Madison West High School Class of 1958

Hi,
Below is an email I received from Katarina Moberg Steen.

Cheers,
JoAnn Friedman Salin

Thank you for all your mail. Happy New Year. I always enjoy reading about West High 1958.

Steen and I went to Cuba nov 25 th till dec 9th. 2014. Very interesting trip. Talked to some Americans who were also tourists there. The pictures you sent of cars from the 50-ties reminded me of the cars we saw in Cuba. They had changed the engines….

A year ago our youngest daughter, born christmas eve 1979, went with her husband and two children born jan 2011 and march 2014 for 3 weeks to Cuba. They, the parents enjoyed it but realized it was much harder to travel with two children than with one. The year before they spent 2 months in South-America with one child and there they visited friends of ours and theirs.

We spent Christmas in Denmark with one of our three daughters , Sophie her husband and there two daughters. Their younger daughter who is 15, is going to spend a year in the States next year. They don`t know yet where. I recommend her to go but it is not AFS.

My year 1957 -58 has been of great value for me. I hear from Giorgio Sinigaglia on and off and hope to see him in Sweden with his family some day like all of you.

(1964 Steen and I went to Spain on our honeymoon, we studied spanish which was useful in Cuba).

I enjoyed seeing the pictures of Marsha, she and her husband visited me in Sweden summer 1967 and I hope to see her with her husband within a near future again in Sweden.

I was really lucky to have had this chance of being an AFS student at West High 1958.

Katarina (Moberg)

Hi,

Below are photos that Marsha Clinard took while visiting Maria Messina and her husband, Vince in Florida.  And  a fascinating story that Ellen Bubeck Laurent sent to me.

Classmate Maria Messina (center), and her husband (left) and Classmate Marsha Clinard (right)

Classmate Maria Messina (center), and her husband (right) and Classmate Marsha Clinard (left)

From Ellen

Thanks for the photos depicting our teen era.  I loved them.   They brought back some great memories.  By the way, in case anyone has any interest.  I noticed a lot of pictures of Elvis Presley.   I have been working on all of my family lines, maternal and paternal for about 25 years now.   Elvis and I share a great grandfather (and great grandmother) at some level above 7th.  His and my sixth great grandfathers came to the US in the 1740’s.   They were not brothers, because we know who both of their fathers were, but they were both Presslers, from the tiny town of Hochstadt in south central Germany (the Palatine), and DNA tests prove a common great grandfather around the 8th or 9th level, since we know they had different fathers at the level of my 7th great grandfather.   Our sixth great grandfathers came to the same town in PA, Host, now a sister town to Hochstadt.   I just came back from a visit to the town and met all the Presslers who were available.  It was great fun, and they all remarked at the resemblance of various town Presslers to the photos I took with me of our family males on that side.   My father’s younger brother was about the same age as Elvis and, in his teens, people were always commenting on how much he looked like Elvis.  At the time, we didn’t know about the link, since his family changed their name to Presley and mine changed the P to a B to make it Bressler.  I wish I’d known this all at that time.

Happy New Years,

JoAnn

Hi Classmates,

Chuck Lanphear sent me the link below of lots of great 1950’s photos. I think you will enjoy them — just click on the words underlined in blue to see the photos.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/blast_of_the_past/

Cheers,

JoAnn Friedman Salin