Kathryn Loleida Bauers (nee Allen) was born on July 9, 1912, and for as far back as she could remember, her family had planted their own roots in Wildwood’s history, from a rented bungalow in West Wildwood to a home on Glenwood Avenue and a family business. Kathryn sent these treasure-chest worthy collection of photos to The Sun back in 2012, when she turned 100 years old, allowing them to tell a sweet & salty tale of Wildwood’s early days, before the Great Depression in 1929, when, life, at least as these pictures depict, just seemed simpler by the sea.
Included in her memory-keeping photos are the concrete ship S.S. Atlantus, taken right after it round aground in 1926.
Residing in Philadelphia, but true Wildwood lovers, the family even visited in the somewhat desolate winter. By 1926, Kathryn’s father convinced her mother to move them to Wildwood full time, and she enrolled in Wildwood High School (8th or 9th grade.)
Her dad, a former Phila. police officer at Front & Westmoreland, bought Allen’s Confectionary Store, located between Oak & Cedar Avenues in Wildwood at the foot of the Boardwalk’s Casino Arcade.
Being next door neighbors to Hunt’s Casino Theater, the only movie house in Wildwood at that time, Kathryn’s family got to meet some of Hollywood’s biggest stars (including Eddie Cantor), who would shop in their store (which proudly sold the best chocolates and ice cream sundaes.)
Sadly, less than three years after the store’s opening, the Great Depression began, and with that, Kathryn’s dad sold the store and moved the family back to Philadelphia, taking with them sweet seaside memories but leaving behind their imprint in Wildwood’s long celebrated story…
