Mike Wolfe's Enlightening Pick

Mike Wolfe holding a movie poster.

I have been a big fan of American Pickers from its debut on the History Channel in January, 2010. Each week Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz travel around the country searching for "rusty gold" to purchase and bring back to Iowa for their Antique Archaeology store in LeClaire. On this week's episode Mike held up a movie poster which helped me straighten out an old family story from my childhood.

1954 Publicity Photo of William Holden 

Back in the '50's going to a movie was an almost weekly event for us. William Holden was one of the most popular actors of that time - Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, Sabrina, Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing to name a few. So when Dad told me he had gone to grade school with Bill Holden and his brothers, I thought, "WOW"!
Many years later, after my father had died, I remembered him telling me that and tried to confirm it somehow. It didn't sound right though, because Holden was born in Illinois and nothing I read about him ever mentioned him living in Iowa. I chalked it up to another of Dad's tall tales.

 That is, until Monday night when Mike Wolfe picked up this Zombies Of The Stratosphere poster and I noted the name Judd Holdren listed on the "starring" line at the bottom. Something shifted in my brain. I wrote the name down as a reminder to check it out online the next morning.
A google search of Judd Holdren showed that he was born near Villisca, Iowa in 1915 - one of ten children in a farming family. Dad attended Spaulding School in Taylor County. I had a high school classmate who had attended that same grade school - years later, of course.

Actor Judd Holdren

So yesterday I sent a message to my class mate asking if he had ever heard that Judd Holdren had attended that same Spaulding school. Not only was he able to confirm that indeed, the Holdren's had gone to school there, but one of his relatives had married Judd's sister. He (the class mate) even had an autographed picture from Purple Heart Diary that Judd had sent him when he was a kid.
Holden. Holdren. Two handsome movie stars. Is it surprising I got them mixed up?

Sixth Grade picture of Louis L. Lynam

I'm just glad that a fluke viewing of a movie poster on American Pickers helped me learn that my Dad's story about attending grade school with a boy who later became a movie star was not just a tall tale.

On the back of this picture of my father is written in his boyish hand: "Lewis, Age 12, Spaulding School".