Shady Dell owner Helen Ettline
didn't have any children of her own.
In a way, we were all her kids
and she was our mom.
Clearly Helen and John
loved kids. Why else
would they have
put up with the
aggravation all
those years?
The Ettlines believed
in kids. They enjoyed
counseling and
helping kids.
To remember and honor
Helen on Mother's Day,
I picked two songs that
I think she would enjoy.
Helen, these are for you.
THE DANLEERS
Here's a great R&B doo-wop group from Brooklyn with a name that caused
some confusion. The Danleers were named after their manager Danny Webb,
who wrote their hit song "One Summer Night." Some confused the act with
another R&B group called The Danderliers. The record I am about to play
for Helen was originally released as by The Dandleers. A mint copy of
the "Dandleers" 45 is worth more than $150 to collectors. Listen!
"One Summer Night" - The Danleers
(originally released as by The Dandleers,
July/Aug. 1958, highest chart pos. #7)
THE DRIFTERS
Composed by Brill Building vets Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and recorded
by The Drifters, "Saturday Night At The Movies" was inspired, at least in part,
by the NBC TV series of the same name. NBC Saturday Night at the Movies
premiered on September 23, 1961, and ran throughout the 60s and most
of the 70s. The series aired relatively recent feature length color films
produced my major studios. Here now are The Drifters with Johnny
Moore on lead and their top 20 crossover hit from the Christmas
season of 1964-- "Saturday Night At The Movies!"
"Saturday Night At The Movies" - The Drifters
(Nov./Dec. 1964, highest chart pos. #18)
Happy Mother's Day, Helen!
We love you and miss you!
She would've enjoyed those. One doesn't need to have kids to be a mother and she was mother to many.
ReplyDeleteHi, Alex!
DeleteThanks for hustling over to become the early bird for Mother's Day 2019, good buddy!
I'd like to think Helen would have enjoyed these two records and played them on her jukebox. They were released in the years when most songs were still about love and romance and vocal group harmony was popular.
You're right, Alex. Helen had the skills, the patience and tolerance to be a mother, and generations of Dell rats thought of her as a second mom.
Thanks again for coming by and enjoy the week ahead, good buddy Alex!
Hi Shady. I was pretty sure I would see you here this morning. Helen and John were very special in my book. Together they made a difference in a lot of kids' lives. What a team! Instead of drowning in the sorrow of not having their own children, this couple focused on helping nurture other kids. And, they took on the challenge of an age group that would scare me away, haha!
ReplyDeleteShady, I would have been proud to know Helen. I'm sure she helped soothe many a broken teen heart.
Love your song choices, and I miss NBC Saturday Night At The Movies!
"One Summer Night" is a beautiful song, and I appreciate seeing the video. I remember it well, even though I was not a teen yet. We learned how to swoon at an early age! These guys owned this song, didn't they!
Thank you for this very nice Mother's Day post, Shady! Take care, dear friend!
Hi, Suzanne!
DeleteHow are you, dear friend? Thank you for breaking away from your Mother's Day in Texas to join me here for my annual salute entitled Helen Ettline - Every Dell Rat's Mom.
After all these years of following my blogs, you know your Dell history well. John and Helen Ettline operated a restaurant and dance hall, a mom and pop business called The Shady Dell, and it was home away from home for countless thousands of teenagers over the decades. The Ettlines were like parents to us, offering advice, guidance and compassion. They were a positive influence and made a difference in the lives of young people, no easy task back then, and even more challenging today. I can picture you as a teenager sitting on a stool in Helen's snack bar confiding in her as doo-wop oldies played on the jukebox. I know Helen would have loved you!
This Danleers' video is a wonderful find. I discovered it recently, brilliantly restored audio and picture, and wanted to get it posted a.s.a.p. This tribute for Helen seemed like the ideal time to use it and, with summer coming soon, I had all the more reason to play "One Summer Night" now instead of later. Isn't it funny how a misprint on the label of the early pressing of that 45 turned it into a valuable collector's item? I am also pleased that you remember watching those great recently-released films aired on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies. I tuned in regularly.
Thank you again for making time for a visit today, Suzanne. I hope you are having a wonderful Mother's Day and the same goes for your mother and sister. Have a great week and look for my next post three days from now. Take care, dear friend!
Happy Mother's Day, Helen! Thank you for all that you have done for your community. You are loved and you gave lovr back, tenfold.
ReplyDeleteHelen would have loved these songs, dear friend. They capture her spirit well.
Have a great Sunday and Mother's Day, Shady. Wish Mrs. Shady a very happy mother's day for me.
I'll try to update my blog later.
Hi, Jessica Marie!
DeleteThanks for pausing in the middle of your Mother's Day activities to drop by and pay your respects to Helen Ettline. It's very kind of you, dear friend!
By now you know as well as anyone what Helen was all about. Thanks for expressing such kind words. They are all accurate.
I hope your mother is enjoying her day and I look forward to your blog update later on. Thanks again for dropping in and have a wonderful week, dear friend JM!
Hi Shady,
DeleteMom loved her day and she loved being showered in love! She is travelling for the whole month of May, except for weekends, for work. Tomorrow she will be going back to Miami to train a new employee. While she likes getting out of the house when she travels, she does miss being home. I notice we are getting along better now.
Helen reminds me so much of Nan. Nan was like that too and I miss her terribly each and every day. I am thankful I have such sweet memories, just like your memories of Helen.
Have a great week yourself, dear friend.
Hi again, Jessica Marie!
DeleteI'm thrilled to learn that your mom had a Mother's Day showered in love. I'm sure you had a lot to do with that, and I am delighted to know you and she are getting along better. Keep that ball rolling. I wish her a safe trip to Miami.
I believe Helen would be honored to know that she reminds you of your beloved Nan. Keep those memories of her alive. Keep sharing them on your blog and here on mine.
Thanks again for coming to visit, dear friend JM. Have a wonderful week!
Hi Shady!
DeleteAlthough the weather was icky, the love shared on Sunday made the day. I printed a the photo of mom and I for my happiness box.
Thank you, Shady. 💜 I remember someone telling me that I shouldn't talk about her, right after she died. It was my veteran acquaintance that could never remember my name; I think he had PTSD and it was hard for him. Friends are surprised that I never got mad at him for the name thing or even sticking around, but I am too gentle with people and try to put myself in their shoes. After the event I went through, I understand him a bit more now.
Have a wonderful week too, dear friend!
Hi, Jessica Marie!
DeleteYou will soon be 30 and your maturity shows. When you pause and put yourself in the other guy's shoes, you are better able to understand and forgive. I think it is wonderful that you continue to remember and discuss Nan and share with others all she meant to you, same as I tell others how much Helen & John Ettline and Margaret Schneider meant to me.
Enjoy the rest of your week, dear friend JM!
Happy Mother's Day, Helen. Shady picked a couple of great songs for you.
ReplyDeleteHi, Kirk!
DeleteThanks for coming over to help me remember Helen on Mother's Day, good buddy!
One thing's for sure. Helen appreciated doo-wop love ballads. Her snack bar jukebox was loaded with them, and that's why I decided to play "One Summer Night" for her. I also believe she'd enjoy this up tempo number by The Drifters. It's one of my favorites, too.
Thanks again for being here for Helen this year, good buddy, Kirk. Have a great week ahead!
Good mothers everywhere have some things in common, quite aside from giving actual birth to a baby.
ReplyDeleteThey protect, teach and nurture their offspring, and often sacrifice much to see them grow to self sufficiency. Sometimes loving discipline is necessary to that growth. I hate to think where our world would be without mothers' (and of course fathers!) setting firm parameters for their kids' lives.
I know you've mentioned a lot about Helen as a kind and caring surrogate mother, but teens can be especially rough on parents and authority of all stripes, often pushing boundaries. Helen looks like she was a petite woman, so I imagine that had to be a tough bunch to handle, all the while cooking, washing dishes and keeping the Dell's snack bar clean and in order. Without help, she must have truly had her hands full, with long nighttime hours behind the counter.
I only ever dealt with two teens at a time, and that was challenging at times, so I have a hard time imagining the snack bar's environment. The combined banter of dozens of hormone-fueled patrons, the pool balls as they ricocheted off one another and dropped into the pockets of the table, pinball flippers and scoring bells, along with the juke box playing favorites in the background, must have alone produced a real collage of sounds. Add to that the searing of hamburgers on the grill, the dispensing of ice into fountain drinks and the whirring of milkshakes in the making.
Helen might have been small in stature, but it's obvious from your descriptions that she was an incredibly strong and competent "parent", and an expert multi-tasker to boot! She also
had to have the personality and demeanor that encouraged affectionate respect not only during the Dell's heyday years, but also be honored this many years later.
Good for you, to have such fond recollections and want to pay homage to this special "mother" from your youth. Thanks to you, Tom, she certainly won't ever be forgotten!
Hi, Kathleen!
DeleteHappy Mother's Day, dear friend! Thank you very much for being here again this year as we pay tribute on this special occasion to Helen Ettline, every Dell rat's mom.
As always you expressed yourself beautifully this year. You captured the essence of Helen when you suggested that she had the personality and demeanor that encouraged respect. As you mentioned, it was no easy task for Helen to manage a hundred or more teenagers on busy Friday and Saturday nights at the Dell. A soft-spoken, diminutive woman, Helen nevertheless commended respect because, like her husband John, she tacitly assumed mutual respect beforehand. Helen and John gave it and expected it in return. When you set up a relationship with a teenager on those terms, powerful breakthroughs are possible. That's how I would describe what happened at the Dell. The Ettlines gave and got respect, and that's how law and order was maintained, not by intimidation and punishment.
I am thankful that my memories of Helen remain intact all these years. I suppose these annual tributes help in that regard. I can still hear her soft voice and see her big smile and the twinkle in her eyes, and I can still hear those doo-wop records playing on the jukebox, the sound mixed with the chatter of a couple dozen patrons, the black and white TV set on top of the refrigerator and the pinball machine dinging away - a delightful cacophony. I am blessed to have these memories of the people, the place and the best times of my life.
Thank you again for sharing your thoughts about Helen Ettline this year. I am thinking about your mother Margaret and missing her very much. Please take good care of yourself and have a safe and happy week, dear friend Kathleen!
Hi Tom,
ReplyDeleteWhat a sweet Mothers Day tribute post to Helen! And you're right: they obviously got so much out of being parental figures to all the Dell Rats. I would venture to guess that they probably got more joy out of it than even the Dell regulars got out of it, don't you think?
I hope Mrs. Shady had a nice Mothers Day. I wish I would've had my Mom home to do something special for her. She's been in the hospital since Thursday, after calling 911 on Thursday morning. She spent the day in the ER and they admitted her and tomorrow she'll be transferring to either a rehab facility or a skilled nursing facility for a week or so to get her strong enough to come home. I have to meet with the caseworker tomorrow. Please keep her in your prayers, if you will.
I liked both of your song choices for Helen's Mother's Day post. I wasn't familiar with either but I liked both of them very much.
And I sure do remember the Saturday night movies --- back then they were 90 minutes in length. Remember that?
PS: You'll never guess what I'm watching right now? My Mom turned me onto this channel. She was watching it last week and it airs a bunch of the old game shows from back in the day. Right now I'm watching "Match Game" with Gene Rayburn and his cast of characters. Talk about memory lane!
Have a great week. Talk soon,
Michele at Angels Bark
Hi, Michele!
DeleteThank you for coming, my dear night owl friend! I'm happy to have you join me as I remember Dell owner Helen Ettline on Mother's Day.
However I am dismayed to learn that your mother was hospitalized on her special day. I am terribly sorry, Michele. I hope that whatever the problem was with her Thursday has now been resolved and she is on the mend and on the road to a full recovery. I most certainly will keep her in my prayers.
I watched NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies regularly. We couldn't zip through the commercial breaks back then, but that was a blessing in disguise because it gave us time as a family to discuss the segment we had just watched, go to the bathroom or get a snack, probably all three.
Yessum, I watched the The Match Game in the 60s and 70s. Regular cast members included Brett Somers, Charles Nelson Reilly, Richard Dawson, Betty White, Fannie Flagg, Nipsey Russell and Jo Ann Pflug who played "Dish" in the film M*A*S*H. I loved Gene Rayburn as host and filling in the blanks about Johnny and Mary.
I'm glad you enjoyed being introduced to these two oldies I selected for Helen this year. Thank you again for joining me, dear friend Michele. Prayers for your mother. I will see you soon!
Tom,
ReplyDeleteHow sweet! I'm sure Helen would've loved your song choices. The Danleers are new2me but they have that same bee-bop vibe from the 50s that we all love.
"One Summer Night" was in the top 10 and I'm not sure why this one never reached my ears over the years. The Drifters I've heard of before but not 'Saturday Night at the Movies'. It seems like the series you're referring to I recall but I was thinking it was in the 70s. I guess it could've been the tail end of the 60s that I'm remembering.
Did NBC or another network carry it or a similar spot into the 70s? What ever I'm thinking about was pAwesome. They ran some excellent full-length movies on the weekend which was great for those living in rural America like us. Going to the theatre wasn't only expensive but too far to drive.
What a lovely way to pay tribute to a beautiful woman who loved children! You don't have to be a 'birth mom' to be a mom to many. :)
PS: I hope Mrs. Shady had a lovely Mother's Day, too!
Hi, Cathy!
DeleteThank you for being here for this year's Mother's Day salute to Helen Ettline. As you stated, Helen was not a birth mom but, nevertheless, a mom to many.
You are too young to be familiar with as many 50s doo-wop songs as old Shady. "One Summer Night" by The Danleers was a biggie on my local radio station in the summer of 1958. The old school style Drifters number was a favorite in my neck of the woods during the Christmas holiday season in 1964, successfully competing against the glut of Beatles and British Invasion records on the chart and "The Motown Sound" that was rapidly on the rise in America.
The popularity of NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies spawned similar network series including:
NBC World Premiere Movie
The ABC Sunday Night Movie
The NBC Monday Movie (originally titled NBC Monday Night at the Movies)
NBC Tuesday Night at the Movies
The ABC Wednesday Night Movie
The CBS Wednesday Night Movies
The CBS Thursday Night Movies
The CBS Friday Night Movies
The CBS Saturday Night Movies
The CBS Sunday Night Movies
NBC Friday Night at the Movies
Thank you again for your visit and kind words about Helen this year, dear friend Cathy. Have a super week!
Tom,
DeleteI do remember some of these specials. Boy, did they ever have some good movie features, too. Thanks for refreshing my memory!
Hi again, Cathy!
DeleteI'm happy to see that you checked out my reply here. I didn't remember there being that many different regularly scheduled network movie series. That's an amazingly long list, isn't it?
Thanks for returning to chat, Cathy. I look forward to checking out your artwork tomorrow!
Happy Mother's Day to your Helen. Those were good songs to showcase and honor her. I can't believe I don't remember the series "Saturday Night At The Movies". Helen reminds me of my good friend Bryn. Bryn never had children but she was like a second Mom to my boys when they were young and she got her teaching degree and was a fabulous teacher to elementary kiddos. She's special to many kids at our church and is a Grandparent to those who don't have any living near us. Yesterday she gave me a special gift that she brought back from her winter home in Florida. She had something for many of her Mom friends. Some people are sad and upset because they don't have kids of their own, and I can understand that. But I sure have great respect and admiration for people like the Ettlines who gave of themselves and made childhood (teenhood) memories for many young people...like you Shady! It's great that Helen will be remembered by many thanks to you and this blog. Have a good week and I hope Mrs. Shady had a nice Mother's day!
ReplyDeleteHi, YaYa!
DeleteIt's so nice of you to be here again this year for my annual salute to Helen Ettline on Mother's Day. After all these years of following my blogs, you are well-versed on the Shady Dell story and the Ettlines. Thanks for telling us how Helen reminds you of your friend Bryn. Based on your anecdote, Bryn is the kind of person we desperately need more of today. From what I have seen, there are more like Helen and Bryn coming up in your wonderful family because you, your brothers and your children were raised right and are raising the grandkiddos right.
Most of the snowbirds with winter homes in Florida have returned to the north by now and there is a noticeable decline in traffic in our city and on the interstate highways. When the snowbirds depart, two unwanted visitors arrive - heat and humidity. We are now cooped up in air conditioning for the duration of the hot season, and it is as long and taxing as your winter and fickle spring.
Thank you again for joining me for my Mother's Day post for Helen, dear friend YaYa. I hope you, your sister and your dear mother also had a wonderful Mother's Day. Enjoy the rest of your week!
A beautiful tribute to the fine lady who helped so many kids. She made a huge impression on you and others so that says a lot about the lady. I never heard of the first group...what ever happened to them? The second song reminds me of another song that i can't think of at the moment..down by the bayou?? I don't know. I hope Mrs. Shady had a great Mother's Day as well
ReplyDeleteHi, dearie!
DeleteI nearly forgot to click back to the previous post for your second comment! :) Thanks a lot for saying a few kind words for Helen as we remember her the week of Mother's Day.
The Danleers were one of the many one-hit wonder groups of the 50s. They released NINE more singles thru the mid 60s, but not one of them reached the pop or the R&B chart, not even the Bubbling Under survey! I'm drawing a blank on the song "Saturday Night At The Movies" reminds you of. Could it be one of the Drifters' other early to mid 60s hits "Up On The Roof," "Under The Boardwalk" or "I've Got Sand In My Shoes"? If you figure it out, let me know.
Thanks again, dear friend BB!