That Smell
I remember that smell, it was sort of funky but not really horrible like alewives on the beach, it was just a strong smell. The area near Ambrosia chocolate smelled nice. And there was a distant burning smell I remember from the ever burning dump fire in Germantown. I didn't spend much time near 27th street and the Menominee river valley. It's kinda in between Marquette University and American Family Field. I remember seeing a Marquette student on TV once mentioning the smells around the university as the winds changed. I always thought that yeasty smell was from the breweries but I'll take this fellow's word that it was Red Star yeast accounting for the smell.
John Gurda had an interesting article on Red Star closing:
It reminds me of those bus rides I'd take from UWM to downtown Milwaukee on the Oakland-Deleware line. On the way there was a Trostel tannery facility on the east side of Milwaukee and yuck, nothing smells quite like a tannery !
Here are some pictures of the Red Star plant, that's kind of how the valley looked then, very industrial:
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/record/property/HI112261
When I was a kid the Olson family were Unitarians. One couple that was prominent in the fellowship were the Reeds, Helen and Gerald. Dr. Gerald Reed was the director of research at Red Star:
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/jsonline/name/gerald-reed-obituary?id=3168718
I remember receiving a chemistry book from him as a birthday gift one year - I managed to stain the floor and sink with my experiments but never became a chemist :) I've got that book around here somewhere, gotta find it !
https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/record/property/HI112261
When I was a kid the Olson family were Unitarians. One couple that was prominent in the fellowship were the Reeds, Helen and Gerald. Dr. Gerald Reed was the director of research at Red Star:
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/jsonline/name/gerald-reed-obituary?id=3168718
I remember receiving a chemistry book from him as a birthday gift one year - I managed to stain the floor and sink with my experiments but never became a chemist :) I've got that book around here somewhere, gotta find it !
I remember the Reeds had a dog, a poodle but not a little tiny dog this was a full sized model ! They lived in a nice apartment on the east side of Milwaukee. Mrs. Reed was an intellectual, she reviewed books on WFMR (the classical radio station). The Reeds also led a Great Books discussion group which my Dad attended.
But I think Dr. Reed worked mostly at the offices of Red Star / Universal on Silver Spring road (well north of the valley) so he probably didn't have to deal with the valley smell as much there.
But I think Dr. Reed worked mostly at the offices of Red Star / Universal on Silver Spring road (well north of the valley) so he probably didn't have to deal with the valley smell as much there.
The video makes a good point about archiving the everyday. I still wish I had taken more pictures of my school, the neighborhood, the skating rink, the creek and Donahue's land (field where kids trespassed). But I don't know of any way of archiving a smell like Milwaukee in the 1960s.
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