They’re octogenarians now, with bad knees and hearing aids and sensible shoes. But as they sit around a table, chattering, laughing and passing around photographs and mementos, it’s not hard to see the graceful young performers they were 12 presidents ago.
Several members of the former Rollercade Swingsters, a square-dancing-on-skates group, recently got together to talk about the days they spent at the former skating rink called Cedar Trees Rollercade and later Skateway just west of Festus. The group also performed locally and around the region, even appearing live on national TV in 1957.
“We got to go to New York by train, got to stay in Times Square, got to go up in the Statue of Liberty and swim in the Atlantic Ocean,” said Barbara Tripp Douglas-Phillips, 82, of Festus. “We got to do so much! It was an exciting time. I look back on it and think, ‘That didn’t really happen to me, did it?’”
Starting small
A couple with the last name McClain owned the skating rink and the property it sat on along Old Hwy. A west of Festus.
“They had a riding stable; then they put in mini-golf,” said Virginia Ogle Wolk, 82, of Festus. “Kids kept saying we needed a skating rink, so they built it in the early ’50s.”
The rollercade soon became a favorite hangout spot for local youth.
“As soon as school was out, we headed to the rink every night. We loved it,” said Linda Eoff Linderer, 82, of Festus.
She was one of a small group of skaters tapped to join the square dancing group formed in 1954.
“We started in the McClain basement,” she said. “Later we moved to the rink, and that’s when a lot of the others joined.”
Personnel came and went over the years as kids got older, got jobs, entered the service, got married. But the core group included Barbara Tripp, Virginia Ogle, Linda Eoff, Fay Jarvis, Vicky Ader, Walter Wolk, Everett Griffith, Bobby McKee, Joe Ader, Jeffrey Ogle, Jack Lambrich, Sam Ogle, Fonda Herman, Yvonne Stis, Eddie Hoechst and Philip McClain.
They practiced on Wednesday nights and held performances at the rink and other venues.
“We mostly performed with a single square, but a few times we did two squares,” Virginia said.
The group also practiced and performed dances, skits and demonstrations at the rink and on the road.
“Mr. McClain made a big wood floor in four sections, and they’d put that down, fasten it together and we’d do our thing,” Barbara said.
The group performed at schools, community events, and state fairs in Missouri and Illinois.
They made several appearances on the Charlotte Peters Show, a popular daily TV program filmed in St. Louis.
“When we went to her studio, my parents happened to end up on the front row,” Barbara said. “Charlotte Peters came over and sat on my dad’s lap, ruffled his hair on live TV. His face went from pink to red to crimson and I thought he was going to have a heart attack. He was so embarrassed.”
Heading for the Big Apple
In early 1957, the group applied to the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, a live TV show out of New York City that featured performers from around the country. They were accepted and asked to go to Kansas City to audition.
“It was a long ride on a small school bus,” Virginia said. “A lot of the parents went, too. It wasn’t long before they sent a letter to Mrs. McClain saying we were in.”
The Swingsters and their sponsors rode the train to New York City and stayed in the Hotel Forrest on Times Square. During their stay, the Rollerskating Foundation of America sent a limousine to take the group to a local rink to make a movie.
“They made a film to show to kids and maybe in newsreels,” said Bob McKee, 80, of Herculaneum. “Although none of us ever saw it.”
On the big day, the group went to the Adelphi Theater in Manhattan for their live performance.
The show had a winner chosen by audience vote. Winners were invited to come back, and three-time winners were eligible for a championship round to vie for a $2,000 award.
“We actually won, but we were disqualified,” Barbara said. “We didn’t know we were required to use their orchestra, and we used our record that we always practiced to.”
Although the Swingsters weren’t eligible to continue in the competition, the show’s sponsor, Hazel Bishop Cosmetics, gave them $100 as a consolation prize. They used the money to extend their trip, sightseeing in New York and then Washington, D.C., before returning home.
“We went to Coney Island, went up in the Statue of Liberty, saw the Smithsonian and the Capitol,” Virginia said. “I grew up on a farm, and I would never have gone anywhere like that.”
All the group’s members are quick to credit their families, who footed the bill for lessons, rink time, specialty skates. Moms made (or paid to have made) the group’s costumes; dads helped haul people and supplies to performances.
“It really was kind of a social life for the whole family,” Bob said. “Parents would watch us practice, sitting on benches the McClains had made.
“I’d be rabbit hunting off down the tracks, and my mom would come and say, ‘Come on; you have lessons.’”
Lasting friendships
The Swingsters formed lifelong bonds. Two pairs went even further – Virginia Ogle and Walter Wolk married, as did Fay Jarvis and Everett Griffith.
“Walter was always my partner in the square,” Barbara said. “We joked that Virginia stole him away.”
Fay, 81, of Festus was a few weeks short of her 15th birthday when she joined the group.
“My friend Beverly had just gotten her driver’s license, and I can’t believe my mom let me go with her to the rink,” she said. “That’s when I met Everett, and I never looked at another boy.”
She was encouraged to step outside her comfort zone to become his skating partner.
“I wasn’t that good on skates, and he was,” she said. “I never wanted to hold him back. Some of the dances were hard!
“But Mrs. McClain had such a heart for young people. She asked me, did I want him doing spins with another girl? I was afraid, but he said he would never drop me, and he never did.
“We dated for three years and got married in 1956.”
The McClains gave the youngsters just the right amount of discipline.
“They were very good with us kids,” Virginia said. “But you had to mind; you had to be on good behavior. One kid came in drunk, or something, and Mr. McClain said, ‘No way, Jose,’ and called the parents.
“I still have Mr. McClain’s skates. They were this special pair with wheels that snapped off, so if he had to go outside or anything real quick he could.”
The group learned more than just square dances.
“I remember the tango, the Scottische, the 14-step,” Linda said. “Girls had to make a one-foot turn with a kick. It was complicated but it was fun. I’d still skate if my knees weren’t so bad.”
On one dramatic occasion, Everett and Fay were going through their paces in a hot high school gym when he felt faint.
“We were doing the ‘death spiral’ and he felt himself starting to black out,” she recalled. “He just kind of eased me onto the floor before he collapsed. He used to flip me in the air. I can’t believe I did some of those things.”
Bob recalls speed skating with former Festus mayor John Graham during the race portion of the rink’s regular skate sessions.
“Johnny was a real speedster,” he said. “I won once, but I think he let me.”
The Rollercade Swingsters was a fairly short-lived phenomenon.
“We had our first show in 1954, and had a couple of performances the beginning of 1959,” Virginia said. “So it was only a few years. But it was so much fun.”
Group members lament the passing of skating rinks like theirs, which was sold and renamed Skateway in 1963 and burned a few years later. There is only one rink remaining in Jefferson County: Rock Roll-O-Rena in Arnold.
“I just wish there was more like this for our children and grandchildren to go to and have that kind of fun,” Linda said.
Virginia said the last time she and her late husband skated was in the 1980s.
“We went to Spinning Wheels, and Walter talked to the owner and he put on some old records and we did a turn,” she said. “My daughter-in-law has taken (skating) up, and I want to go. My sons said, ‘You’ll break a hip.’ But the reason I don’t go is I can’t get my big fat feet in my good skates, and I’m not renting skates after having my own all those years.”
Fay agreed.
“I wouldn’t want to skate without the precision skates,” she said. “It makes a big difference.”
The Swingsters all cherish the memories of their skating years.
“I honestly think (being in the group) saved my husband’s life,” Fay said candidly of her late spouse. “Everett was headed in the wrong direction. My brothers came home from school and talked about how wild he was, how he drank and fought. This gave him purpose.”
Virginia described a similar situation with Walter.
“He was having family problems,” she said. “I think the McClains saved all of us from a lot of things. They made us feel like this was what our life was supposed to be at that time.”
“They definitely changed my life,” Fay said. “They changed all our lives.”
Barbara nodded in agreement.
“We’ve made a lot of good lifelong friends and we have so many wonderful memories,” she said.