Seeing yourself in a different light at Peter Franke’s Fun House |
| After your magic carpet ride ended at the Death Valley Funny House, you were then ready to walk further down Beach St. toward the corner of Summer and Beach where you could spend the rest of the afternoon in Peter Franke's Fun House, where his famous motto was “Save your last nickel for Peter Franke's!” Peter Franke was born Aug. 16, 1889, in Nettuno, Italy and |
immigrated to this country in 1904 with his parents; he was fifteen years old. The Franke family made their way to West Haven somehow, or either Peter came on his own as I didn’t find him listed any earlier than the 1930 census; he had married Mary Uriano in 1929.
Peter Franke’s surname upon immigration was “Franchi”… and somehow like many other name changes of our ancestors, his name was changed for various reasons… either for a better American status or because of misinterpretation upon entering America.
In 1930 Peter and Mary Franke were living at 46 Summer Street in West Haven… they rented; the census listed Peter as a concessionaire owner and he was a naturalized citizen. In 1940, Peter and Mary still lived at 46 Summer Street, but now owned |
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their home; seemed the “Popcorn” business was doing well. The census listed his home value as $2000. He made his living by only working 20 weeks in 1939, while being unemployed for 26 weeks. The 1940 census listed two children, Anthony, age 17, and Lucille, age 8; Peter was now 51 and Mary was 45. The last listing I found for the Frank family in West Haven was in 1952.
Having very little education, as most in those days, Peter was an entrepreneur, working hard to open his first popcorn stand in 1918... in the “then” White City area of Savin Rock. He began his first business with just a simple idea... of preparing and packaging his soon-to-be-famous popcorn. |
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It was Peter’s quality of popcorn, along with his personality, that earned him enough to later open a 2nd stand on Beach Street. He must not have squandered his money, as he later opened more stands throughout Savin Rock selling his famous “Honey Boy” popcorn.
He was quite ingenious enough to even invent and patent the machine which he used to cut the popcorn in its well- known “block” shape, which most who frequented Savin Rock, if only for a short time, will remember! Whenever you walked by Peter Franke’s, you smelled popcorn about the time you heard the woman in the popcorn booth calling out, “Get your honey popcorn here!” |
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Packages of colored popcorn in blocks of white, yellow or pink were lined up on the counter… did you have a favorite? Franke's granddaughters remember helping to place the eyes and bows on the popcorn packages at Easter. It was always fun to help grandma behind the counter and be a part of the excitement.
Before Peter Franke turned the famous “Fun House” at 555 Beach Street into his own in 1945/46, it previously began as The Wilcox’s Theatre, showing silent pictures. It was later listed as “the old skating rink”, and still owned by the Wilcox Family when Peter purchased it directly from the Wilcox estate. The real name was American Arena Roller Skating Rink and was listed at 555 Beach Street, which eventually turned into Peter Franke’s Fun House. |
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Walking into the Fun House was through a narrow hallway, possibly with arrows on the sidewalls directing you. And even though it was a short walk, it was your first acquaintance in the “Fun House“… and the zig-zag floors made you walk funny, then a little dip of a wave in the floor continued to keep you off balance before entering the main open room.
Hubby remembered jets of air around as you walked… but these are memories of over 60 plus years. We all remember differently, and like he tells me… “it wasn’t like I could go there all the time; money wasn’t freely given to kids for that... and no one ever thought about it not being there one day!” |
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