Lemon Grove Denny's
6936 Federal Blvd

 (Posted on the Vintage San Diego Facebook page October 20, 2017)


 

I thought I knew my cars, but these ain't helpin' me pick a date for this photo.  1975?




January 2023 photo from Google Street View
When I was a toddler, we lived briefly in Spring Valley and traveled Federal Boulevard to get downtown.  My folks always pointed out the little American flag where the "Polish Princess" was buried.  Later when Highway 94 was built they had to rebury the Princess to complete the College Boulevard exit, but the little flag remained -- or so my memory tells me.


From the August 10, 1950 edition of the Lemon Grove Review

The story of Princess Filomena Wojciechowski of the Polish House of Sledzinski captured (and continues to capture) the imagination of Grovians shortly after her arrival in town as a refugee from the Soviet gulag.  The princess and her husband, John Sledzinski, purchased a home on six acres, which they dubbed Polonia Acres, at Radio Road and Federal Boulevard.  The actual address was 6810 Broadway and included a legal burial plot for the Sledzinskis.   But the princess, weakened by Soviet hard labor in the mines of the Ural Mountains, lingered only briefly in the best climate on earth, dying in 1941.  Later, when "Little Polonia" became the on-ramp to new Route 94, the princess was exhumed and taken to Greenwood Memorial Park for re-burial.


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