Tag: Racine

Nelson’s Variety Store: The last days of a Racine Institution

Nelson’s Variety Store: The last days of a Racine Institution

Nelson’s Variety Store was a classic “five & dime” store that first opened in West Racine in 1940. They were a fixture that anchored that neighborhood shopping district for decades. A second Nelson’s opened in the late 1970’s on the far North side of Racine. Their doors closed for good on 1 Apr 2017 and left a void in Racine that won’t be filled by Amazon.

Nelson’s was not my place growing up. I was a Northsider, and while I had close family just a few blocks away I don’t recall going in more than once. In high school I had a girlfriend who loved the place and went with her, and I remember going to the far Northside location once about the same time for some school party. But, I knew Racine would be losing another part of our history and so the closing resonated with me.

Facebook Strikes Again

Local Racine historian Todd Wallace put out a call out on a Facebook group that specializes in Racine history, asking for someone with a high-quality film camera to capture Nelson’s before it was gone. I had been a photojournalist in the early 1990’s, and had just picked up a camera again so I took him up on it. The Nikon F4’s that I craved back then (when they would cost me half a year’s salary!) were now going for $300 on eBay. I had bought one recently, and a nice low-light lens, and thought it would be fun to document these unique institutions.

Wandering the aisles over the 3 days I shot my 5 rolls of color film, I came to fully understand what I missed out on in my childhood. The toy aisle was fantastic. Little bins of everything you could ever imagine, and you could still walk out with a few things for a dollar. I would have lost my mind in the marble bin in 4th grade…when kids still played marbles on the playground! And I can’t imagine what I would have done with all of the little dinosaurs. It was just row, and row of little…stuff. Not junk. Stuff. Things I didn’t know I needed, but now I knew I wanted them. How did I ever throw Packer parties and not stock up at Nelson’s?

Camera Troubles

Exterior photograph of a building with a sign reading Nelson's in front.
The only salvageable exterior photo of the original Nelson’s

I took a total of 5 rolls, 2 interiors at each store, and 1 exterior between them. The bad news is that I didn’t run enough film through my camera. One of the mirrors in the eyepiece came loose, and completely threw off the light meter readings. I remember when it happened, I was in the Westside store finishing my 1st role of interiors. I wouldn’t know until their were processed months later, that most of Westside interior shots, and all of my exteriors of the original store. were unusable. The less historic Northside location was fully documented. I’m still upset by that. Much of what I lost was the very cool fixtures that made up the edges of the display area. And, the exteriors. It was a perfect, moody, foggy dusk and I took several time exposures which just would have been amazing. They all turned out blank.

Here is a link to the entire collection of photos (27 from the Westside location, 61 from the Northside) http://archive.anamericangenealogy.com/Collection%20Images/Forms/Nelsons.aspx.

I hope they capture the feeling of what it was like to walk into these amazing establishments. Most focus on the little quirky details that I’ve never seen anywhere but Nelson’s. And now, we’ll never see them again.

Some of the photos taken during the Nelson’s last days (Complete collection here: Collection Images – Nelsons (anamericangenealogy.com)

More Links on Nelson’s Variety Store

Information on Nelson’s, and their closing: https://journaltimes.com/business/local/end-of-an-era-both-nelson-s-variety-stores-closing/article_c0e6037c-ac9e-5b93-a08e-bc8031f78d2a.html

Another collection of photos: https://journaltimes.com/news/local/a-little-distraction-in-photos-nelsons-variety-store-a-look-back/collection_4f7c2a3e-b761-548d-ab7e-078a3fa08058.html#1

Our project to save a piece of Racine, Wisconsin history, Part 2 – Making a connection

Our project to save a piece of Racine, Wisconsin history, Part 2 – Making a connection

Before we get into the amazing connection we’ve made recently, here’s a quick update on the broader collection of 2500 glass plate negatives we were able to rescue that comprise the surviving images from the Home Portrait Studio. We talked about how saved these plates earlier, and about how we intend to scan and share all of these images publicly (Our project to save a piece of Racine, Wisconsin history, Part 1 – Getting Started), but in the months since our last update we found out it would be nearly impossible to use a flatbed scanner to capture those thousands of images without it taking years to complete. Fully processing 50 negatives was taking about 8 hours. We’ve since bought a bunch of equipment to instead photograph each negative digitally, and invested in software that allows us to now fully process those same 50 images in just under an hour. We expect that with this new process we’ll the entire first box up and shared next month (440 images), and we’ll provide much more detail as soon as they complete.

In the meantime, through an amazing set of coincidences we determined the name of the man in the WWI uniform we posted originally, met his grandson, and learned more about Frank Stritesky who owned the Home Portrait Studio.

The photo is William H Rastall (born in 17 Jun in Racine, Wisconsin) and who served in the US Army from December 1917 to January 1919. William was the brother of Frank’s wife Anne, and lived in the same neighborhood.

HPS Part 2 - William Photos
Other pictures of Willam H Rastall (from the collection of Michael Rastall)

Just days after we first shared these images on the “Racine History” Facebook group, and on this blog, William’s grandson Michael began searching the Internet to buy an original or reproduction of the patch on William’s uniform. The photo of William with the 119th patch was a family treasure that had been passed down.

Michael’s first search turned up our scan, posted to a military insignia message board that we’d used to try and narrow down the timeframe that image was taken. Michael has prints of this family heirloom, and figured that the negatives were in the home that housed the studio which was owned by Frank’s daughter Betty, so he was floored to see a full-frame version of the picture randomly by a stranger on the Internet!

He reached out the next day, and after exchanging texts and phone calls, it turned out we were close enough for lunch, and got to meet and exchange stories. Michael was able to share many of the family pictures that were taken by Frank over the years.

The image we first published of William was almost certainly taken in 1918, at a time when Frank was just getting Home Portrait Studio up and running, and during that time he’d often take photos of family to practice/build his portfolio. William married after returning home from his WWI service, and he and his wife Alice had one son, Patric who had a life-long interest in photography owning back to his Uncle Frank. Frank had let Patric work the cameras from time-to-time when he was younger, and Patric’s interest eventually rubbed off on his son Michael, who works as a professional photographer in the Chicago Suburbs (Michael Rastall Photography).

HPS Part 2 - Rastall family
The Rastall Family, ca. 1918. William is center (in uniform), and is flanked by his sisters Adeline (Rastall) Noble and Anne (Rastall) Stritesky. (from the collection of Michael Rastall)

Patric and his wife had visited Betty decades ago hoping to salvage the remaining negatives and maybe some of the studio gear, but Betty wasn’t interested in letting anything go. Given the condition they were being stored in there was little hope they survived after Betty’s passing, so it came as a complete shock to the family that they were seeing the light of day. With any luck, as we continue through the 6 boxes we saved they we’ll find more of those family treasures.

hps-part-2-patric.jpeg
William’s son Patric Rastall, ca. 1944. (from the collection of Michael Rastall)

We’re also hopeful we can eventually reunite many more families with these amazing images of their ancestors, but for now we’ve at least made that first link!

More to come!!