Long Island Home Front: Dick Wolfe and Oakdale

The Radio Tower

Dick Wolfe moved with his family from Floral Park to Oakdale in 1940. In these excerpts from a longer oral history interview he gave to the Long Island Home Front project, he describes the bucolic nature of Oakdale during his early years. His family lived on Chicken Street (now Dale Drive) and the surrounding area was dominated by dairy farms.

Dick recalls following the war news on the radio and through film reels, as well as local landmarks like Bronco Charlie's on Main Street and the nearby towering windmill, visible from the Great South Bay. His most vivid memories, though, involve the paratroopers who would fall from the sky on Sundays to take place in war games along Brook Street.