Among all the warm memories Judy Walters and Ellen Olson have of their time together as Packerettes in the 1950s, there’s a part of it that still makes them shiver just thinking about it.
The uniforms they wore when they performed with the Lumberjack Band during halftime of Green Bay Packers games at City Stadium weren’t exactly designed with cold weather in mind. They remember them as halter tops and short skirts with marabou feathers along the bottom.
“We froze to death, honest to Pete,” Olson said.
But for two 15-year-olds from Green Bay West High School, getting to be a part of Packers history was a teenage thrill – even if they didn’t realize how truly special it all was at the time.
At the request of Wilner Burke, director of the Packers’ marching Lumberjack Band, Bernie Matzke founded and directed the Packerettes in the 1950s. The official cheerleading squad of the Packers began with a handful of young baton twirlers from Matzke’s dance class, including Olson. As it expanded to roughly 40 girls, Olson recruited her best friend, Walters.
They weren’t so much cheerleaders as they were entertainers, performing routines with the band and forming a giant “P” on the field, but they did have pom-poms. They made their own out of crepe paper for practice, but getting their real poms on game day was always one of the most exciting things, Walters said.
“No, her most exciting thing was sitting next to [Packers player] Gary Knafelc,” Olson teases.
And then, as there is so often with these two best friends of 80 years – ever since they met in first grade at Annunciation Catholic School – there’s laughter.
When the Packers played games at Milwaukee County Stadium, the Packerettes would have to stay on the bus until halftime and then often the only place to sit was on the end of the players bench.
“That’s what felt like a really big deal,” Walters said.
Not that the players, with a roster that included Tobin Rote, Breezy Reid and Howie Ferguson, paid them much attention. They were just little kids to them, Olson said, and “they were old men to us.”
The 1950s wasn’t the best of decades for the Packers. They lost more games than they won, and often times City Stadium, home to the team from 1925 to 1956, wasn’t full. Walters and Olson remember friends and classmates going to the games more as a social outing than a sporting event. Nobody much cared about the game, because they knew they were likely going to lose.
In some ways, those Packers games they performed at didn’t feel that much different than a West High School football or basketball game to the two of them, and for their parents, it was like another dance recital. It took the passage of time for the women, now both 85, to appreciate the significance of it all.
“That was all part of growing up. We didn’t think of it as this unique experience like we do now,” said Walters, who lives in Bellevue. “Why weren’t we more aware at that time of how special this was going to be in our lives?”
A friendship of 80 years that goes well beyond the Packers
It’s a long and strong green and gold thread that runs through their friendship, the kind of enduring relationship most people can only wish to be blessed with in their life.
Walters’ dad was coached by Curly Lambeau when he was at Green Bay East and was one of the original stockholders when the Packers built Lambeau Field. The season tickets he and a business partner had near the 40-yard line on the visitor side are still in the family.
Olson had an aunt who once dated Johnny “Blood” McNally, the colorful Packers back who played for the team primarily in the 1930s. “Once was enough for her,” Olson joked.
Olson, who lives in Allouez and shares her season tickets with children and grandchildren, was 9 when she went to her first Packers game in 1949 with her uncle and cousins. It was her mom who was the football fan in their house. Her dad was a jeweler, and the gold helmet pendants he sold were popular in Green Bay in the ’90s. He put an emerald in hers.
“And that’s my lucky charm,” Olson said. “If I don’t have it on, they don’t win.”
Being avid Packers fans is just part of their story, which began in that first grade class where Walters was one of seven Judys, thanks to the popularity of Judy Garland at the time. Their mothers, “Mrs. G.” and “Mrs. C.,” were Brownies leaders and friends who used to shop the Prange’s end-of-the-month sales together. The women would split up inside the downtown Green Bay department store only to realize when they were done they had picked out the same clothes for their daughters.
Those daughters remember well the matching angora hats Olson’s mom made for them for their eighth grade graduation.
“Ugly? Oh, mercy me,” Olson said.
The two girls grew up a block and a half from each other in Green Bay. Nearly every night in the winter, Walters would cut through yards and the two would ice skate together at Fisk Park, always sure to be home by 8:30 p.m.
They never dated the same boys in high school, but Olson wasn’t shy about voicing her opinion if she didn’t like one of Walters’ boyfriends. Walters never would have dreamed of doing the same.
They went their separate ways when it was time for college, Olson to Madison and Walters to Stevens Point. They stood up in each other’s weddings. They’ve been there for one another as they raised their families, welcomed grandchildren, lost husbands and survived health challenges.
Walters calls her bestie “an amazing woman” for being a three-time cancer survivor – first in her breast, then thyroid and in her lung five years ago. She had both of her knees replaced at the same time and recovered while living alone.
“And then a couple of weeks later went to a party wearing heels!” Walters said.
Olson is the spunky, fearless one. The one who was done with her homework or school project while Walters was still on the first page.
“I kind of followed along on her shirttails. She was always 10 steps ahead of me,” Walters said. “She just grabs the rope with both hands and goes for it, and I’m just totally the opposite, so that’s why I needed to follow along behind her, because I would have been left in the dust.”
The two get together for regular Sunday and Friday outings each week, still like to “shop till they drop” and team up every Christmas to make the same paper-thin molasses cut-out cookies (lard and all) they used to frost and decorate at Walters’ grandmother’s house when they were in grade school.
Annual Packerettes reunions are filled with giggles and memories
Their three-year run as Packerettes came to an end in 1957, a year before they went off to college. Their final time together in the uniforms was being part of the march from City Stadium to the opening of Lambeau Field.
When Matzke stepped away from directing the Packerettes in the ’60s to help her husband with his home photo studio, the Golden Girls took over cheering duties. When they retired in the ’70s, Matzke returned to resurrect the Packerettes.
Each November for the last 25 years or so, Packerettes from both decades gather for a reunion in Green Bay. It’s there that Walters and Olson see and appreciate what a unique sisterhood they’re a part of. Organized by Matzke’s daughter, Kim Matzke Fisher, the get-together usually attracts 25 to 30 women (eight original Packerettes last year) for a few hours of reminiscing.
“My mom ran a tight ship. There were strong rules, and there had to be, because we were young. No gum chewing and all these rules,” said Matzke Fisher, who was part of the ’70s Packerettes. “One reunion, [Bernie Matzke] got up and said, ‘OK, I want to know all the things that you got away with on the field that I don’t know about.’ And oh my God, the stories that started coming out. … It was amazing.”
Much like when you get Walters and Olson together, those reunions are marked by the sound of giggling.
“It’s unreal. You’d think we never grew up,” Olson said. “We are kind of a unique group, because we really are tough old birds.”
Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or kmeinert@greenbay.gannett.com. Follow her on X @KendraMeinert.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: At 85, these 2 Packerettes of 1950s still cheer on Packers, each other
Reporting by Kendra Meinert, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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