Splash from the past: 70 years in the community.

Longtime members Sloane, Ellery and Teegan Smith enjoy a summer swim this season at the pool.

A reflection of the Downers Grove Swim and Racquet Club as it celebrates

By Marty Blader

In 1954, the first Burger King opened in Miami building the foundation for one of America’s most beloved fast-food chains. This same year, on the opposite coast, the towers of the Sleeping Beauty Castle were being built to soon create a place of magic known as Disneyland.

Amongst all of this, a small group of adults were gathering 500 families to design their own place of magic in Downers Grove. The Downers Grove Pool Association, currently known as the Downers Grove Swim and Racquet Club, opened Labor Day weekend of 1954.

According to long time member, Maren Huber, each of the 500 members paid a $100 fee to begin construction on the pool. Despite the late opening, the pool had gathered lots of buzz around town, and it gained roughly 300 more members the following summer. This dramatic increase in membership fueled construction of the lower pool a few years later.

Janet Kjeldsen, a founder of the club, recognized a need for children in Downers Grove to have a safe, fun place to spend their summers. Huber, one of Kjeldsen’s children, was 11 years old when the pool opened and remains a member to this day.

The club has added the lower pool, tennis courts, beach volleyball and the pavilion on their land.

“I guess you’d say it’s something that when we finally got a pool in Downers Grove in my childhood, I hooked into that right away, and it’s still there. It’s in my blood, chlorinated blood,” Huber said.

Huber recalls the pool as a “haven.” One of the pool’s early activities was known as the Saturday Morning Races.
“They only had the upper pool at the time and the lanes ran from west to east; there were probably six of them. If your age was called, you stood up there. When the gun went off you swam as hard as you could to get to the other end,” Huber said.

Over time, the Saturday Morning Races morphed into the swim team which continues to be a prominent part of the club. It has grown to include tennis, pickleball, diving, beach volleyball and many social events.

In the same pool where the races took place, on the Fourth of July weekend, lifeguards were reported to ski across the pool. Attached to a car stationed where the baby pool currently is, they would be dragged on skis to see who could make the farthest distance across the water.

Jane and Raymond Greshammer have been members of the pool since 1979. They, along with a few others, wore shirts that said ‘pool rats’ to joke at how often they were at the pool.

“I am a water person, and I used to take the kids every day, and they swam like fish. It was our summer vacation, so to speak,” Jane said.

The Greshammers’ children, like many other children who grew up at the pool, became lifeguards there. Their son, Mark, got his first job at the concession stand when he wanted the newest pair of Air Jordans and
needed the money to buy them.

Over time, the high dives and the toboggan slide were removed from the pool due to safety issues, but the pool now has a purple drop slide and the fan-favorite mushroom in the upper pool. To many children’s dismay, 10-minute breaks from the pool known as adult swims were also introduced.

Like the physical changes in the pool came fluctuations in membership rates. Former president of the board and current head of facilities and grounds Dan Paschall has been with the pool since 2012. Paschall has witnessed firsthand how membership has increased in the past few years, especially since the pandemic.

Some of the original members and founders lined up to take photos in celebration of their efforts to build the pool.

“[The pool] seemed to give people an outlet… especially during those hard times where you couldn’t be by people,” Paschall said. “I think that brought in a whole group of new members, and just to see all the new faces really adds to this club, this community.”

While the pool has faced changes, the environment remains the same as the founders intended it. Current pool manager Brad Groenewold elaborates on this environment.

“We have a lot of families that have been there for decades. We have people who have grown up there and now are members again with their own kids,” Groenewold said. “One thing that I think is important to the pool, and that I love about it, and I try to encourage is that family atmosphere that makes it a very unique place.” ■