The Senior Prom

Carl Junior took Jean Haupt to the Kimberly Senior Prom in 1947.  Jack Haupt and Carl Sr. were long-time friends from before either was married.  Jack was from Marion, the same town that Carl Sr. grew up in.  They maintained that friendship after they were both married.  The Kriesers would visit Jack in Marion quite often.  Carl Jr. and Jean, being close to the same age, had an interesting experience during Marion’s big Homecoming celebration when Carl was about 10 years old.  There was a small plane that was taking passengers up for a spin around the town and he and Jean were able to go up together.  This was Junior’s first airplane ride and it was quite a thrill for him.  He had wanted to go on one when he was about three years old, but nobody would go up with him.  They didn’t trust the darned thing.  He wailed, “And I never been on a plane in my whole life, neither!”

Carl F. Krieser graduated from Kimberly High School on May 28, 1947.  He received the Science Award and gave a talk at the graduation exercises.  It was entitled “A Design for Life”.  He first reviewed the drop of the atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.  Then he said that even more appalling was the death of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.  He then went on to say that we have to have a design for life to make a better world.  The teacher that coached him with his speech was Mrs. Himebaugh.  He still remembers her “I can’t hear you”, coming from the back of the room as they practiced.  Mrs. Himebaugh changed from Kimberly High to Appleton High for the 1950-1951 school year.  Joyce had her for homeroom then and loved her.  She was Hispanic and I remember her sitting behind me for a bullfighting film and adding exciting information in my ear.  She and her husband, Donald, both attended the Kimberly High reunion that we went to years later.  She was surprised to see that we were married.  The photo on the right is of Vivian Himebaugh and her husband at that reunion.

Carl Fredrick Krieser, Graduation Photograph

Carl wasn’t sure of what he wanted to do after he graduated.  He wasn’t ready to go to college, and he didn’t want to go into railroading at that point in time, so the army seemed like a good choice to him.  He had signed up several days before he graduated, which was the 28th of May 1947, and went to Milwaukee the day after graduation for his physical.  From there he went into basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky.  That was the start of his first 18-month stretch in the Army.