BOSCOBEL - Betty Fink was born on the rainy second day of the Boscobel Fair in 1923. Things were a little different back then. Admission to the fair was 50 cents for adults, 25 for children. A jar of pickles cost 10 cents.
Fink celebrated her ninety-ninth birthday this week. And although she hasn’t lived in Boscobel for years, she remains devoted to her hometown (and a loyal Dial subscriber) all these many years later.
Her father, George Frey, was a carpenter who built the chapel at the cemetery. “He was very proud of that chapel,” Fink remembered.
In high school, Fink played French horn in the pep band and was on the women’s basketball team. “There was no such thing as intermural sports at that time,” Fink reported. “The freshman could play the sophomores, but you couldn’t play against any other schools.”
When she graduated from Boscobel High School in 1941 (one of 41 students), she moved Madison and enrolled in the Madison Business College.
In 1945, she was married at St. John’s Lutheran Church to her sweetheart, James Fink, who worked in the engineering department at Allis-Chalmers in Milwaukee. The Dial reported the “popular” bride wore “a street length white wool dress, trimmed in gold, and a small white feathered hat. She carried a single orchid and a white prayer book.”
Although she lived in many places after she left home, including West Allis, Madison, and Brookfield in Wisconsin, and also the state of Florida, she’s always kept current her subscription to the Dial.
“I haven’t been there in a good many years. I suppose Main Street has changed quite a bit, but it sounds like my church, St. Johns, is pretty much the same,” she said. “I have so many fond memories and good friends from my Boscobel days.”
