“The Tonight Show,” a late-night talk show began broadcasting on NBC TV in 1954. Following Steve Allen (1954–1957) and Jack Paar (1957–1962), Johnny Carson (1962–1992) began to host this show for thirty years in 1962. Back then, there was no late-night shows after the late evening news at 11:30 PM Eastern time on any other network. Thus, the “Tonight Show” is the world’s longest-running talk show, and the longest-running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States. On NBC, only the “Today Show (1952)” and “Meet the Press (1947)” have been on TV longer. Up until 1972, the “Tonight Show” was taped in New York City. From 1973 to 2014, it was taped in Burbank, California. Johnny Carson (1925-2005) was the king of late-night television for thirty years until his retirement in 1992. In 1982, he was celebrating his twentieth year as the host of the “Tonight Show.” I would watch the “Tonight Show” when I got home late on Wednesday and Friday nights from work at Montgomery Ward. I liked the way he questioned guests and his quick wit. He always smoked cigarettes as he was interviewing people. Johnny Carson (1925–2005) received six Primetime Emmy Awards, the Television Academy’s 1980 Governor’s Award, and a 1985 Peabody Award. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1993. Carson was born in Iowa, but grew up in Nebraska, so that his midwestern charm made him and his TV show popular in the Midwest time zone that was only at 10:30 PM. During World War II, Carson served in the United States Navy. After the war he took advantage of the GI bill to get a BA degree in radio and speech at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. In 1953, he joined the comic “Red Skelton Show” as a writer. Carson then moved to New York City to host ABC’s “Who Do You Trust? (1957–1962).” There he met his future sidekick and straight man, Ed McMahon (1923-2009). Then in 1962, Skitch Henderson (1918-2005) was installed as the maestro of the NBC Orchestra for the “Tonight Show.” Ed McMahon’s famous introduction, “Heeeeere’s Johnny!!!” was followed by a brief monologue by Carson. Paul Anka wrote “The Tonight Show’s” theme song, “Johnny’s Theme.” On May 1, 1972, “The Tonight Show” moved from 30 Rockefeller Plaza to the NBC Studios in Burbank, California, because of the studio’s proximity to celebrities. Although Carson’s work schedule became more abbreviated, “The Tonight Show” remained so successful that his compensation from NBC continued to rise. By the mid-1970s, he had become the highest-paid personality on television, earning about $4 million a year. Carson became an American institution, a household word, and the most widely quoted American. He was married four times, with three sons from his first marriage. On February 27, 1982, Carson was arrested for drunk driving near Beverly Hills. He was an Eisenhower Republican, but Frank Sinatra asked him to be the MC at Regan’s inaugural. Carson endowed the University of Nebraska with the Johnny Carson School of Theater and Film. He was good friends with Carl Sagan, Buddy Rich, and John McEnroe. What do you remember about Johnny Carson?
Getting Cable TV in 1982
Sometime during 1982 we got Comcast cable in our house in Matteson, IL. I believe that it became available in our neighborhood. This is when I grew to like C-SPAN and the Sports channel ESPN with its many sports talk shows and Australian football, which was much like Gaelic Irish football. ESPN had no rights to most American sporting events. The movie channels were nice, but I began to realize that there were a lot of bad movies. Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fiber-optic cables. An antenna was no longer needed. This contrasts with broadcast television, in which the television signal is transmitted over-the-air by radio waves and received by a television antenna, or satellite television, with a satellite dish on the roof. Analog television was standard in the 20th century, but since the 2000s, cable systems have been upgraded to digital cable operation. A cable channel is a television network available via cable television only. Cable television began in the United States as a commercial business in the 1950s. At the outset, cable systems only served smaller communities without television stations of their own, since they could not receive signals from stations in cities because of distance or hilly terrain. Only about 8% of Americans in 1978 had cable TV. However, by 1988, 53% of all American households were using cable and it further increased to 62% in 1994. During the 1980s, United States regulations, not unlike public, educational, and government access stations, created the beginning of cable-originated live television programming. As cable penetration increased, numerous cable-only TV stations were launched, many with their own news bureaus that could provide more immediate and more localized content than that provided by the nearest network newscast. This evolved into today’s many cable-only broadcasts of diverse programming, including cable-only produced television movies. Cable specialty channels started with channels oriented to show movies and large sporting or performance events, then diversified further, as narrowcasting became common. By the late 1980s, cable-only signals outnumbered broadcast signals on cable systems, some of which had expanded beyond 35 channels. By the 1990s, tiers became common, with customers able to subscribe to different tiers to obtain different selections of additional channels above the basic selection. By subscribing to additional tiers, customers could get specialty channels, movie channels, and foreign channels. Large cable companies used addressable descramblers to limit access to premium channels for customers not subscribing to higher tiers. During the 1990s, the pressure to accommodate the growing array of offerings resulted in digital transmission that made more efficient use of the VHF signal capacity. The digital television transition in the United States has put all signals, broadcast, and cable, into digital form, rendering analog cable television service a rarity, found in an ever-dwindling number of markets. Cable television is mostly available in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, and South America, but has had little success in Africa, as it is not cost-effective to lay cables in sparsely populated areas. Where I live now, I have nearly a thousand channels available on my Astound RCN cable network, even if I not do subscribe to all of them. Do you have cable network TV?
The immediate family of Mary Ginsbach Klein, Margaret’s mother
Nicholas Ginsbach (1884-1933) was one of the younger children of the Nicholas Ginsbach (1848-1926) family, with the same name as his father. The older Nicholas was the grandfather of Mary Ginsbach, while the younger Nicholas was the father of Mary Ginsbach Klein. The younger Nicholas died in White Lake, SD, at the young age of 49 during the Great Depression in 1933. He would have been 5 years old when his mother died in western Iowa, near unincorporated Seney, Plymouth County. He moved with his father, named Nicholas also, and two sisters, Kate, and Clara, to White Lake, SD, in 1895. There, he grew up and married Barbara Strauss (1892-1966) in White Lake, in April 21, 1914, in the same St. Peter’s Church as his sister Clara. He was 30 and Barbara was 22. Nicholas and Barbara had 6 children. Mary Ginsbach Klein (1915-1999) married Peter Klein and they had 7 children, Margaret’s family. Mark Ginsbach (1917-1992) married Irene Horstmeyer and they had three girls. Elisabeth Ginsbach Peppmuller (1942-) married Ron Peppmuller and they had three children. Darlene Ginsbach Holiday (1946-) married James Holiday and they had two children. Rhona Ginsbach Walz (1954-) married Richard Walz and they had three children. Raymond Ginsbach (1919-2003) married Betty Alder Sampson Ginsbach, and they had three children, Russell Sampson, Mike Sampson, and John Ginsbach. Robert Ginsbach (1924-1964) married Billy Rhodes Ginsbach and they had two children, Todd Ginsbach, and Tammi Ginsbach. Frank Ginsbach (1928-2017) married Darleen Ann Fritz Ginsbach. They had two children. Cynthia Ginsbach Gray married William Gray, and Frank Nicholas Ginsbach, Jr married Jerri Lynn Wynn. They each also had two children. Mildred, the youngest (1930-1930), died at childbirth. On her mother’s side, Margaret had 4 uncles and 10 first cousins. Do you have the same name as your father or mother?
The Barbara Straus (1892-1966) family, Margaret’s grandmother
Barbara Straus Ginsbach (1892-1966) died at the age of 74. She married Nick Ginsbach on April 21, 1914 at St. Peter’s Church in White Lake, SD, at the age of 22. Her father, Stephen Straus was also born in Luxembourg in 1851. He immigrated to the USA with his family in 1855 to live in Port Washington, Wisconsin. Then they moved to Bellechester, Minnesota, another Luxembourg community, where his parents are buried. Stephen had at least 3 brothers, Mike, Henry, and Nick. Stephen then moved to Frankfort, SD, where he married Magdelen Majerus (1858-1941) on May 28, 1888. She was born in Brooklyn, NY, but may have Luxembourg roots. Barbara Straus had two sisters: Anna Straus Steichen (1894-1974) who died at the age of 80. She had married Frank Steichen (1897-1975) who died at the age of 78. They had no children. The Steichen family was from Luxembourg also. Martha Straus (1897-1992) died at the age of 95. Margaret knew her as “Aunt Martha from White Lake.” She never married. She spent most of her life in White Lake, SD. Margaret knew her grandmother from White Lake also, who came to visit their family in Dell Rapids. Frank Straus (1905-1972) died at the age of 67. He married Vernice Glissendorf (1897-1964) in 1950, but they had no children. He spent most of his life in White Lake, SD, also. Did you know that there were so many Americans from Luxembourg?
The pioneering Ginsbach family in White Lake, SD
The oldest child of Frank Ginsbach and Catherine Walter Ginsbach Termes was Nicholas Ginsbach (1848-1926), the grandfather of Mary Ginsbach Klein, the great-grandfather of Margaret. In 1873, Nicholas married Mary Zeimet, while his sister Mary Ginsbach would marry John Zeimet in 1876, the brother of Mary Zeimet. These Zeimet siblings were also born in Luxembourg. Nine children were born to Nicholas Ginsbach and Mary Zeimet Ginsbach before she died in childbirth in 1889 with her infant baby May. Nicholas then married Bertha Dittman in 1890, but she died 4 years later in 1894. Then one year later, in 1895, he took a train with his 3 youngest children, Kate (13), Nicholas (11), Margaret’s grandfather, and Clara (8) to White Lake, SD. This older Nicholas Ginsbach had seven children. Frank Ginsbach (1874-1973), died in Dell Rapids, SD at the age of 99. He married Susan Frantzen (1875-1947) in Alton, Iowa, in 1900. They had 4 children, Peter, Francis, Coletta, and Prema (Elsinger). He was the oldest in the family and got the farm after his father left for White Lake, SD, in 1895. Michael Ginsbach (1875-1958) died in Dell Rapids at the age of 83. He married Addie Steffen (1881-1964). They had 7 children, Bernard, Clara (Profesi), Lawrence, Charles, Anthony, Mary Agnes (Geraets), and Martin. Mathias Ginsbach (1877-1950) died near the Alamo, Texas, at the age of 73. He married Elizabeth Luken. They had 2 sons. John and Glen. They moved to Texas in 1920. John Ginsbach (1878-1929)died near White Lake, SD, at the age of 51, in 1929, of a lightning strike with 2 horses. He never married, but moved to White Lake, SD, to be with his father in 1906. Kate Ginsbach Krell (1882-1979) died in Plankinton, SD, at the age of 97. She married Peter Krell (1882-1944) in 1904. They had 5 children, Harry, Clarence, Caroline (Hoffman), Agnes (Lenocher), and Margaret (Doran). Nicholas Ginsbach (1884-1933) (father of Frank and Mary Ginsbach Klein) died in White Lake, SD, at the age of 47. He was one of the younger ones in this family. He moved with his father and two sisters Kate and Clara to White Lake, SD, in 1895, when he was 11 years old. There he grew up and married Barbara Strauss (1892-1966) in White Lake, in 1914, in the same Church as his sister Clara, St. Peters. They had 6 children, Mary, Margaret’s mother, Mark, Raymond, Robert, Frank, and Mildred. Clara Ginsbach (1886-1973) died in White Lake, SD, at the age of 88. She married Ed Moeller (1886-1949) in 1914, at St. Peter’s Church in White Lake, SD. They had 5 boys, Sylvester, Edward, Cecil, John, and Albert. May (1889-1889) died at childbirth with her mother. Do you know anyone named Ginsbach?
The Luxembourg immigrants of the Ginsbach family
Mary Ginsbach Klein, Margaret’s mother, can trace her family back to Nicolas Ginsbach who was born in 1779. He was the great-great grandfather of Mary Ginsbach Klein, the mother of Margaret. Nicholas Ginsbach had a son named Francis Ginsbach (1811-1859), born on the German-Luxembourg border, near the Mosel River, the great grandfather of Mary Ginsbach. He married Catherine Walter, who was born in 1818. Frank, his wife Catherine, with their three sons, came to the USA via New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1851. They moved to the Luxembourg community at St. Donatus, Iowa, in Jackson County, just south of Dubuque, Iowa, on the Mississippi River. The three sons born in Luxembourg were Nicholas Ginsbach (1848-1926), who was Mary Ginsbach’s grandfather, John Ginsbach (1849-1935), who married Anna Batszler, in 1881, and had 7 children, Frank, Mary, Margaret (Oswald), Henry, Julia, Albert, and Myrtle (Marx), before he died in Watertown, SD, and Peter Ginsbach (1850-1894), who married Olgatha Szitnick, in 1880. Peter had 6 girls, Catherine (Cramer), Anna (Johns), Lena (Johnson), Mary, Clara (Jones), and Emma (Cramer). He died in Chico, California. Four more children were born to this family of Francis and Catherine, Margaret’s great grandfather, in St. Donatus, Iowa. Henry Ginsbach (1852-1938) married Elizabeth Delperdang in 1877. They had 12 children, Kate (Bailey), Nicholas, Margaret (Hueble), Adam, Marie (Hall), John, Charles, a WW I veteran, Rose (Pirrung), Henry, Anna (Stover), Benedict, and Agnes (Feller) who died in Sioux Falls, SD. Mary Ginsbach Zeimet (1854-1940), married John Zeimet. They had 8 children but 3 of their children died as babies (Mathias, John, and another girl), Peter, Michael, Anna Katherine (Kirk), Anna Subelia (Merril), and Elizabeth (Retzloff). She died in Hot Springs, SD. Matthew Ginsbach (1856-1943), married Jane McBriar from Wisconsin, in 1884. They had 4 children, Earl, Francis, Clark, and Flossie (Brakke). He was the mayor of Hartford, SD, for two terms. Elizabeth Ginsbach Deutsch (1858-1928). She married Peter Deutsch and they 4 children, John, Peter, Theodore, and Elizabeth (Letcher). They moved to Oklahoma. Unfortunately, Frank Ginsbach, the father, drowned in the Mississippi River on Feb 11, 1859, when he fell through the ice with a team of horses. He was with his wife but she survived. Then Catherine Walter Ginsbach married Peter Termes, their hired man, 5 months later in 1859. Peter Termes served in the American Civil War. What do you know about Luxembourg settlements in the USA?
Margaret’s mother, Mary Ginsbach (1915-1999) from White Lake, SD
With all the attention on the Klein family, Margaret’s father’s family with a book about the Kleins, Good Soil, Black Earth, in 1981, I felt bad about her mother, Mary Ginsbach. Thus, I spent the summer of 1982 in Dell Rapids looking up the Ginsbach family, Margaret’s mother’s family. I got most of the information from Mary Ginsbach Klein (1915-1999). She had a lot of letters from her brother Frank Ginsbach, who had done some work on their genealogy. With a little help from this brother-sister combination, I was able to put together a little packet about the Ginsbach family. Guess what! The Ginsbach family was from Luxembourg also. I thought that they were from Dell Rapids, but they were from White Lake, South Dakota. White Lake is a city in western Aurora County, South Dakota, that had a population of 394 at the 2020 census. It does have a Catholic Church, St. Peters, within this half square mile town with 88 families. The median income for a family was $38,611. Dell Rapids is a metropolis compared to White Lake, with a population of 3,996 at the 2020 census within this two square mile area with 973 families, and the median family income at $49,536. White Lake Public Schools belong to White Lake School District with all three schools in the same building, the Elementary, the Junior High, and the High School. The city of White Lake was founded in 1882. Thus, there have been members of the Ginsbach family living there since 1895. Have you ever heard about White Lake, SD?
Wayne Gretzky (1961-)
In 1982, I became aware of Wayne Gretzky, because during the 1981–82 season, Gretzky surpassed a record that had stood for 35 years, 50 goals in 50 games, first set by Maurice “Rocket” Richard during the 1944–45 NHL season. Gretzky accomplished this feat in only 39 games, as he was the NHL’s leading scorer during the regular season and the NHL’s Most Valuable Player. I never paid much attention to ice hockey until Wayne Gretzky came along. He played 20 seasons in the NHL for four teams from 1979 to 1999, starting with the Edmonton Oilers. Nicknamed “the Great One,” he has been called the greatest ice hockey player ever, based on surveys of hockey writers, ex-players, general managers, and coaches. Gretzky is the leading career goal scorer, assist producer and point scorer in the NHL history, and has more career assists than any other player has total points. He is the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season, a feat he accomplished four times. In addition, Gretzky tallied over 100 points in 15 professional seasons. At the time of his retirement in 1999, he held 61 NHL records, 40 regular season records, 15 playoff records, and 6 All-Star records. Gretzky was born and raised in Brantford, Ontario. He honed his skills on a backyard rink and regularly played minor hockey at a level far above his age. Despite his unimpressive size and strength, Gretzky’s intelligence, stamina, and reading of the game were unrivaled. Gretzky led the Edmonton Oilers to four NHL Stanley Cup championships. Gretzky’s trade to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, had an immediate impact on that team’s performance, ultimately leading them to the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals. Thus, he is credited with popularizing ice hockey in sunny California. Gretzky played briefly for the St. Louis Blues before finishing his career with the New York Rangers. Gretzky captured 9 Hart Trophies as the most valuable player, 10 Art Ross Trophies for most points in a season, 2 Conn Smythe Trophies as playoff MVP, and 5 Lester B. Pearson Awards, now the Ted Lindsay Award, for most outstanding player as judged by his peers. He led the league in goal-scoring 5 times and assists 16 times. He also won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy for sportsmanship and performance 5 times and often spoke out against fighting in hockey. After his retirement in 1999, Gretzky was immediately inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, making him the most recent player to have the waiting period waived. The NHL retired his jersey number 99 league-wide. He was the man in hockey for most of my adult life. Gretzky had a major influence on the style of play, inspiring a more team-based strategy. He knew he was not big enough, strong enough, or even fast enough to do what he wanted to do if other teams focused on him. Like a magician, he had to direct attention elsewhere, to his four teammates on the ice with him, to create a momentary distraction to move unnoticed into the open ice where size and strength did not matter. Everyone wanted to play like Gretzky. In 1990, the Associated Press named Gretzky the Male Athlete of the Decade. Gretzky’s appeal as a product endorser far surpassed that of other hockey players of his era. By 1995, he was among the five highest-paid athlete endorsers in North America. Gretzky was married on July 16, 1988, to Janet Jones in a lavish ceremony in Toronto that the Canadian press dubbed “The Royal Wedding”. They have five children: Paulina, Ty, Trevor, Tristan, and Emma. What do you know about Wayne Gretzky?
Wrigley Field, organ music, movies, and TV
Wrigley Field was the first Major League ballpark to introduce live organ music on April 26, 1941. Organist Gary Pressy, holds the record for 2,653 consecutive games played, never having missed a day’s work in 33 years. Today, most major league ballparks have replaced the traditional live organist with canned programmed music. Wrigley Field had a brief cameo in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. The 1984 film The Natural, had a scene set at Wrigley Field, as was the 1993 movie, Rookie of the Year. Wrigley Field was featured in a scene in the 1986 film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The 2006 film The Break-Up used Wrigley Field as the setting for its opening scene. Wrigley Field was used for the tryout scene in A League of Their Own in 1992. Many television series have made featured scenes set in Wrigley Field, including “ER,” “Crime Story,” “Chicago Hope,” “Prison Break,” “Perfect Strangers,” “My Boys,” “Chicago Fire,” and “Mike & Molly. The late-1970s comedy stage play “Bleacher Bums” was set in the right field bleachers at Wrigley. Wrigley Field was the site of the final task of The Amazing Race 29 finale, using the center field scoreboard. Thus, Wrigley Field has been used many times as a TV or movie set.
Harry Caray (1914-1998), baseball announcer
Harry Caray, born Harry Carabina, was an American radio and television sportscaster, beginning with 25 years of calling the games of the St. Louis Cardinals. After a year working for the Oakland Athletics and 11 years with the Chicago White Sox, Caray spent the last 16 years of his career as the announcer for the Chicago Cubs. Harry Caray changed his surname from Carabina to Caray in the 1940s. Caray caught his break when he landed a job with the National League St. Louis Cardinals in 1945. He proved as adept at selling the sponsor’s beer as at the play-by-play description. Caray teamed with former major-league catcher Gabby Street to call Cardinals games through 1950, as well as those of the American League St. Louis Browns in 1945 and 1946. As the Cardinals’ announcer, Caray helped broadcast three World Series (1964, 1967, and 1968) on NBC. He also broadcast the 1957 All-Star Game played in St. Louis on NBC Radio, and had the call for Stan Musial’s 3,000th hit on May 13, 1958. He was well known for his radio broadcasts throughout the south. Despite an accident in November, 1968, he recuperated in time to return to the broadcast booth for the start of the 1969 season with loud cheers. However, following the 1969 season, the Cardinals declined to renew Caray’s contract after he had called their games for 25 seasons. Apparently, he was the victim of rumors that he had an affair with Gussie Busch’s daughter-in-law. He then spent one season broadcasting for the Oakland Athletics, in 1970, before, he grew tired of owner Charles O. Finley’s interference and accepted a job with the Chicago White Sox. Caray joined the Chicago White Sox in 1971 and quickly became popular with the South Side faithful, enjoying a reputation for joviality and public carousing. During his tenure with the White Sox, Caray was teamed with former Red Sox outfielder Jimmy Piersall. Caray left the White Sox after the 1981 season, replaced by Don Drysdale. However, the popular Caray was soon hired by the crosstown Chicago Cubs for the 1982 season. Harry Caray increased his renown after joining the North Side Cubs. The Cubs’ own television outlet, WGN-TV, had become among the first of the cable television superstations, offering their programming to providers across the United States for free. Caray became as famous nationwide as he had long been on the South Side and, previously, in St. Louis. Caray succeeded longtime Cubs broadcaster Jack Brickhouse, a beloved announcer and Chicago media fixture. The timing worked in Caray’s favor, as the Cubs ended up winning the National League East division title in 1984 with WGN-TV’s nationwide audience following along. Millions came to love the microphone-swinging Caray, continuing his White Sox practice of leading the home crowd in singing during the seventh inning stretch. Carey’s mannerisms, his gravelly voice, his habit of mispronouncing or slurring some players names, and even his trademark barrel-shaped wide-rimmed glasses became common place. Nicknamed “The Mayor of Rush Street,” a reference to Chicago’s famous tavern-dominated neighborhood, Caray’s well-known taste for Budweiser, illness, and age began to drain some of his skills. In 1987, Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse opened in the Chicago Varnish Company Building, a Chicago Landmark building that is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places that still exists today. There is also a 1999 statue of Harry Caray outside Wrigley Field. Have you ever heard of Harry Caray?
Gene Finnegan Remembers Living Eighty Wonderful Years 