Mary Lohrenz Fox, 1942-2020
Editor’s Note: Mary wrote the following piece for our 45th Reunion Messenger in 2005. It’s just as much fun today as it was then!
Truly, I promise you, this is not a memoir. But, yes, Wichita East Class of 1960 has reached the age when consideration of such a project
might be appropriate. In the past 45 years, we have all watched wondrous events; some of us have even played roles in those. Some of us have accomplished amazing feats; all of us have lived lives full of fascinating detail. Well, some boring times do, but those are not “moments to remember” (Four Lads, 1955).
Where was I in 1958, just between our sophomore and junior years?
- Going to the movies: Bridge Over the River Kwai won the Oscar for Best Picture.
- Listening to the radio: Rick Nelson’s Poor Little Fool was the first #1 hit on Billboard’s first Top 100 list.
- Watching TV: Emmys to Gunsmoke, Phil Silvers, Robert Young, Carl Reiner, Dinah Shore, Jack Benny, and Edward R. Murrow.
- Reading: Exodus by Leon Uris; A Death in the Family by James Agee won the Pulitzer Prize.
- Skimming the news: Krushchev as premier of the Soviet Union; U.S. Supreme Court ordering Little Rock to integrate schools; beginning of Project Mercury to put a man on the moon in two years; yada, yada, yada.
Much of our class was probably doing about the same, but Peggy Hatcher was already making history. She and Beverly Shorter and Duane Nelson were part of the first youth sit-in at Dockum Drug Store, Broadway and Douglas, July 19, 1958. By August 11, the vice-president of the Dockum Drug Store chain has agreed to “abolish all discriminatory practices” throughout the state. Negroes could now be served at the lunch counters! A detailed account of this extraordinary event can be read online in the book by Gretchen Cassel Eick, Dissent in Wichita: The Civil Rights Movement in the Midwest, 1954-72.
Other highlights during our other two years at East–
1959
Movies: Gigi won the Oscar for Best Picture, although I preferred Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Books: Hawaii, Dr. Zhivago, Lady Chatterley’s Lover first published in the U.S. after being banned since 1928.
Record of the Year: Blu Dipinto di Blu (Volare)
Television: Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, Loretta Young, Jack Benny
News: Castro assumes power in Cuba. Alaska and Hawaii become states. First class stamp was $.04.
1960
Movies: Ben Hur won Best Picture. Also the year for Psycho. The Sound of Music was still on Broadway.
Books: To Kill a Mockingbird and Rabbit, Run
Records: Mack the Knife, Battle of New Orleans, Count Basie. The #1 record for the year was Theme from A Summer Place.
TV: The Untouchables, The Twilight Zone, Playhouse 90
Satellites: Echo 1 – first communications satellite; Tiros 1 – first weather satellite
News: Adolph Eickman captured. Black sit-in in Greensboro, NC considered the beginning of the sit-in movement, but now we know better.
During our high school years, most of us probably focused on ourselves: what to wear, how much to study, how to get a date. But we all can recall vignettes, nostalgic and/or turbulent; comic and/or painful. How about writing a paragraph or two of such a memory? We would all enjoy collection of our recollections.
(Bravo, Mary. Your recollections can be published here on the Class of 1960 Virtual Reunion website.)
Do you remember when —
- all the girls had ugly green gym uniforms?
- it took five minutes for the television to warm up?
- newsreels came before the movie?
- we got Green Stamps?
- we had metal ice cube trays with levers?
- we bought baseball cards with a slab of pink bubblegum?
Those things I remember well, but I forget my grocery list and why I went to the kitchen.
— Mary Lohrenz Fox, 2005
For more about Mary, see
See also 50 events that happened while we were in high school
- David Kroenlein, 50 Events, 1957-1960
Mary and I were good friends starting in 6th grade, when she moved to Wichita. Over the years we kept up with each other from opposite ends of the USA. She was in the New York City area—in New Jersey, and I was In Southern California, mostly La Jolla, and then Texas. We always visited for the reunions and shared letters and photos about our families. Mary had a solid education in Literature and was a strong fan of Jane Austin’s writing. I used to tease her about those romantic novels and that formulaic look at women. Of course I had to admit that Jane Austin did tell the truth about the social political manipulation of marriage contracts among British families of means in the 1900’s.
I have missed Mary as she died during heart surgery a few years ago. I still think of her every time I watch a Jane Austin movie on PBS.