05/10/2026
This is Bea Polemenako, in the early 1980s, at the same window the family just closed. The baby is her grandson Peter. The woman on the right is her daughter Marietta. Three generations in one photo.
Bea and Pete opened the stand in 1952. Their son John was three; Marietta came that fall.
For most of the first 40 years, Dairy Witch sold hot dogs alongside the ice cream. Bea made the first batch of soft serve in 1952 and most of the batches for the next several decades, on two machines she kept running until the early 2000s. She maintained the machines herself, and so did Marietta.
Marietta first worked the window when she was 10. By the late 1990s, she had taken over the day-to-day, but Bea was still around the stand for years after that. She had a knee replaced in the mid-80s and didn't miss a season.
Anyone who had a cone here before the late 90s had ice cream made by Bea, or made under her watch. After that, Marietta made it. She learned it from her mother.
Bea passed in 2009. Pete in 2005. We thought you should see her.
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and grandmothers out there.
The Dairy Witch family
