image of the cover of the book On Popsicle Street by Tommy Long

On Popsicle Street – A Trip Down Memory Lane

adminMid-Century Whittier

If you grew up in the Whittier area in the 1940’s, 50’s or even 60’s, On Popsicle Street by Tommy Long is a real treat.  It is a memoir of Tommy Long’s childhood spent on a cul-de-sac street in Uptown Whittier that looked like a popsicle from overhead.  (I would say it looked more like a lollipop – but hey – it’s Tommy’s book.)  When Tommy was six years old (1949), three other boys about his age moved into houses on Popsicle Street (actually named Pacific Place – right off of Pickering Ave near the five-points bridge.)  Naturally, the four …

Graphic from the Whittier State School publication, Whittier Boys and Girls Magazine showing a girl with surrounded by flowers and the words "Christmas Greeting, December Rosebuds". The background is an illustration of pepper tree branches with red berries hanging from them.

1904 Christmas at the Whittier State School

adminFred C. Nelles School

This article was transcribed from The Whittier Boys & Girls Magazine, Jan 1905, Vol. 12, No. 9. Christmas Day, 1904, is numbered with the past, and Whittier pupils have once more taken up life’s stern duties and struggles with the beginning of another year.  But there are many boys and girls at Whittier who will ever remember the Christmas just past as one of the happiest and best days in all their lives.  Not that they may not have many other bright and happy days in the years to come – for their opportunities are great to make life a …

Photo of Mabel Haig as a young woman

Mabel George Haig’s Post Pearl Harbor Letter

adminMid-Century Whittier

Born and educated in Blue Earth, Minnesota, Mabel George Haig has been recognized as one of Whittier’s important artists and community leaders. She first came to Whittier at the age of ten with her mother in 1894, seven years after Whittier’s establishment by the Quakers, to visit her grandparents, Hiram and Nancy Mendenhall. Mabel’s grandparents lived in a clapboard farmhouse on Mendenhall Ranch in East Whittier. East Whittier Middle School now stands on land that was part of Mendenhall Ranch. Mabel George returned to visit Whittier multiple times before marrying Myron Haig and then finally moving to Whittier in 1914. The newlywed couple built their home on Hadley  Street …