Please note that hardcopies of Newark public school yearbooks are not available. However, the digital yearbooks can be downloaded, printed and/or saved to a computer or a flash drive. The link to the yearbook collection is, Newark Public Library Yearbook Inventory. Myra
Bob Steinberg, WHS 66 Class President, shares a recent written piece in which he was featured:
I was recently the subject of an article in our local newspaper, the “Monterrey Herald.” The article and my book, also highlighted in the reporting, may be of interest to those who read the weekly alumni newsletter. The link to the article is
Dennis Estes’ (65) commentary on comics collection motivated responses:
Jeff Golden (6/63
Dennis, I'll bet that your parents just told you that they sold your comic book collection for a penny each (they didn't give you the money, did they?). What really happened is that, in 1954, there was a comic book witch-hunt. A psychiatrist named Fredric Wertham had been working with juvenile delinquents in New York. He noticed that all of them liked to read comic books. He did some "research," and found that comic books were responsible for all the ills of 1950s youth, including not only criminal behavior, but also homosexuality, truancy, etc. His "research" caught the attention of crime-fighting U.S. Senator Estes Kefauver, who felt that comic books were distributed by "the mob." The Senate Kefauver Committee investigated comic books, resulting in their vilification. Girl Scout troops conducted comic book burnings and comic books were banned. For additional info, Link to article on Comic Book Censorship .
I, too, came home from summer camp in 1954 and found my comic books gone. My mother told me she threw them out because they were not good for kids. I thought "No problem, I'll just go out to Margie's and buy some more." When I got there, I found that the display, that was usually crammed with comic books, was now empty. Comic books were really gone!
One comic book that found a clever way to survive was Mad Magazine. Mad started out as a 10-cent comic book in the early 1950s. When the comic book witch-hunt began, Mad converted to a 25 cent "magazine" format with a few more pages and printed on higher quality paper. As a result of this, Mad survived, and is still around today (although I don't know if any kids still read Mad). They're all too busy with their electronic devices. Maybe just their grandparents are buying Mad? Jeff
Dennis Estis (65)
Sorry Jeff. My parents weren’t that overprotective. I didn’t go away in 1954 to sleepaway camp. I only went away to the YMHA Camp in Milford, PA for one month in July 1958 when I was eleven years old. That was my only camping experience except for Boy Scouts on assorted weekends until I graduated high school in 1965. I was an assistant scoutmaster at that time.
When I returned home, I proceeded to buy some more books at the local comic book stores, but that summer was the end of my collecting until 1992. As they say, the rest is history with my more than 20,000 books currently in my collection. Dennis
Sharon Rous Feinsod (66)
On the opposite end of the Chancellor Avenue candy stores was Belfer's, on the corner of Maple and Hansbury. While Mrs. Belfer was cooking the best burgers, Mr. Belfer (Eli) was schmoozing behind the counter and their son Shelly was taking the quarter, dimes, and nickels, we flipped through the comic books at the bottom of the case, opposite the fountain. Loads of Archie, Veronica (the mean one), Betty (the naive one) and Jughead (whose name speaks for itself). I think Little Lulu was there, too. Some of them were ten cents, but another comic book was a quarter.
A very busy comic book store today is on Mt Pleasant Avenue in Livingston, in the same building as Eppes Essen. Sharon
Jacqueline Kaufer Klein (66) writes of the Newark Evening News comic strips and other “Beloved Miscellanea.”
I just felt very nostalgic after reading everyone's special memories today and it reminded me for some reason of the comic strips of the Newark Evening News and my mother who owned "The Maternity Shop," at 6 Lyons Avenue, almost at the corner of Elizabeth Avenue. I, more or less, grew up in that store. Because it was just her birthday, I remembered that in the late afternoon, my mother would send me every afternoon to the corner Lyons Den Candy Store for the afternoon edition of the Newark Evening News. I would run down over the metal cellars and get a copy and a Goldenberg's Chew for my mother and a Clark Bar for myself and scurry back with the paper.
Things in her dress shop slowed down at that hour and we would straighten up the store. In the winter, it would already be getting dark and the #107 Bus would be roaring by. The buses going to Clinton Avenue were parked across the street in front of the church. It is incredible how many millions of times in my life, I picture all of that perfectly. Her store was often open till nine at night.
I remember the long afternoon hours in the store when I was very little and I would hop on her lap and she would read me the comic strip, "Oaky Doaks." I wonder if anyone else remembers that strip. Then she would read me about Maggie and Jiggs and she would take a pen and draw a picture of Jiggs. These simple moments were some of the happiest times in my childhood. We would read the Nancy and Sluggo strip.
I remember that we had a silver radio with an amber plastic decoration. She would turn on the radio show with Mrs. Goldberg (played by Gertrude Berg). My mother and I would both laugh when she would say on the radio, "Yoo hoo..." and call out the window. We could imagine everything.
My mother would check the tiny print of the stock market pages and how that seems so much like a thing of the past now! My happiest "Newark Evening News" memory was the little Cappy Dick column for kids. They had contests and you could send your entry in to them. Lo and behold, one day, I won the contest! I think I have won two things in my life and that was one of them! I couldn’t believe it and my name was actually in print, which at the time, was Jacqueline Greene (see photo copy, below). Apparently, I was seven years old at the time and colored a little bear and won a small packet of Indian beads with wire. I loved those colorful Indian beads so much.
