Peggy Potempa and classmate Camillia Plaga Doherty display their Class of 1949 Wheatfield High School yearbook, as Chester Potempa, left, observes during the June 22, 2024, 75th class reunion dinner held at the Wheatfield Town Hall. I joined my parents on Saturday, June 22, to attend Mom’s 75th high school reunion just down the road in the neighboring small town of Wheatfield. Of her Class of 1949, only a few classmates still remain.
This year also marked a decade since another of my mom and Aunt Patty’s favorite classmates’ passing, Lewis Clifford Jones, who died in 2014 at age 82. Sadly, Carl, 98, passed away in October 2023. He taught music and band for 42 years in public, Catholic and private schools. Camillia’s son Dennis and daughter Cheryl brought their mom to the reunion dinner.
Her slightly older famous friend and former neighbor Betsy rose to fame on television with her wide smile as the pert blonde panelist on the CBS panel game show “I’ve Got A Secret.” Though her stage name is “Betsy Palmer,” the actress, who died at age 88 in May 2015, was born and raised as Pat Hrunek while growing up in Northwest Indiana, where she graduated from East Chicago Roosevelt High School in 1944.
Betsy Palmer, left, stars with Joan Crawford in a scene from the 1955 Columbia Pictures film drama “The Queen Bee.”