Commentary by Zach Burton
A good trip down memory lane can happen unexpectedly. Like when you pick up a Lions Club business directory from 1970, expecting only to find phone numbers and addresses of businesses long gone, but instead encounter photographs and biographical vignettes of people from Westfield’s past.
Thumbing through the pamphlet’s pages, you’ll see photos of Picketts Cafeteria, which according to the description served an average of 409 diners on a daily basis.
Today the location continues to feed Westfield’s hungry patrons as home to Erika’s Place.
You can meet Harry E. Lunsford, who moved to Westfield in June 1938 and eventually settled down at 221 South Union. Lunsford owned and operated the Standard Oil Station at the corner of Main and Mill Street. Motorists can still fill up their vehicles at the site, which is now the location for a Speedway convenience store.
Going east down Main Street we find Camilla Axelrod, who had just purchased property at 130 E Main Street for a new beauty shop. She’d previously started a beauty shop in 1948, and had also served as hostess and manager of Charlie’s Steak House north of Carmel. Camilla served several terms on the town board, was instrumental in the development of Sanders Glen, and was passionate about Westfield.
Her headstone in Summit Lawn Cemetery simply reads “Camilla.”
At the time of the pamphlet’s publication, Westfield’s population had “grown to a busy town of 1,800,” with people “rapidly locating here.” One might wonder what the residents of that small town thought long ago of the changes they saw around them.
The book’s introductory message from the Lions states that the group is very active in “helping its citizens plan for the future,” and closes with a quote attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes:
“I find the great thing is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving… We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.”
