Coming Home to - City of Gladstone

in the budget for eating outside the home. The trips to the grocerystore were done mostly at night on a weekly basis. Northtown hadstores for shopping, but a closer location was at Antioch Road andEducation69 Highway (Vivion Rd). The long established Monteil Groceryor A & P Grocery in Foxwood, just east on 69 Highway. AfterAntioch Shopping Center opened it was nice to shop at the bigKroger Grocery.1306 N.E. 67th Terrace1955 brought the last phase of building in Bolling Heights at thesouth leg on North Campbell and North Harrison below 66thTerrace N.E. The sales pitch of H & I Builders had worked well.All homes were completed and occupied by 1957. The total comfortof new spacious homes and green lawns brought people togethermaking good neighbors. Husbands and fathers left for workdaily. Wives and Moms stayed home to manage the children andhomemaking. The one family car was used to get the husband and“breadwinner” to work. Most wives were stranded, as transportationprovided by city buses did not reach the suburbs. Some men woulddouble up for their drive to work so wives could have a car forimportant errands. Other arrangements of delivering Dad to workwere good at times. A phone call away was the only available taxi,Jerry’s Cab, and it stayed busy. Should you be lucky enough to gainaccess to the cab, you would probably find 5-8 other women alreadyin the cab. But “NO PROBLEM”, Jerry didn’t mind if you sat onsomebody’s lap and no one thought about seat belts at that time.This new life style in the suburbs needed new schools, newchurches, new shopping malls, new streets, new city governmentand contented residents. There were restaurants in the area, butthose were only used on special occasions. There was no allowanceVicki Wallace and Christi HollandOur new schools in the North Kansas City School Districteducated all the children of the booming 1950’s. Many largefamilies of 9-13 children were raised in the 3-bedroom home. Itwas not uncommon to find 50-100 children on any given street.Elementary schools were Linden East, Linden West, or St. CharlesCatholic School. Antioch Junior High School was built and laterbecame Antioch Middle School. North Kansas City High Schoolwas the only high school at the time. Soon it was necessary to addanother high school and Oak Park High School was built just northof Gladstone. This was just the beginning of expansion and growthin the North Kansas City School District.1853With an area of nearly a square mile and a population of 2,500 persons, theCity of Kansas elected its first mayor, William S. Gregory.15 | Spring 200922 - Spring 20071833John Calvin McCoy, often considered by historians as the “father of Kansas City,” traveled with his parents to the area toperform Missionary work, but found a chance to become a merchant and opened a store at the northeast corner of Pennsylvaniathat aided travelers along the Santa Fe and Oregon trails. He called the area Westport.