Since a high percentage of children and mothers rarely left the neighborhood regularly during the 1950's, weekend day trips to visit friends and relatives were big events. Occasionally the trip was to a park or lake or to one of the children's attractions in the region.
In 1951 my parents took me to The Gingerbread Castle in Hamburg.
More information about the history of the Gingerbread Castle is here.
Biographical info about Joseph Urban, the architect who designed the Gingerbread Castle, is here.
Becker Farm* was a dairy farm that bottled and sold milk in Northern New Jersey. Elementary schools of the region took their younger grades to the Farm and the children would also get a ride on the minature railroad.
During the 1953/54 school year Stockton School took first graders to Becker Farm where some of the students got their first close-up views of farm animals. But the first exposure to the aroma of a dairy barn made the handing out of containers of chocolate milk immediately after much less appetizing to some students.
A 1957 video of the Centerville and Southwestern Railroad the (Becker Farm railroad)
Below: Becker Farm, Roseland
*Also referred to as Becker's Farm
During the summers in the early 1950's, The Mighty Mite near Caldwell made for a fun weekend day trip.
In 1957 my family went to Cowboy City in Farmingdale and my friend Robert Cunliffe went with us. A chicken farm in Farmingdale was the childhood home of singer Janis Ian during the early 1950's and her family moved to East Orange in 1961.
Above: Cowboy City, Farmingdale NJ
Our last family trip in NJ was in 1959 to Storyland in Neptune for my three year-old brother's entertainment.
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