While we lived on my grandparents’ farm, I attended first and second grades in Womelsdorf. As best as I recall, my mother would drive me into school in the morning and pick me up in the afternoon, but for some reason she couldn’t necessarily be there right when school let out.

So I would go to a nearby restaurant to have a Coke while I waited for her to pick me.

One of the places that I recall going was a luncheonette that was right next to the grocery store on High Street (that was the town’s main street) and just a block away from the school.

It was run by a man and his wife, and I can still picture them. He was rather rotund and somewhat past middle age, at least to my young eyes, and she was a pleasant woman with careworn lines on her face. A lovely couple. When my mother came to pick me up, she’d always stay to chat with them for a few minutes, as the place wasn’t very busy at that time of the day. 

In my memory the place was largely a soda fountain kind of place with a counter plus a few tables running along the wall. Maybe a few tables in the back as well, I’m not sure.

I think of the man as Charlie, but I really don’t remember his or his wife’s name.

One day my mother told me that I couldn’t go there after school because the place had closed. Charlie had been taken to the hospital. After another day or two, I remember being told that they opened him up and found water. Yes, I know. That makes no sense, but that’s what I remember being told. I never went back to that place again, and to the best of my recollection, Charlie had died.

I’ve always regretted never asking my parents later in life about Charlie and that restaurant.

Well, the 1950 census came out last year, so I was able to do a little detective work on my own.

I didn’t find out much, but I did find out that “Charlie” was really Clyde Haak, and his wife’s name was Edna. As soon as I saw that, I remembered. Of course, her name was the same as my grandmother’s.

They had a son named John, whom I never knew, but he would have been in his early twenties, so no surprise.

And Clyde didn’t die of whatever caused him to close the restaurant.

He didn’t die until several years later, as I found out by searching the newspaper archives. In 1960 when he was 72 he died in the Lebanon VA Hospital.

It’s not much, and I couldn’t find any photos, but at least I know their names.