiards. I don't know, but suspect that the big S is the first letter of STRUM. Please Email me above with any knowledge you may have of this picture, the date and such. Is that what the S is? This I know about the building and T. M. Olson and family. My dad rented or leased most everything from T. M. Olson and even I had dealings with the family. During the war (WWII) or just after, he leased the main floor of the building for storage, for storage of all sorts of wood materials that had been used to make Tiny Tim wood wagons. The building, having not been in use for some years, leaked profusely. When we moved to Strum from Whitehall we rented our home from T. M. Olson. That house still stands kitty corner to the northwest from the old creamery. During my high school years (1956-60), I worked in the bowling alley in this T.M. Olson building. Run by T.M. Olson's son, Ed, and known as Ed's Twins (it had only two lanes), this establishment having been out of commission for maybe twenty years was quite the place. It wasn't bad enough that every time you threw a bowling ball bowling some part of the twenty year old dust would reappear in the air and on your hands.....but also that more frequent than not, the old furnace, also being of the twenty year old plus vintage, would choose to blow at will. I bowled, set pins at this place and helped run it with my friends Ron Bjorgo and Adrian Thompson and, of course, Ed. Never did we leave at night cleaner than we arrived. But, this was Strum's Bowling Alley and it was a fun place to be with people. I made a few coins here. I can only imagine what it must have been like twenty years earlier. |
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